Heidi Reads...: Book Tour, Excerpt & Giveaway: A Girl's Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate #GirlsGuideTour

Monday, January 27, 2020

Book Tour, Excerpt & Giveaway: A Girl's Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate #GirlsGuideTour

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

A Girl's Guide to the Outback

By Jessica Kate

Christian Contemporary Romance

Paperback, Audiobook & ebook, 368 Pages

January 28th 2020 by Thomas Nelson

How far will a girl go to win back a guy she can’t stand? This funny, sweet, and romantic story proves that opposites do attract—and that God has a sense of humor.

Samuel Payton is a passionate youth pastor in Virginia, but below the surface, he’s still recovering from the blow of a failed business and insecurities he can’t shake. His coworker, start-up expert Kimberly Foster, is brilliant, fearless, and capable, but years of personal rejection have left her defensive and longing for a family. Two people have never been more at odds—or more attracted to one another. And every day at work, the sparks sure do fly.

When Kimberly’s ambitious plans for Sam’s ministry butt up against his risk-averse nature, Sam decides that obligations to family trump his work for the church. He quits the ministry and heads home to Australia to help his sister, Jules, save her struggling farm. As Kimberly’s grand plans flounder, she is forced to face the truth: that no one can replace Sam. Together they strike up a deal: If Kimberly comes to work on Jules’s dairy farm and lends her business brains to their endeavor, then maybe—just maybe—Sam will reconsider his future with the church.

As Kimberly tries her hand at Australian farm life, she learns more about herself than she could’ve ever expected. Meanwhile Sam is forced to re-evaluate this spunky woman he thought he already knew. As foes slowly morph into friends, they wonder if they might be something even more. But when disaster strikes the farm, will Sam find it within himself to take a risk that could lead to love? And will Kimberly trust God with her future?

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Excerpt

Sam grinned at her and winked.

She stopped. No way. This was weird.

“Oh, come on.” He leaned out the door, grasped her forearm, and pulled her in. With the door shut, the three of them sat shoulder to shoulder . . . thigh to thigh. Kimberly rolled down her window and tried not to think about how, even on a day so hot she felt like a roast duck, the sensation of Sam’s warmth against her side was exquisite.

Jules fired up the engine, and Sam shifted the vehicle into first. “Okay, Jules, take us on a tour. Pretend we’ve never seen the farm before. Take us to all your favorite spots and tell Kim about them.”

Delight spilled over Jules’s features, and she steered down the driveway. “Mum and Dad got married at the top of that rise in the front paddock. You can see half the farm from there. Then we’ll hit the turkey’s nest—our irrigation system is pretty nifty.”

Kimberly shifted her eyes to Sam’s face. Clever boy. Jules would probably volunteer half the information they needed, and a few well-placed questions from Sam would elicit the rest. How did he manage that? She talked to people and they got angry. Sam did it and they had a sudden urge to tell their entire life story. It was like he had a sign on his forehead that said, “It’s okay. You’re safe with me.” Apparently the sign on her own forehead was less reassuring.

He caught her looking at him and offered a smile. She offered one back and mouthed a thank-you. He squeezed her hand and returned his attention to Jules’s monologue about why the paddock of sorghum on their left was the fastest growing in the shire.

Two hours later they arrived back at the sheds and Jules left to go check on her chooks—chickens, to the uninitiated. Kimberly leaned against the truck and watched Sam unload a reel of electric tape and temporary fence posts from the truck bed. “Thanks for that. I didn’t even realize she was ready to skin me until the Coke can went flying.”

He gave her a smile that curled her toes. “That’s what I’m here for. We’re a team.”

“We’re a team.” A smile broke across her lips at his words.

About the Author

Australian author Jessica Kate writes inspirational romances with wit, sass, and grit. Jessica is a screenwriting groupie, cohost of the StoryNerds vlog and podcasts, and her favorite place to be—apart from Mum and Dad’s back deck—is a theme park. She has traveled North America and Australia, and samples her favorite pasta wherever she goes—but the best (so far) is still the place around the corner from her corporate day job as a training developer. She loves watching sitcoms with her housemates and being a leader in a new church plant.