A warm welcome to author Jaime Samms joining us today here at Love Bytes to celebrate her new release “How the Cookie Crumbles”.
Welcome Jaime 🙂

They say writing is a solitary endeavor. I’m not convinced that’s entirely true. If you doubt it, you can ask my editors. However, I do know it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Long before I wrote a word, I read. And read and read and read. A lot. And because of all that reading, it’s inevitable some of the authors I read had an impact on me and my own writing. They must have.

So, in no particular order:

1) J.R.R.Tolkien, namely, The Hobbit. Also the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I did make a stab at reading the Silmarillion. My grade six teacher read through this book with the class over the course of the first semester. I ploughed through it and was half way through The Two Towers by the time the rest of the class got to the end. But that book was my first introduction to fantasy and all the beauty of taking the time with the language to make a beautiful thing from words. It was Awesome. (And thanks, Mr. Blackwell. That was a good call!)

 

2) Tad Williams with Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. I have to look back on this one with the fond knowledge it’s a bit formulaic and old-fashioned, but it spawned some of the very first slash-flavoured fan fiction I ever thought up. Who needs a love interest when you have a couple of teenage boys on an adventure together? My own teenage brain ran with that, let me tell you.

 

3) Mercedes Lackey the Last Harold Mage series. Sad as these books are, they are also mainstream and when I was starting out, gave a little hope that the whole world wasn’t a lost cause. If someone could write sad but hopeful books about gay protagonists, then people surely would want Happy, hopeful ones, too. Plus: good writing and interesting characters.

4) Joss Weden. Yes, I know, Not a writer. But story telling is story telling, and as a story teller, the man has an iron set of cajones. You don’t kill off the best loved character in a series and get away with it unless you’re sure people will come back for more. And people do. People come back, even if he can’t be trusted for that feel-good, happy-joy ending, because he can tell one hell of a story while he breaks your heart. That’s what it’s all about, after all.

That’s my top four. I was going to do ten, but I’m not sure I have the fortitude for it. I just dropped a ton of reading, or re-reading, I guess, back onto my TBR pile, and I have my own books to write…

It’s funny, though, all these authors, and not a contemporary romance in the lot. I never read romance growing up, or even much at all before I started writing it. Not sure why. I do read a lot of it now, though, and I’m sure it’s inspired a lot of what I write, including my latest, How the Cookie Crumbles. There isn’t a lot of fantasy in the setting, but there might be a bit sprinkled through the love story, because let’s face it, we all want that little bit of extra- or more-than real life when it comes to matters of the heart.

About How the Cookie Crumbles

After losing a rigged cooking show competition—and a potential lover—to another baker, Frederic Jackson packs up his considerable baggage and moves to Bluewater Bay. He uses the network’s hush money to buy a new bakery where he hopes the small town’s revitalized economy will let him start anew.

 

Blaire Caruthers never wanted to work for his father at Caruthers Industries. He should have known that fixing the company’s show results was a mistake, and that choosing another man over kind, generous Frederic was an even bigger one. But the damage is done. To escape the fallout, he’s gone to Bluewater Bay to oversee the company’s interest in Wolf’s Landing merchandise.

Stuck in a small, nowhere town doing a job he hates, Blaire wants nothing more than to prove to Frederic he’s changed. However, Frederic struggles to trust the man who betrayed him once already. As Blaire loses ground with his father, and Frederic starts falling back into self-destructive habits, they both have to find the balance and control that’s been missing from their lives.

This title is part of the Bluewater Bay universe.

Buy Links:

Riptide Publishing

Amazon

About Jaime Samms

Jaime has been writing for various publishers since the fall of 2008, although she’s been writing for herself far longer. Often asked, “Why men? What’s so fascinating about writing stories about men falling in love?”, she’s never come up with a clear answer. Just that these are the stories that she loves to read, so it seemed to make sense if she was going to write, they would also be the stories she wrote.

 

These days, you can find plenty of free reading on her website. She also writes for Freya’s Bower, Jupiter Gardens, and Total E-Bound, Dreamspinner Press, MLR Press, and Riptide Publishing.

Spare time, when it can be found rolled into a ball at the back of the dryer or cavorting with the dust bunnies in the corners, she’s probably spending crocheting, drawing, gardening (weather permitting, of course, since she is Canadian!), or watching movies. She has a day job, as well, which she loves, and two kids, but thankfully, also a wonderful husband who shoulders more than his fair share of household and child-care responsibilities.

She graduated some time ago from college with a fine arts diploma, and a major in textile arts, which basically qualifies her to draw pictures and create things with string and fabric. One always needs an official slip of paper to fall back on after all. . .

 

Connect with Jamie:

Website: www.jaime-samms.com

Blog: www.jaime-samms.com/blog

Twitter: twitter.com/JaimeSamms

Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/jaimesamms

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/2631049.Jaime_Samms

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