Pump Up Your Book Virtual Publicity Tour for White Girl in La Casa by Christa Jeanne

Welcome to my stop on author Christa Jeanne’s Virtual Book Tour for White Girl in La Casa, presented by Pump Up Your Book.  Please leave a comment or question for Christa to let her know you stopped by.  My review is running late but will post within the next day or so (as a Hispanic female, I'm really looking forward to seeing what Ms. Jeanne has to say).  You can follow the rest of Christa’s tour here. 

Title: White Girl in La Casa
Author: Christa Jeanne
Publisher: Christa Jeanne
Pages: 222
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Format: Paperback; eBook

Purchase your copy:  AMAZON

About the Book:

After being dumped by the last bad boy she’s ever going to date, Calliope meets her Hispanic prince charming.  Peter Delgadillo is the perfect gentleman, sure, but he’s also extremely easy to look at with a flirtatious grin, naturally tanned skin that just radiates over gorgeous muscle, and the potential to be Calliope’s passionate Latin lover who whispers sweet Spanish nothings into her ear.  Hmmm.  If only she could convince him that she is his Caucasian love goddess.  However, Peter wants to remain in the ‘just amigos’ category.  Well, that is until a pipe bursts and they are forced to stay with Peter’s mother.  He confesses that in order to ease his mother’s ailing heart, they need to act like a couple in love.  Pretend to adore one another?  Play the part of the adorable girlfriend while getting to touch, fondle, cuddle and cozy up to the man that she’s been madly in love with for years?  No problemo!

However, nothing is getting past Peter’s mother, Margarita, who is not fond of the new white girl who doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t know the culture and doesn’t eat meat!  With quite the language barrier and culture shock, Calliope struggles to keep her end of the bogus relationship bargain especially when she begins to realize that their friendship may break her heart.  Oh, and then there’s Peter’s brother, Eddie, who threatens to blow the secret wide open because he knows it’s all an act.  With a love triangle right out of a Spanish novella, Calliope tries to figure out what’s real and what isn’t so her heart won’t take another blow. 

One white girl, one fake boyfriend who should be The One, one ice cold Margarita who’s determined to drive her out and the one guy who knows it’s all a sham.  It’ll be a wonder if this white girl will survive in la casa…

Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE

Excerpt:

A Wet Stick in One Hand and a Pile of Regret in the Other

   We should probably get this out of the way right at the beginning.  At the moment, I’m sitting in an after math pile of impending doom accompanied by a broken heart.  It may have been my own doing but, since I am loyal to myself and my female companions, I’ll do what any gal in my position would do and blame the male species for bringing me to this cold toilet seat first thing in the morning.  But first, I’m Calliope Duncan.  That’s pronounced Cal-I-O-pee for all of you that want to say it like Call-ee-Ope.  I get it a lot.  I’m a white chick, better yet, I’m a Caucasian female about to turn thirty with long blond hair that probably came from my mother who was once Swiss but now just plain crazy and my dad who was once an odd mix of Irish or Scottish or something like that, but now he’s just dead.  So, for all you newbie geneticists out there, a Swiss mommy and an European-ish daddy still make a blond haired, green eyed little girl who basically just gets lumped into the graduating class of white chicks. 

   I’ve parked my ivory tush on the porcelain seat in my bathroom so that I can wait for the next three minutes to slowly tick by to see if the problems I’ve created for myself are going to become an even bigger disaster.   As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve just peed on a stick that is going to tell me how big of an idiot I am.  On the flip side, I could be free and clear to forget everything that has happened over the past two months and move on to find some other idiot that’s going to break my heart. 

   The box said to face the stick of doom straight down, pee on it for five seconds and then lay it flat with the cap on it.  Sounds so nice, easy and clean, but it’s really not.  My hands were shaking the whole time which then made my urine go in ten different directions and trying to catch it on the stick for a whole five seconds was like trying to chase down run away poodles in a circus.  I almost dropped the damn pee stick in the toilet after about two seconds.  I’m a little stressed, can’t you tell?   I opted for the pink line version test rather than that digital thing in fear that technology wouldn’t just tell me pregnant or not pregnant but something more like, You’re An Idiot, while I waited the three agonizing minutes. 

