NEW BOOK ALERT: Love Is Beautiful When In Bloom by Lara T Kareem #anthology #shortstories

LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL WHEN IN BLOOM

LARA T. KAREEM

Love is Beautiful When in Bloom is a buoyant and soft collection of seven short stories that explore what it means when people meet and form a connection that ultimately blossoms into love.

The collection begins with "Full Circle", a story that expresses the sweetness of requited love to "A Binding Encounter", where the bittersweet and endearing possibility of love and grief coexist.

Written with compassion, care and love, these light and sweet stories will keep you captivated as you encounter different facets of intimacy, self-discovery, pain, friendship and joy.

For readers looking to soothe their hearts, Love is Beautiful When in Bloom is the book you need to read.

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Publisher: Basenji Books

200 pages | ISBN-13: 979-8514129416

Praise for Love is Beautiful When in Bloom

"A great selection of love stories. From short ones to long ones there is a story here for everyone. A nice evening read with a nice chilled glass of wine and nibbles." —L. Leigh, author of The Lekki Club and My Grandfather’s Inheritance - The Fox.

"A collection of love stories that feel like relaxation on a Monday morning." —Oreoluwa Eunice, author of The Romance Notes.

More about Love is Beautiful When in Bloom.

There are seven short stories in this collection and they focus on love. Although they're not specifically set in Nigeria, they are primarily about Nigerian protagonists.

1. In Full Circle, an unhealthy relationship ends and a new one begins accidentally, the story is set in Nigeria.

2. The Kiss That Meant Nothing is an intimate monologue from a lesbian about her unrequited love.

3. A Rose in Bloom is about self-discovery. When a young single mother befriends a slightly older woman, she realizes she is attracted to her.

4. In Can I Still Love You? a young man, hurt and heartbroken, encounters his ex and is motivated to fight for their relationship.

5. A Binding Encounter is a story that deals with friendship, grief and the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy from a one night stand, but with a happy ending.

6. The Five Year Plan is a story about a couple who haven’t defined their relationship and are uncertain about where they currently stand.

7. An uplifting tale with a Christmas theme, Sweet Butterflies centres on a successful woman who falls for her teenage customer's father. This is also an empowering story as she was harassed and stalked, but dealt with it on her own.

Where are the stories set?

I believe Nigerians are everywhere in the world and I can take certain liberties with writing fiction, so I rather leave it up to readers to form their own picture of where some of these stories are set.

• Full Circle and Can I Still Love You? Have concrete settings as it is clearly implied that the stories are set in Nigeria. Sweet Butterflies is set in the UK but in a fictional town.

• The Kiss That Meant Nothing and The Five Year Plan occur in an urban setting. The stories that unfold could happen anywhere in the world.

• A Rose in Bloom and A Binding Encounter don’t have their locations defined but the setting isn’t Nigeria.

What kind of women do they represent?

This collection represents the resilience of the people who strive to be the best version of themselves, no matter how many times they may have been knocked down.

What would you like a reader to get out of the collection?

The most important things are entertainment, comfort and company. The stories are the perfect light reads because they are all simple and easy to breeze through.

Author

Lara T. Kareem, also known as Naija Book Bae, is a Nigerian writer of sweet love stories. Her first novel, Not Just Another Interlude is published by Love Africa Press. She is a digital marketer, editor and blogger. She is always lost in a story and indulges her love for reading by talking about and sharing beautiful pictures of books she captured online. She lives with her dog, Benz, in the ever-bustling city of Lagos. Find Lara online by visiting linktr.ee/laratkareem

• Pronouns are she/her.

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Social links: larakareem.com | Twitter | Instagram