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Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Character Confessions from Babe in the Woods by Jude Hopkins #WomensFiction #RomCom #RockStarRomance


I like you, Jude, but must you follow me around and look into my thoughts 24/7? I feel like a Kardashian at times, having a camera registering my every action and reaction.

My name’s Hadley Todd, protagonist. As Jude has told you in her book, Babe in the Woods, I was born Kathryn Todd but changed my name when I went to Los Angeles because it sounded more like the writer I hoped to become. Hadley, after all, was the name of Hemingway’s first wife, his favorite by all accounts. But I still answered to “Kathy” when some of the older people in my hometown called me that, my father and my high school guidance counselor, to name but two. I thought the name change made me sound more like the writer I was. Or wanted to be.

As an English teacher, I had a lot of thoughts swimming through my head, many of them related to books I’ve read (and music, too), and people I’ve met, all of which Jude miraculously seemed to see and hear, and worse yet, write down as part of the narrative. She knew what I thought of the people in my writing group (nice, but neither inspiring nor transactional); the hot young rock star wannabee, Trey, who came into the school where I teach, and subsequently into my life (really desirable and the perfect inspiration for the play I hope to write); my ex-beau, Derek (heart smasher, one who left an indelible carving on my heart)—simply everyone! Nothing is sacred with a nosy narrator like her.

She knew my insecurities, my desire to write, my longing to find a reciprocal love, someone who would tolerate my willful nature and my quirks (staying awake and trying to write the first scene of my play is but one of them).

Jude saw me at my strongest (watching Trey perform at a local dive and asking me for my opinion about his performance made me feel important and powerful because of my music-biz connections) and my weakest (I felt like I was using him at times, setting him up for certain failure by offering to take him to Hollywood to be seen by an A&R record-company guy who was in on the scheme, just so I could record his reaction to disappointment). But an omniscient narrator sees everything, the good and the bad. So what’s a girl to do?

Perhaps the best part of having an intrusive narrator peer into my thoughts and record them is she’s there to capture those moments when I actually do come to some conclusions about myself, life in general, other people. She told the story of my journey, of my putting my priorities in order. It’s not everyone who gets to have their story told, so I consider all the exposure special, in a way. And I hope others will enjoy taking this journey with me, fictitious though it be. Frankly, I’m glad she finally left me to write my play by myself. 

That must mean I came to the end of the journey.

Lights, camera, out!




Babe in the Woods
Jude Hopkins

Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press Inc.
Date of Publication: June 7, 2023
ISBN 978-1-5092-4843-8 
ISBN 978-1-5092-4844-5 
Number of pages: 294
Word Count: 72,321 
Cover Artist:  Tina Lynn Stout

Tagline: Timber! She’s Falling in Love

Book Description: 

It’s September 1995, the first year of the rest of Hadley Todd's life. After living in Los Angeles, Hadley returns to her hometown in rural New York to write and be near her father. 

In addition to looking after him and teaching high school malcontents, Hadley hopes to channel her recent L.A. heartbreak into a play about the last moment of a woman’s innocence. But she seeks inspiration.

Enter Trey Harding, a young, handsome reporter who covers sports at the high school. Trey reminds Hadley of her L.A. ex and is the perfect spark to fire up her imagination. The fact that Trey is an aspiring rock star and she has L.A. record biz connections makes the alliance perfect. She dangles promises of music biz glory while watching his moves. 

But the surprising twist that transpires when the two of them go to Hollywood is not something Hadley prepared for.

Amazon     BN


Excerpt:

There was a knock on the door as Hadley sat down with a bowl of chocolate-chip ice cream. She glanced at the clock: 8 p.m. Sunday night. She’d shot the whole weekend, mostly grading papers and sleeping the day before.

“My God,” she said aloud, remembering Trey’s promise to make good on a date. How could he possibly show up after she’d been so deliberately elusive? She had forgotten the resiliency of some guys.

“Who is it?” she trilled, bouncing a mound of the frozen dessert on her tongue. She cleared her throat and repeated the question, all the while picking up the detritus from the weekend—the pizza box, the ice cream container, the National Enquirer.

“ ‘Tis I, Old Dog Trey,” he yelled through the door. “Ever faithful. We have a meeting, remember?”

She used her fingers to comb her hair and moaned when the mirror reflected a wan, puffy face staring back at her.

“I never confirmed any meeting,” she said through the door. She hurried to straighten the cushions on the couch. “I’ll take a rain check.” Her heart was doing double time.

“C’mon. Please open the door. It’s getting chilly out here.” His voice was deeper than usual.
She brushed the lint off her sweatshirt and zipped up her jeans before opening the door.

Trey was twirling the end of a white stick in his mouth. With a loud slurping sound, he pulled from his mouth a bright red lollipop before sticking out his tongue, which now matched the color of his shirt.  

“Fire your secretary,” he said, tapping his watch. “May I come in?”

She let him in, the shame of her unkempt apartment equaled only by the shame of her own disheveled appearance.

He stood close to her. “I have to say, you are much more attractive without all that make-up.” He talked with the lollipop stuck in his cheek. “Definitely younger.”

It was an approach she remembered from her time with Derek. First you surprise them, then compliment them when they’re at their most vulnerable. She made a mental note.

He walked toward the nearest chair, sat down, but quickly jumped up again, fishing in his pockets. “Where are my manners? Here.” He extended a lollipop, grape flavor, her favorite.

“No thanks.” It wasn’t even on the level of the apple Neil had given her on the first day of school. Besides, what was with men and their semiotics anyway? Perhaps it beat communicating with words. And how in the world would he have known grape was her favorite flavor? Was she that transparent? Was there a grape “type” as opposed to an orange or cherry type? The grape type would be moody and dark. The orange type would be young, perky, sassy. The cherry type? Passionate, desirable. Like him.

Lollipops aside, he was lusciousness itself, the blood-red shirt adding to his angel-faced carnality. His skin glowed, no doubt from a day spent in the autumn sun with a frisky faun. 


About the Author:

Jude Hopkins has published essays in The Los Angeles Times, Medium, the belladonna—and poetry in various journals including Gyroscope Review, Timber Creek Review and California Quarterly. Her first novel, Babe in the Woods, will be published June 7, 2023. She has also taught English and news writing at various universities, including the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, Arizona State University and St. Bonaventure University in Olean, N.Y. She also worked at Capitol Records in Hollywood for a few halcyon and unforgettable years.









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