A warm welcome to author Bru Baker joining us today to talk about her holiday release with Dreamspinner Press.
Welcome Bru 🙂
Thanks for joining me here on Love Bytes to celebrate the magic of the holiday season with me! One of my favorite December treats is curling up under a warm blanket with a holiday novella next to the glow of our Christmas tree.
It’s less fun to write a holiday novella, since that has to be done months earlier. My kids get tortured with Christmas songs in May because I need to channel enough holiday cheer to write my yearly Advent calendar story. This year it was a little easier, though because Warmest Wishes focuses on holiday stories in hot climates. I chose to set mine in Costa Rica at a resort that was based on the place my husband and I spent New Year’s this year, which was a fun way to reminisce on a wonderful vacation and also breathe some life into my location, since I’ve walked those beaches and experienced the jarring sensation of spending winter holidays in a tropical paradise.
One thing I definitely didn’t miss in Costa Rica was snow, but the same can’t be said for the characters in Holidays Are Where Your Heart Is. Jared is a travel manny whose current assignment is to watch over Swiss twins Lukas and Lia–who very much miss their traditional snowy Christmas. He’s determined to help them have as many of their favorite holiday experiences as he can–and that includes giving them snow on their sunny Costa Rican beach.
I’d planned to do a video to show you how to make fake snow, but life intervened and I ran out of time. But here’s a great video that shows you how easy it is to use just baking soda and white hair conditioner–Jared can only find coconut-scented at the resort, but coconut-scented snow seems perfect for a Costa Rican snow day, right?
Happy holidays!
Blurb:
Holidays Are Where Your Heart Is
A Dreamspinner Press Advent Calendar novella
Jared’s been all over the world as a traveling manny with Holiday Helpers, and the itch to put down roots is is starting to eclipse his wanderlust—especially since his current family is a handful.
After culinary school, Wes did some wandering of his own, exploring Central America before settling as a resort chef in his mother’s homeland of Costa Rica, a place he loves and plans to stay. If he’s learned one thing, it’s to be wary of flings with vacationers. Still, he can’t stand to watch two little Swiss kids lose their belief in Saint Nicholas, so he’ll lend a hand to the manny assisting the family. It won’t be easy to recreate a traditional European Christmas in a tropical paradise.
Between a snowball fight on a sunny beach and sledding down an active volcano, Jared and Wes discover some renewed holiday magic of their own. Can they make it last a lifetime?
Buy links:
Bru Baker writes sophisticated gay romantic fiction with strong characters, real-world problems, and plenty of humor.
Bru spent fifteen years writing for newspapers before making the jump to fiction. She now balances her time between writing and working at a Midwestern library in the reference department. 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.
Visit Bru online at www.bru-baker.com or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
I like incongruous, unseasonal holiday romances, but they must be hard to do too…