Rockstar Tours: GO HOME (Terry Farish & Lochan Sharma), Guest Post & Giveaway! ~US ONLY

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the GO HOME by Terry
Farish & Lochan Sharma Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: GO HOME

Author: Terry
Farish & Lochan Sharma

Pub. Date: August 6, 2024

Publisher: Groundwood
Books

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Pages: 304

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/GO-HOME-Farish-Sharma

In a world beset by anger and fear, what does it mean to protect one’s
home and family?

Olive and Gabe ― her older brother’s best friend ― are deeply in love.
They want nothing more than to make a home and family together, especially
after the overdose death of Olive’s brother, Chris. It won’t be easy. Gabe
works three jobs, and Olive still needs to finish high school, but their future
together feels certain and right.

But when Samir Paudel moves into the house across the street, Olive’s and
Gabe’s lives are disrupted. The Paudel house is overfull with family and
friends, and they play loud music at all hours. Yet Olive is drawn to them,
particularly to Samir’s little nephew, Bhim, and his grandfather, Hajurba.

Yet Samir’s very presence seems to awaken in Gabe an intense anger ―
toward immigrants he believes are taking resources from White Americans ―
resources that would have saved Chris and his own father, who has lost his job
and is now struggling with ill health and alcoholism.

When Olive realizes that Gabe and his family are the source of escalating
aggressions toward the Paudels, she no longer recognizes the loyal, loving boy
she fell in love with.

Guest Post:

2  Can You Swim?  Meet Samir from Nepal in the novel GO HOME

By Terry Farish

Thank you for welcoming me. You asked me to write about a character in GO HOME and include an excerpt. Please meet Samir.  This is a scene in which he does something that’s hard for him to do.  He has moved to the U.S. from Nepal, a land-locked country. He doesn’t know how to swim. No one in his family knows how to swim. And now he lives by the Atlantic Ocean.  He has seen his neighbor, Olive, swim. He feels responsible for his family’s safety in this new place. He believes he must learn to swim and then teach his mother and father and sister. But he is terrified of the water.  Here’s an excerpt in which he is has asked Olive to teach him to swim. She agrees to. The lesson is the beginning of a friendship. The friendship is very awkward because Olive is also the girlfriend of Samir’s enemy, Gabe.  From chapter 34:

She swam out aways into the cove, then turned toward him and swam her beautiful free style. It had a rhythm like a dance.  Where he stood, he lifted his arms and followed her movements and it was just like the memory he was already holding of her movements in his muscles. 

           “Use you back muscles,” she said.

           He felt his back lengthen and twist.

           “That’s the next lesson,” she said.

           “The arms, the breath, the kick.”

           “Yes.”

           On the shore Samir shivered. He looked out at the water, the island. For the flash of a second, fear filled him. Could he really do this? No one in his family had. He felt his skinny midsection. It was not any more muscular. But he already imagined his body swimming.

           Samir glanced at Olive. He said, “I am trying to be a friend. Am I doing it right? Are we friends now?”

           Olive leaned down to grab her jeans and pulled them up over her shorts.

Then she scrunched up her face and laughed out loud. She was a funny girl.

           “Why are you laughing?” he said.

           “You are so serious,” she said.

           “If there is a time you would like a favor, you can ask me,” he said.

           She began to cry. It was very sudden and it scared him. She was not loud like the gulls but her lips quivered and the tears filled her eyes and she hid her eyes under her elbow.  

           “Oh, no, no, no,” he said. “Friends have no strings. You don’t owe me.” 

           She ran to her bike.

           “You’re doing okay,” she called. “You’re doing superior.”

           She disappeared through the trees, like buttermilk on bread as his mother would say.

Here is a photo of Lochan’s mom (Ambika), me, and co-writer Lochan Sharma.  Lochan does not yet know how to swim, but when he learns he will teach his mother. 

About Terry Farish:

TERRY
FARISH is the
author of The Good Braider (YALSA and SLJ Best Book for Young
Adults), Either the Beginning or the End of the World (Maine
Literary Award) and A Feast for Joseph (with OD Bonny and
illustrated by Ken Daley). She lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

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About Lochan
Sharma:

LOCHAN
SHARMA was born
in Nepal. His family was registered at Timai refugee camp after they were
exiled from Bhutan. Lochan and his family moved to the US in 2009 and now live
in Concord, New Hampshire. He is a student at Keene State College. 

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Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of GO HOME, US Only.

Ends October 22nd, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway