Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

I’m delighted to introduce my special guest today — author Candis Terry. Candis is celebrating the release of her contemporary romance, Second Chance at the Sugar Shack, which is due out from Avon Impulse on 19 July. Welcome, Candis!

CHERRY PITS AND TOILET SEATS . . . OR HOW I SPEND MY SUMMER VACATIONS

Second Chance at the Sugar Shack takes place in the very small fictional town of Deer Lick, Montana, where the big hangout is a quick stop called the Gas and Grub. If you’ve traveled anywhere farther than your living room I’m sure you’ve come up against some small town activities that jack your eyebrows all the way up your forehead. I live in and write books about small towns and I’ve become addicted to the adventure of discovering new and unusual places that barely register a spot on a map. In my travels I have discovered that Americans really do have a sense of humor.

I love a good competition. To prove it I have stood in hundred degree heat to watch folks both young and old give their best patooey in a cherry pit spitting contest. I’ve been amazed at the power and precision of a toilet seat (hopefully clean) tossing contest. And I’ve even witnessed tipsy judges after they sampled rum-laden entries in a fruitcake competition.

State fairs are nothing compared to the real fun in places like the harmonica, fiddlers, spud or garlic festivals. You name the celebration, America has created it. While some may sound off-putting like the Testicle Festival, I can guarantee you will meet a bevy of interesting people you may never forget. Even if you want to. And yes, some of them end up in my stories. A lot, in fact.

How do you spend your summer vacations? Do you know any zany places or festivals I can explore?

CONTEST: Candis Terry is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card to one reader. Follow Candis’ tour because the more you comment, the better your chance of winning the gift card. Here are the tour dates for Second Chance at the Sugar Shack.

My special guest today is author Lynn Reynolds. Lynn is celebrating the release of her contemporary romance Love Capri Style. Think sun, good food, long sultry evenings and romance. Nothing better, right? That’s what I thought. Today Lynn is talking about the summer romance, those reads that are perfect to laze away the long sunny days. Over to Lynn…

Shelley, thanks so much for having me here. I have to say, this is one tour stop I wish I could do in person. I’ve always dreamed of going to New Zealand. It’s so remote, which holds a lot of attraction for a homebody writer like myself. The in-laws certainly wouldn’t be dropping in on me without warning – LOL. New Zealand looks from photos – and those Lord of the Rings movies, of course – like it’s full of majestic hills and green valleys. And while that’s breathtaking, I have to admit it’s not what I think of when I think “Summer Romance.”

To me, summer romances should be set in one of two places: the tropics or the Mediterranean. Many authors go with a tropical setting, since it lends itself well to lots of sexy sunbathing scenes and the like. With my latest novel, Love Capri Style, however, I opted for the Mediterranean setting. Why? Well, I do feel like the tropical locations get done pretty frequently. And I personally have always longed to go to Capri. I’ve travelled a lot – not as much as you, Shelley, but a good bit. However, I never made it to Italy. Setting Love Capri Style was a little bit of wish fulfillment for me. Research was a lot of fun too, and made much easier by the modern convenience of the Internet. Not only was the tourist board able to get me quick answers about which hotels and restaurants a wealthy playboy might frequent – I was also able to check out YouTube videos and blogs from tourists who’d visited Capri and recorded their favorite places to see on the island. I felt like I was taking a summer vacation while staying in my own office. At least no one lost my luggage, which is what happens to my heroine Amanda.

Amanda is an eager young reporter who goes to Capri to cover a music festival and finds herself being seduced by the sexy head of a rival publishing empire. She’s not used to covering celebrities and she’s a bit inept. I tried to use that to create humor in my story. Because setting is not the only key element to a summer story. It’s not even the most important element. I can think of plenty of stories set on gorgeous islands that don’t end well at all. The TV series Lost and the classic novel Lord of the Flies spring to mind immediately. For me, a good summer romance doesn’t just need a good location – it also needs humor. I don’t want to read dark, grim stories in the bright summer sun, so I tried to make sure there was a lot of witty repartee in Love Capri Style.

A good summer story also needs to capture the feel and the flavors of summer – weather it’s cooking shrimp and burgers on the grill, building sandcastles, or savoring a creamy Italian gelato. I think Italian food can be especially sexy, as Lady and the Tramp proved with their own immortal love scene. There’s lots of luscious food and wine in Love Capri Style for just that reason. Capri is also known for limoncello, a liqueur that’s distilled from lemons. What could be a more sexy, summery flavor than that?

To sum up – the ideal summer read for me is one that’s loaded with romance, humor, delicious flavors and an exotic setting. I’m hoping readers will find that I’ve done a good job of capturing those elements in Love Capri Style!

Blurb:

Amanda Jackson only took the job with Fame magazine to get closer to her estranged father, billionaire publisher Peter Tate. Instead of welcoming her, Dad sends her out of the country, to cover a music festival on the magnificent isle of Capri. There Amanda finds herself up close and personal with her dad’s leading competitor – dashing British playboy Eric Greyford. Can she get an exclusive on Eric’s hectic love life, or will she wind up as just another item on the gossip pages of his newspaper?

Purchase: Love Capri Style at Amazon or The Wild Rose Press

Lynn Reynolds’ bio:

I’m a writer, a wife and a mom – although not necessarily in that order. I’m a city girl trapped in Green Acres.

In my other life as a journalist, my feature articles have appeared in major daily and weekly newspapers. Remember those? My short stories and poetry have been published in a few obscure literary mags that you’ve never heard of. At various times in my life, I’ve also been a child model, an actress, a stagehand, a secretary, a seller of ladies’ lingerie and – in a brief fit of practicality, a computer programmer. My secret ambition is to be a wench at the Renaissance Faire.

