Virtual Book Tour Event: The Beginning of Us by Sarah Brooks

‘The Beginning Of Us’ is a lesbian romance story. A 21-year old college student falls in love with one of her professors’, you could say it was love at first sight for Tara.

 

The Beginning of Us is available from Riptide Publishing for $3.99

Rating:
 

The Beginning Of Us - the review

The book begins with Tara sitting alone in her room writing a ‘letter’ to Eliza who has disappeared. It is Christmas break but Tara hasn’t gone home, she wants, needs to know what has happened to Eliza; she didn’t turn up for the final exam and hasn’t contacted Tara to let her know why.

I love the way Sarah Brooks has laid out the story. Tara is writing this letter to her absent love and in it she is explaining how she feels about Eliza & her disappearance but she also moves back in time telling us how they met, how they fell in love & everything they did along the way. A very gripping story, in fact I read it in two days because once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down. 

I, just like Tara, wanted to know what had happened to Eliza, why she disappeared without a word & will she ever return?

Review by Amy 

From the author:
 

Hello!  This is Sarah Brooks, author of The Beginning of Us.  Thank you for joining me on my blog tour this week!

Every comment you make on this blog tour enters you in a DRAWING for a $25 Amazon gift card!  Entries close at midnight, Eastern Time, on February 2nd, and the winner will be announced on February 3rd.  Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. 

Planet-of-the-Book:  I haven’t seen an epistolary novel in the form of an email before, although it’s an obvious evolution.  How much have you drawn on the form, or veered away from it and why did you make the choices?

SARAH:  I’ve always loved the epistolary form, particularly because I love handwritten letters and the different grace and tenor of that kind of communication.  I actually set out to write this story as a series of letters between the two women, but in today’s world of technology, that didn’t seem realistic. . . and I wanted to build a faster pace than the days that elapse between mailed letters allows.  Thus:  typed letters, emails, and texts.  

The major way I’ve probably veered from the classic epistolary form is that Tara is not sending these letters.  She’s addressing Eliza, but she doesn’t believe she’ll see her or talk to her again.  The letters are actually more of a journal Tara is keeping.  Also, I don’t allow the reader to see much of Eliza’s perspective, as most of the book is what Tara is typing.  The reader wonders where Eliza has gone, but also what she is thinking and feeling as Tara addresses her in her writing – that’s the tension of the story.  

I decided to make the book epistolary because it’s how the story came to me.  I created Tara and then dropped her into this situation, and this is how she reacted. The letters are addressed to Eliza, but she’s really talking to herself, trying to understand everything that has happened since she met Eliza.

PLANET-OF-THE-BOOK:  The professor/student relationship is often the subject of fantasies – how important was it to you to create the sense of reality even though the subjectivity comes from the student?

SARAH:  I’m always interested in the places and ways love finds us – often in inconvenient situations, with inconvenient people.  That’s part of the allure of the professor/student relationship.  It’s an immediate obstacle, something forbidden.  I think we also love the tension between the wise mentor and the naïve student, and we love to watch those roles get flipped.  In The Beginning of Us, Eliza is eight years older, confident, accomplished academically – but she panics when she begins to discover she’s a lesbian.  It’s Tara, the student, who embraces her new-found identity.  

It was important for me to ground the story in reality, even though it’s told from the perspective of 21-year-old Tara, who can’t quite understand the danger to Eliza’s professional reputation or the jolt to Eliza’s sense of self.  I wanted the reader to both hear Tara’s story and read between the lines to find Eliza’s fear.  When I researched college policies on relationships between students and professors, I found unanimous language like “highly discouraged” and “considered inappropriate”.   

It’s not illegal for two consenting adults to be in a relationship . . . but it’s problematic when one of those adults is in a vastly different position of power.  That’s why Eliza attempts to solve the problem by suggesting they put off their relationship until Tara is no longer a student in Eliza’s class.  

Although Tara tells this story, the reader begins to sympathize with Eliza’s reactions and choices.  Is love worth the risk?  That’s the question of the book.

Go to http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/the-beginning-of-us to read Tara and Eliza’s story.

About The Beginning of Us (Excerpt):

Eliza, where are you? I'm listening, watching, waiting for you. I need you. How dare you run away? Where’s the courage, the fearlessness I fell in love with?
I don’t know what else to do but write. It’s dark in my dorm room, and the wind rattles the panes of my window, and I’m supposed to be driving to my parents’ right now for winter break, but I can’t feel my arms or my legs, and my chest aches because I don’t know where you’ve gone. Or why. 

I know I shouldn't have fallen in love with my professor. But you inspired me when you stood in front of the class, telling us to find our authentic selves. And I did—with you. How could I know that you would be so afraid of this, of us? That you'd be so terrified of . . . yourself? Wherever you are, Eliza, hear me—and come back to me.
Love (yes, I'll write that word, Professor), Your Tara

About the Author:
Sarah Brooks was born and raised on a farm in Iowa, traveled through Europe and Central America, and lived in Alaska for a decade before she moved to Colorado to live near her family.  When she's not writing late at night, she raises her beautiful, sassy six-year-old daughter Mitike; teaches middle schoolers how to love writing and reading; and hikes in the mountains.
Sarah holds English and religion majors from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa; an MAT from the University of Alaska Southeast; and (nearly -- in one more semester) an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University in Boulder.

Published mostly as an essayist (in Sinister Wisdom, Room, The English Journal, and Iris Brown, among other places), Sarah writes the lesbian fiction she wishes she could read.
 

Virtual Book Tour: Post your comments and questions below and Sarah Brooks will respond on Monday 27th January at 8.00pm.