Spotlight + Excerpt + Giveaway: The Englishman by Nina Lewis

• Author: Nina Lewis
• Genre: Contemporary Romance /Fiction
• Publication Date:  May 12 ,2013
• Publisher: Onmific Publishing
• Event organized by: Literati Literature Lovers 

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Synopsis

Anna has landed her dream job as an Assistant Professor of English literature at a prestigious college in the South. Instead of charging ahead with her career, however, she is confronted by hurdles, pitfalls and mysteries. Why does no one restrain the demented hoarder who secretly uses her office as his private storeroom? Who is responsible for her sudden loss in salary? What is behind the vandalism in her department? Is it a personal attack against her irreverent and somewhat unconventional teaching style?

Professor Giles Cleveland is supposed to mentor her in all this, but he’s arrogant, sardonic, condescending, disconcertingly attractive and – Anna keeps reminding herself as the temptation to start a kamikaze affair with him becomes overwhelming – absolutely out of bounds. Anna and Giles grow increasingly reckless and it is only a matter of time before they will be caught and Anna’s career will crash and burn. But when the crash comes, it’s worse than Anna imagined. And far better than she could have dreamed.

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Excerpt

Giles and Anna meet for the first time]

“Giles, I’ve brought our new assistant professor to meet you. Anna Lieberman.”

“Professor Cleveland…”

In a split second I debate with myself whether to extend my hand or not, and decide on a gut feeling that I will not. Reserve seems a better strategy here than familiarity. He sits at his desk—not a particularly tidy desk—and looks reluctant even to rise from his chair, let alone to shake my hand. Eventually he does get up, and my heart beats faster, nervousness becoming tinged with alarm. Tall I knew him to be, but up close his six foot something tower above my five foot four like Gandalf over a Hobbit. A Celt, with light eyes and dark hair gone prematurely gray. There is nothing remarkable about his appearance, except that a tall man, halfway between gangly and gaunt, will always look good in light brown cotton pants and a blue shirt, open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves. Next to him I look like a complete klutz. I am furious that I have allowed Elizabeth Mayfield to put me at such a disadvantage.

I nerve myself to smile up into his face. His features are lean and regular but not wildly handsome, and there is nothing charming about him at all when he looks down at me—on me, too—with that particularly English brand of polite dislike and says,

“Dr. Lieberman. How do you do. I was…told of your appointment.”

The sound of that well-educated, faintly nasal English voice hits me in the middle of my body and contracts the muscles of my womb in a spasm of response.

I feel a spate of explanations and justifications rushing to my tongue. I want him to know that although I have been foisted on him I am sure that we will get along well, that I will do my best to honor the confidence the college has shown in me. But I say none of these things. Could not, because my tongue is in knots; and do not want to, either, suddenly, because he is so pompous and unwelcoming to a junior colleague who really cannot help the situation at all.

“How do you do, sir.”

He blinks, as if taken aback. “I assume you’ve been well looked after?”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

“Right. Well, then…” Get the hell outta here, bitch. He does not say it out loud, but I can see the words forming behind his forehead. Evidently Cleveland hasn’t been told yet that he is to play Mother Goose to this gosling.

“Can you spare a few minutes, Giles? The least we can do is make sure Anna has a smooth start, and I was hoping you’d show her the ropes.” There is an edge in Elizabeth’s voice now, a note of admonishment, and he hears it and, to my surprise, heeds it. He comes down from his high horse and suddenly looks very much younger. At a loss, almost vulnerable, with his soft gray hair curling in wisps behind his ears, and his broad, lean, boyish shoulders. The man is a chameleon.

“By all means. Dr. Lieberman, won’t you sit down?”

It is all I can do not to clutch Elizabeth’s skirt to beg her not to leave me alone with him, but she closes the door behind herself and we are alone. In very non-companionable silence. He points toward the sofa, which has clearly been chosen to make people feel small. Its seat is very deep, so I can either perch on the edge, looking nervous, or sit back, in which case my feet will hardly touch the floor and I will look like a five-year-old. I choose a mid-position, put my bunch of keys on the low table in front of me and hope Cleveland will not see my hairy little Hobbit-feet.

He stands over me, reluctant, a very remote fortress. Isengard.

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Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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About The Author

Nina Lewis wrote her first story when she was nine years old, a drama of love and jealousy set in a circus. Her best friend and she performed it to themselves over and over again, for ever changing the dialogue, conflicts and endings. It strikes her as ironically appropriate that her first published novel is set on a college campus – the habitat of many a strange, loveable or fierce creature. When she isn’t busy training animals to jump through the hoops of college education, Nina is knee-deep in her second novel, which is set in England during the French Revolution – historical romance being her favourite genre of fiction.

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