I write romances because I truly do believe in Happily Ever After.

Visit my website
I’m on Facebook way too much of the time. Friend me there
I don’t blog often, but I am a regular contributor to the PopCultureDivas blog
My own blog can be found at http://lynnreynolds.blogspot.com/

CONTEST: Lynn is giving away a $15 Amazon gift card along with a copy of Colbie Caillat’s CD Coco, featuring the song “Capri”. Comment on this post and follow Lynn’s virtual tour to have an even better chance of winning. Lynn’s tour dates can be found at Goddess Fish Promotions

What sort of books do you like to read during your leisurely summer days?

During the hotter summer days we make our puppy an iceblock. It not only keeps her cool but also helps keep her amused if we have to leave her alone for a few hours. You have no idea how much mischief one puppy can get up to if they’re left to their own devices!!

To make an ice block you need:

1 x plastic container plus lid.
an assortment of doggy treats.

We use margarine or ice cream containers. For the treats we use meat scraps, chopped sausages, cubes of cheese etc. If we have them on hand we also use meat juices/stock to flavor the water.

Method: chop up treats and place in plastic container. Fill container with water and place in freezer. Once the ice block is frozen, tip it out of the container and give to your dog on a hot day. The treats tend to sink to the bottom so you might like to fill your container up halfway, freeze, then add some more treats and water so you have treats in the middle of the ice block.

Do you make any special treats for your pets?

The first ripe strawberry makes its appearance.

What sign says summer to you? And for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, what sign says winter to you?

Happy New Year! I hope 2010 is full of happiness and lots of good books for you all.

I don’t make New Year resolutions, but on Christmas day I mentioned to my husband that we really needed to have Christmas dinner on the beach one year and also to have a white Christmas in the Northern hemisphere somewhere. We’re in the research stage and not in a hurry, but if you know of a place that will have snow on Christmas day, please let me know. We can probably do the beach dinner here in New Zealand. The possibilites are endless.

Do you make New Year resolutions? Do you know of a place that’s guaranteed to have a white Christmas?

I know many of you live in the Northern hemisphere and are shivering with the cold, but it’s summer here in New Zealand. I like summer, so my list today is about things that typify summer for me.

Thirteen Things That Indicate Summer

1. Hunting out suntan lotion or buying a new bottle.
2. The pohutukawa trees start flowering. (Pohutukawas are a native New Zealand tree. In December they flower. Our street is lined with trees bearing scarlet pom-pom sized flowers)
3. The Christmas lilies bloom (large white flowers – I’m not sure of their correct name but I’ve always thought of them as Christmas lilies)
4. Shorts and T-shirts
5. Bare feet
6. Long walks after dinner
7. Eating alfresco
8. Barbeques
9. Daylight saving (Our clocks go forward an hour at the beginning of October and back an hour at the beginning of April)
10. Picking fresh strawberries in the garden
11. Passionfruit start forming on the vines
12. Salads – all the ingredients picked straight from the garden
13. Christmas, which brings me straight to my freebie story Turning Point. It’s a Christmas themed story and is a prequel of sorts to my upcoming Samhain Publishing release, The Bottom Line. Download your free copy today.

What things characterize summer for you? Or winter, if you prefer?

An online friend asked me about summer today. Of course, it’s the middle of winter here in New Zealand. It’s cold and raining a lot, and recently we’ve had thunder and lightning. Oh, yes please! I’d love to think of summer.

Warm weather. Sunshine. Shorts and T-shirts. Beaches…

My mind immediately hopped to the long summers we used to spend at the beach when I was a kid. My grandparents used to own at bach (holiday home) at Maraetai, and every January we’d go and stay with them. When I say holiday home, don’t imagine something luxurious because it hovered much closer to basic. We had a long drop toilet down the back of the section—a long walk, especially in the dark. I used to hate going at night. My cousins and I would all go together, armed with torches. Monsters lived at the bottom of the garden too, right near the long drop.

My recent release, Make That Man Mine features a taniwha shapeshifter. Well, I’m pretty sure that some of my hero Jack’s taniwha cousins used to live at the bottom of the garden, scaring me silly every night. They shrieked and groaned and swung through the trees that surrounded the long drop. They tapped on the back wall of the tiny long drop hut and loomed in the dark. Oh, yes. They were very scary taniwha, and I’ve never forgotten them.

Each morning after breakfast, my cousin and I would walk down the hill to one of the two shops to buy a loaf of fresh bread for lunch and some cream buns. At lunch we’d have to eat two slices of bread before we were allowed to even look in the direction of a cream bun. I remember that rule clearly. No bread meant no cream bun.

Some days we’d walk down to the beach with my grandparents and collect pipis and cockles. We’d take them home and my grandmother would boil them up in a pot. Once the shells had opened we’d all sit around the pot and eat the shellfish. Other days we’d go shell collecting or fishing for sprats on the wharf. We’d also go swimming most days. We always used to walk. The bach was at the top of a hill so by the end of the summer we were fit.

Each night after dinner we’d all sit around and play cards. It was a serious business. The winning team scored points and each night we’d change partners. At the end of the holiday, the person who had the most points won a large bar of chocolate. My love of chocolate started early, and I tried very hard to win every summer.

It was during these beach holidays that I started reading romance. I used to read mysteries and animal stories mainly, but after a particularly wet summer, I was right out of books. In desperation my mother gave me some of her Mills & Boon romances to read. LOL It was love at first sight, and I haven’t looked back.

What did you used to do during the holidays when you were a kid?