{Character Interview} Leilani Torres of Welcome Reluctant Stranger

We’re thrilled to be talking to Leilani Torres from Evy Journey’s Welcome Reluctant Stranger.  It is a pleasure to have her with us today at Pimp That Character!

Thank you for your interview, Leilani.  How old are you and what do you do for a living?

I’m 27 and I work as a clinical psychologist.

Can you tell us about one of your most distinguishable features?

I suppose you could say it’s my dusky skin and dark thick hair. I was born on one of those Pacific Islands conquered at various times by both European and Asian powers and that mix shows in my

features.

Where do you go when you are angry?

To the gym to work it out.

What is in your refrigerator right now?

Not much. Bottles of water. Leftovers from dishes my mother makes and which she packs for me to take home to my apartment because she knows I get too busy and too stressed out to cook.

What is your most treasured possession?

My father’s photograph. We were separated when I was nine and it’s the only thing I have to remind myself of him and the times I used to sit on his lap as he told me, my older brother and sister stories he made up on the spot. I don’t even know where he is or if he’s still alive.

What is your greatest fear?

That I may not be able to accept what became of my father after hearing my mother’s story of why he did not flee our old country with us. That I’ve nurtured this fantasy of who he really is. I can’t reconcile that new image with my impression of him as a young child.

What is your idea of a perfect day?

I’m so busy listening and empathizing with my clients that a perfect day for me is one I lavish on myself, ending with a nice warm soak in my tub.

Are you a loner or do you prefer to surround yourself with friends?

I guess you can call me a loner because I generally prefer my own company after a day of work, being absorbed in other people’s problems.

Who is your best friend?

Before I met Justin, no one really. Unless you count my mother. I may say a couple of catty things about her but she’s loving and understanding and we do get along quite well.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to help others the way my father did as a doctor. He healed bodies, but I’m more interested in the psyche.

About the Author

Evy Journey, SPR (Self Publishing Review) Independent Woman Author awardee, is a writer, a wannabe artist, and a flâneuse. Her pretensions to being a flâneuse means she wishes she lives in Paris where people have perfected the art of aimless roaming. She’s lived in Paris few times as a transient.

She's a writer because beautiful prose seduces her and existential angst continues to plague her even though such preoccupations have gone out of fashion. She takes occasional refuge by invoking the spirit of Jane Austen and spinning tales of love, loss, and finding one’s way—stories into which she weaves mystery or intrigue and sets in various locales.

In a previous life, armed with a Ph.D. and fascinated by the psyche, she researched and shepherded  the development of mental health programs. And wrote like an academic. Not a good thing if you want to sound like a normal person. So, she began to write fiction (mostly happy fiction) as an antidote.

Her latest book is Welcome Reluctant Stranger.

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About the Book:

Title: WELCOME RELUCTANT STRANGER
Author: Evy Journey
Publisher: Sojourner Books
Pages: 314
Genre: Multicultural Women’s Fiction

BOOK BLURB:

What happens when a brokenhearted computer nerd and culinary whiz gets rescued by a relationship phobic psychologist with a past that haunts her? For Leilani and Justin, it’s an attraction they can’t deny but which each is reluctant to pursue. More so for Leilani whose family had to flee their troubled country when she was only nine.

Leilani is focused on leaving the past behind, moving forward. But when she learns the truth behind her family’s flight—the shocking, shameful secret about her father’s role in a deadly political web—she is devastated.

Is her father a hero or a villain?  Can she deal with the truth?

But the past is impossible to run away from. Together with Justin, she must get her father out of her former home. Can she forgive her father, accept him for what he is? And can she reconnect with her roots and be at peace with who she is?

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