A warm welcome to author Bru Baker joining us today here at Love Bytes to talk about her newest release together with fellow author Lex Chase.

Welcome Bru 🙂

Thanks for having me today, Danielle! Lex Chase and I are making the rounds talking about our upcoming release, Some Assembly Required, which is out Feb. 8. It’s the paranormal purgatory meet-cute in a home goods store you never knew you needed until now.

We had a great time with the premise, which puts purgatory inside a popular, worldwide home goods store. Basically the kind of place where hope goes to die amid paperboard furniture and affordable, eye-catching modern plastic kitchenware. And meatballs. We called it CASA.

Benji views CASA as his happy place, so he’s shocked when he finds out it’s actually purgatory. He and longtime CASA veteran Patrick get up to some amusing shenanigans while Benji is adjusting to life or would it be death? inside the store. Some of my favorite scenes are Patrick waxing poetic about his bed, which seems pretty normal until you realize it just so happens to sit on the showroom floor.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always daydreamed about what it would be like to live in a store. Or at the very least, to have the opportunity to wander around after hours, bouncing on beds and snuggling up in 1,000-thread count sheets. Not surprisingly, Corduroy was one of my favorite books growing up, not because of its heartwarming ending, but because he got to explore the store after closing. I never understood why he wanted to give that up, but I suppose life against the backdrop of a store would get old pretty quickly.

It does for Benji, even though CASA is one of his favorite places. But who can blame him, since the purpose of a home goods store is to build better lives? It’s a torturous place to be stuck when you’re dead.

Give me a Super Target with a Starbucks any day, that’s heaven on earth, and I’d buy the Dollar Spot as a parallel plane Pearly Gates. I’m pretty sure Target saved my sanity when my kids were really young. After staying home all day with them I’d head out after bedtime when Hubs got home and take myself on a retail therapy date. I spent many an evening browsing the store, latte in hand as I pushed my big red cart around and filled it with throw pillows I didn’t need and shoes I’d probably never wear. Hell is hands-down a certain multinational corporation based out of Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s not a place I’d ever willingly shop, so waking up there would definitely fit the bill of eternal damnation.

What store would be your idea of heaven?

---

Genre: Contemporary Paranormal Comedy
Length: Novel
Published: February 8, 2016
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
ISBN: 978-1-63476-810-8
Buy: DSP – ARe – Amazon – Barnes and Noble

Blurb:

Everyone wishes they were dead when wandering the purgatory of a home furnishings store, but these guys actually are.

Benji Goss is the quintessential good guy. When his boyfriend dumps him and moves out, Benji obligingly keeps the cat,even though he’s allergic,because his ex’s new place doesn’t accept pets. He’s always joked the cat would be the death of him, but not in a way he expects when a feline mishap crushes him under a DEL TORO bookcase.

Snarky loner Patrick Bryant is in such a rut he barely remembers the life he used to lead. The last thing he recalls is being decapitated by a DEL TORO bookcase in a freak accident. As a spiritual CASA resident, he haunts the aisles of affordable Italian furniture, assisting fellow spirits in moving on to their final destinations.

When Benji appears in the CASA cafe, Patrick considers the naive spirit just the man to cure his boredom. Benji’s relentless optimism chips away at Patrick’s sarcasm, making him question if there’s something beyond what he can see. But the heart is like CASA furniture, there’s always some assembly required.

---

About the Authors:

Lex Chase once heard Stephen King say in a commercial, “We’re all going to die, I’m just trying to make it a little more interesting”. Now she’s on a mission to make the world a hell of a lot more interesting.

Weaving tales of sweeping cinematic adventure,depending on how she feels that day,Lex sprinkles in high-speed chases, shower scenes, and more explosions than a Hollywood blockbuster. Her pride is in telling stories of men who kiss as much as they kick ass. If you’re going to march into the depths of hell, it better be beside the one you love.

Lex is a pop culture diva, her DVR is constantly backlogged, and she unapologetically loved the ending of Lost. She wouldn’t last five minutes without technology in the event of the apocalypse and has nightmares about refusing to leave her cats behind.

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Lexchase.com

---

Bru Baker got her first taste of life as a writer at the tender age of four when she started publishing a weekly newspaper for her family. What they called nosiness she called a nose for news, and no one was surprised when she ended up with degrees in journalism and political science and started a career in journalism.

Bru spent fifteen years writing for newspapers before making the jump to fiction. She now works in reference and readers’ advisory in a Midwestern library, though she still finds it hard to believe someone’s willing to pay her to talk about books all day. Most evenings you can find her curled up with a mug of tea, some fuzzy socks, and a book or her laptop. Whether it’s creating her own characters or getting caught up in someone else’s, there’s no denying that Bru is happiest when she’s engrossed in a story. She and her husband have two children, which means a lot of her books get written from the sidelines of various sports practices.

www.bru-baker.com
Facebook
Twitter

---

We’re giving away two $25 USD Amazon Gift Cards to two lucky winners! Will it be you? Click on the graphic to enter!

Tell us what your store would be your idea of heaven?

---

2/8 – The Novel Approach and Release Day!

2/9 – Gay List Book Reviews

2/9 – My Fiction Nook

2/10 – Love Bytes Reviews

2/10 – Divine Magazine

2/11 – Charlie Cochet’s Purple Rose Tea House

2/11 – Open Skye Book Reviews

2/11 – Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

2/14 – Sinfully Gay Romance Book Reviews

2/17 – Joyfully Jay