   It’s probably been one minute by now…nope fifteen seconds.  Crud.  I could clean my bathroom mirror while I wait.  But would the fumes screw up the test?  Not sure if there are pregnancy hormones in ammonia.  Better be safe.  I could leave the bathroom and start breakfast.  Pancakes maybe.  But what if I only have a short window and then the results disappear leaving me in peril once again?  Now I’m sitting here thinking about pancakes and I’m not sure if I’m feeling nauseous about eating.  This could be morning sickness or it could be the gripping fear that is tightening my throat tempting me to dry heave.  Either way, I’m starting to sweat a little.

   The stick is sitting on the lip of the sink working its little magic and I can’t see the window of fate from where I’m sitting.  With two more minutes left to contemplate my mistakes, I can only think of Peter and how much this may ruin everything we ever had between us and how Eddie would just be standing there with his arms crossed with no expression, which only makes me want to murder them both in a possibly impregnated fit of rage.  Two months ago, I would have been standing with the seamstress having my wedding gown fitting before Peter could have even got out the question “Calliope, would you marry—”  “Yes, of course Peter, hold on, Miss Seamstress,  does the veil come attached to the tiara and can you make sure the darts make my cleavage pretty but not skanky? ” 

   Yup, Peter was my world.  I was sloppy drunk in love with him.  He beckoned, I called.  I was his Julia Roberts and he was my Richard Gere, but we were like the end of the movie with the roses and the limo since I’m not a hooker with a wig or anything.  Although, we did have some pretty steamy carpet picnics.  Well, we had a carpet picnic but it was because our refrigerator was broken and we were kind of forced to sit on the floor over Fritos and beer.  And it didn’t end with my head in his crotch over a Lucy episode either.  But now?  With Peter?  Well, I’m not sure where we will stand, especially in about two minutes and fifteen seconds.

   It’s a weird kind of limbo, once you’ve peed on the stick, to wonder if there is a little tiny being in you or not.  On one hand, it thrills me to think that I’m making something in my belly, but it scares the hell out of me at the same time.  My mind skitters from cribs and pacifiers and breast feedings at two in the morning and it’s a weird smile that creeps to my lips.  But then I’ll have to walk back into that house and explain everything and my heart sinks just thinking about that.  Because the father to this potential tadpole is gone.  And he hasn’t even called after what happened.  There’s a pit in my stomach and suddenly my anxiety is rearing its ugly little head.  Waiting for the stick is like waiting for an answer to the rest of my life like a demented eight ball. 

   Booger is starting to meow at the bathroom door and do that little kitty scraping thing against the wood that is quite annoying.  He’s very insistent when he wants to be especially when he hasn’t had breakfast.  “One minute, twenty seconds left Booger,” I tell him but he just tells me “let me in dammit, so I can sit at your feet and watch you sweat over a stick.”  Well, he just meows, but I know how Booger thinks.   “If this stick has two lines Booger, that means you become number two on my attention giving list and you won’t be happy about it,” I advise him but he just yells louder and his paw appears in the crack under the door. 

   With one more minute to go, some asshole starts pounding on my front door and it just about makes me jump off the toilet.  “Are you kidding me?”  I grunt as I get up, intentionally not looking at the stick and pull on a robe to cover my boobs since I’ve only got a thin shirt on over my jammy shorts that have holes in them in not so feminine places.  “Booger, go answer the door,” I tell him but he just sits there looking hungry.  He has that spiteful kitty look of boredom and irritation.  “Fine, be that way.”

   I shut the bathroom door, tie my robe around me, and head towards the door.  The stick will have to wait.

About the Author

Christa Jeanne lives and writes in the Los Angeles area, which means at any given moment she is likely to be stuck in traffic somewhere.  When she isn’t writing her next romantic comedy, she is either busy getting clobbered at Candyland by her daughter, educating anyone who will listen about how her son with autism is going to change the world one day, or lovingly doting on her handsome, charming, intelligent and perfect husband (who totally fed her that line). 

Christa is the ringleader of her circus at home and as soon as the kids go to bed, she can be found at her computer rocking out to a playlist that matches the mood of the current book she’s hammering out.  She loves writing about the funnier side of love since falling in love can be pretty hilarious sometimes.

Her latest book is the romantic comedy, White Girl in La Casa.

Christa loves visitors, so please visit her at www.christajeannebooks.com.

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