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🌊 Book Tour with Author Q&A 🌊 Some Love Lasts and Getting to Yes: Coming of Age Fiction by Tim Hunniecutt


Fourteen-year-old Madi expects calm days filled with books and reflection. Instead, she finds herself captivated by Matthew, the older boy next door whose lifeguard instincts and quiet strength set him apart. When he looks at her with focused attention, she feels seen in a new and powerful way.
In 1978 Florida, nineteen-year-old Chris seeks authenticity in matters of the heart. Told from his perspective, the story unfolds through a series of relationships that illuminate both his strengths and his uncertainties. Each woman he meets contributes to his understanding of intimacy and emotional responsibility.

The turning points of youth define both Some Love Lasts and Getting to Yes by Tim Hunniecutt. One story centers on a teenage girl transformed by a single summer; the other follows a young man tracing the lessons hidden in early romance.


Some Love Lasts
As summer intensifies, so does their connection. What begins as innocent fascination deepens into something neither can easily name. When a hurricane devastates the coast, Matthew risks everything in a rescue that defines love for Madi long after the storm passes. Years later, they encounter each other again in college, reopening a chapter neither fully closed and raising questions about what endures.


Getting to Yes
Through humorous and reflective moments, Chris begins to recognize patterns in himself. Then Chloe enters his life, and the connection feels transformative. Their first exchange signals something different, prompting him to confront whether he is ready for a deeper commitment. The narrative captures innocence, heartbreak, and the quiet persistence of hope that guides him forward.

GETTING TO YES
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3NmPnWK
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201540770-getting-to-yes



Tim Hunniecutt has loved words since childhood, writing poems and stories for family and friends from an early age. Lifeguards have played a meaningful role in his life, from the rescue of his younger brother to several of his own children who later worked as lifeguards. He studied psychology and English at Florida State University, where the emotional spark for this story began after he fell in love during his first summer home from school. He now lives in Lithia, Florida, with that same girl, now his wife, and enjoys traveling, escape games, ballroom dancing with her, and time with his grandchildren.

 
Visit Tim at his website and on Facebook.

Author Q&A
What’s a detail, theme, or clue in your book that most readers might miss on the first read—but you secretly hope someone notices? Getting to Yes: When the male lead summarizes his problem as “I felt too much and said too little.” It’s a one line description of the entire book. Some Love Lasts: When Dean the head lifeguard makes a comment when he meets Madi that “Matthew had succumbed to another girl.” A big clue that despite Matthew’s protestations about the girls following him, he obviously enjoyed some of them. He’s not quite so perfect as he seems and innocent Madi completely misses this comment. It’s a foreshadowing of his character when they meet again in college. It’s his fundamental challenge to accept the love given him. Only a near death experience causes him to finally realize what his and her love really means.

When did this story or idea “click” into place for you—was there a single moment you knew you had to write it? Getting to Yes: I had long thought about using the subject matter for this novel, but had never been able to think about how to frame it and end it. One day, I was thinking about it, and the solution came to me. I started writing the novel the next day. Some Love Lasts: I was thinking of a backstory for another novel centered around the hurricane and the rescue, when the story of this girl came into dazzling focus. An image popped into my head of her standing in the road, covered in blood, in the hot Florida afternoon, having just saved the man she loved, who had saved her as a teenager. I knew I needed to tell her story.

Which character or real-life person surprised you the most while writing this book, and why?
Getting to Yes: When Chris realizes his relationship with Colleen imploded because he failed to tell her how intense his feelings for her had become. He had denied to himself what he really felt and his realization that failure to communicate leads him to sharing with Chloe too soon which causes him a new set of problems that sets up the whole last part of the novel. 

Some Love Lasts: Madi’s mother, Elizabeth. As the story progressed, I was surprised at how Elizabeth’s strength had come from overcoming trauma, and that experience caused her to show her daughter tenderness when she needed it most. Madi inherited more than her looks from her mother. She also got her mental toughness. 

If your book had a soundtrack, what three songs would be on it and what scenes or moments would they pair with? Getting to Yes: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It’s the perfect backdrop to when Chris first meets Chloe. “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest. It goes great with Chris’s confession to Chloe standing in the woods in the moonlight. “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone. It pairs with Chloe’s confession of her feelings to Chris. Some Love Lasts: “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, when Matthew first kisses Madi. “Everybody’s Gotta to Learn Sometime” by Beck, when Matthew walks Madi home after she rejected his attempt at seduction when they first meet again at FSU. “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves, when Matthew and Madi confess their feelings to each other the second time around when they’re students at FSU.

What’s one belief, question, or emotional truth you hope readers carry with them long after they finish your book? Getting to Yes: Despite his rejections and heartbreaks the male lead never stops trying until he finds his love. It all starts by trying. Some Love Lasts: Love is more than an emotion. A lot of this book is an attempt to illustrate what that “more” means.

Tell us about a moment during the writing process when the story (or message) took an unexpected turn. Getting to Yes: When Chris hears from his co-workers that a drunk Chloe declared how much she liked sex he dismisses the comment as untrue, but it haunts him as their relationship progresses. The trauma he experienced from his mother’s behavior combined with this comment fills him with doubt and anxiety as he struggles to win Chloe’s love. Some Love Lasts: When Madi rejected Matthew’s attempted seduction when they met in college. The mental fortitude this girl had to reject him despite her own desires and having spent four years pining and fantasizing about his guy was startling. She took a huge risk.

If your protagonist (or the central figure in your nonfiction) could give the reader one piece of advice, what would it be? Getting to Yes: Choose love. It can and will change your life for the better. Some Love Lasts: Love takes courage, and it takes even more courage when you find love to embrace it and change yourself to keep it.

What real-world place, object, or memory helped shape a key element in your book? Getting to Yes: Remembering and using some of the dates I went on with the girl who became my wife. I was surprised by how much detail about those dates I did fondly recall. They provided a real world feel for Chloe’s and Chris’s initial dates. Some Love Lasts: Seeing my younger brother being saved from drowning by a lifeguard. I was around seven years old, and he was only four. My mother had lagged behind us, carrying my youngest brother, who was still a toddler. None of us kids knew how to swim. I stood there frozen as my brother recklessly plunged into the water until it was over his head, and down he went. A lifeguard ran right past me, dived into the water, and pulled him out, all before my mother ever even reached us.

What’s something you had to research, learn, or experience to write this book that genuinely shocked you? Getting to Yes: Researching locations on the FSU campus, I was shocked to find out they had built a new dorm named Magnolia in what had been a parking lot when I attended. The original Magnolia dorm I lived in, featured in the book, had been torn down in the late seventies. I was startled to see a new dorm with the old name. Some Love Lasts: The staggering variety of Greek pastries. I’m a fan of Greek food and pastries, but had no idea how much more was out there I had yet to try.

If your book were invited to join a shelf with three other titles, which ones would make you happiest—and what would that shelf say about your story? Getting to Yes: A Room with a View by Ford Madox Ford Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen The Hating Game by Sally Thorne All stories of a male protagonist falling hard and fast and initially being not accepted. None of them give up until they are each successful. Some Love Lasts: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks The Princess Bride by William Goldman All great books about the enduring power of love that some love lasts regardless of the obstacles or time itself.

#comingofage #nostalgia #timhunniecutt #somelovelasts #gettingtoyes #booktour #kindleunlimited #authormarketingexperts
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