Love Bytes says hello and welcome to author Ward Maia joining us today to talk about new release “Beneath These Fields”, part of the Dreamspinner World of Love series.
Hi!
First of all, I’d like to thank Dani and everyone at Love Bytes for hosting me today.
Do you have a weird daydream? Something along the lines of being left a really inconvenient inheritance by an estranged aunt or uncle that completely turns your world upside down?
Well, I have. And that was exactly my inspiration when I started writing Beneath These Fields.
As a Brazilian, you’d think I know a lot about coffee – seeing as my country is the world’s top exporter of coffee beans – but other than how I like to drink it, I knew close to little or nothing about this amazing elixir from the gods when I started writing Ellis and Rudá’s story.
Research for this book was one of the most fun I’ve had in a long time – not only because it may or may not have involved multiple trips to different traditional coffee shops – because I got to go back in time and take a peek at my country’s History. And at how so many aspects that make up its rich background are so intrinsically tied to this one beverage most people take for granted.
When I started looking into the Historical nitty-gritty of coffee in Brazil, I decided to make the Blue Feathers Coffee Farm an intrinsic part of the story I wanted to tell. Not only as an inconvenient inheritance, but almost like a secondary character who has stood silent and vigilant through the centuries and now bears witness to one more life-altering moment for another member of the Campos family.
I wanted Ellis to go through the process of not caring about anything other than making a deadline – and keeping his clients from committing first degree murder – to finding the one place he belongs to. That one place to call home. That was the real center of this story for me.
Despite not liking to play favorites with the books I write, Ellis was one of the characters that really stayed with me. Being an army brat meant that a nomadic lifestyle was the norm for me. Moving from base to base – sometimes country to country – was fun and I got to experience a lot of things I wouldn’t normally have, but it also made it difficult to have that one place you can look back to and say: “Here. Here is where my story began; this is the place that holds all my fondest memories and the place I will always want to come back to. This is my home.”
My memories are scattered all over my country and even though I treasure every single one of them – the good, the bad, the painful, and the bloody – not having that place to rest my tired feet in, is one of my biggest regrets.
I embarked with Ellis on this journey and left a little piece of my heart on the soil of the farm and had the privilege of watching as he fell in love and found a home. And I hope the story of my beloved Ellis and his home resonates with everyone and stays with them as well!
It wasn’t much. A headstone on the ground with a tree looming over it.
Meredith Campos
1959—2018
Daughter, sister. Beloved friend.
That was it. That was all that marked his aunt’s grave. There was no flourish or embellishment. The headstone was simple and functional. Ellis was starting to understand that a lot of things about his aunt were like that.
Functional. Practical.
Except maybe Rudá. Ellis looked up from his aunt’s grave and studied the man standing next to him. He didn’t seem… practical. If Ellis was to believe the story Rudá told about how he ended up on the Blue Feathers Coffee Farm. And Ellis had no reason to think otherwise.
Yet Meredith Campos went out of her way to take him back home and then eventually gave in and kept him around.
Why, though? It made about as much sense as her leaving her home to him.
“Would you like to say something?” Rudá looked up from the grave and stared at Ellis.
Ellis shook his head, embarrassed, though he wasn’t quite sure why.
“Thanks,” he said to Rudá. Then a thought occurred to him. “Would you like me to give you a minute?”
A fond smile curved Rudá’s lips, and he looked back down at the headstone. Finally, he shook his head.
“I came here a couple of days ago. I come every week,” he said and looked up, eyes scanning the horizon.
Ellis followed his gaze, trying to see what he saw. When Ellis looked, all he saw were rolling hills covered in coffee stalks. They were maybe ten minutes from the house, and Ellis could see its outline through the trees.
The land was beautiful; there was no denying that. Ellis could even understand why Meredith had chosen this as her final resting place.
The thought made him melancholy. When Ellis died, he’d probably be buried in the family plot in Rio. The rest of the Campos family members that passed away were. Things would not be different for him.
Except, no one visited those long departed ancestors. He’d gone maybe once with his grandmother to visit her mother’s grave. It was inside a stone building with beautiful carved angels on the walls.
“To watch over her long sleep,” his grandmother had said.
Ellis had just nodded as if he understood. He didn’t really. What seven-year-old does?
The building was cold, damp, and smelled like the boxes of old clothes his grandmother sometimes donated to charity. It was as all mausoleums should be.
Meredith’s final resting place was nothing like that. The late-afternoon sun shone through the trees, warming the grass they stood on. A breeze rustled the leaves, and birds called out to the sky. Probably complaining that Ellis and Rudá were disturbing their peace. In the distance, the outline of her home framed the quiet picture.
And she had visitors. Rudá came every week, cleaned the headstone and got rid of the weeds. Because she was loved. She’d had a family.
Blurb
Sometimes true worth is well hidden.
Ellis Campos is a successful divorce lawyer with little to no time for a personal life. His predictable routine is disrupted when he inherits a coffee farm from an estranged aunt. There’s no room in his life for all the complications that come with managing a farm in another state. But his plans to quickly sell it and go back to the big city fall apart when he’s manipulated into spending a week on the estate.
Adding to the unexpected surprises, he meets Rudá, a native Brazilian who works on the farm, and while teaching him about his aunt’s home and family, also tempts Ellis like no one ever has.
He doesn’t expect his life to change in such a short time, but as he finds value and comfort in the farm’s routine, Ellis quickly realizes that, like the land itself, Rudá has secrets that could send him running back to Rio.
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Ward Maia was born and raised in Brazil and has seen almost every corner of that great and beautiful country. With a M. in Geology and Metamorphic Petrology, spending time in underground labs was more commonplace than interacting with real humans, which lead to the creation of entire fictional universes. The heroes that populate those universes are usually flawed and find love in unexpected places.
Having travelled throughout the country, from North to South, Ward now calls the Northwest of Brazil home. Alongside a grumpy sixteen-year old poodle (that insists on always having the last word) and hundreds of paperback novels, Ward lives five minutes from the beach and enjoys drinking copious amounts of coffee and feeling the ocean breeze while writing about unexpected places and people.
Twitter: @_WardMaia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ward.maia.583
