Hi everyone–
It’s fun welcoming authors to the blog for the first time. Today, my guest is EM Lynley (and behind the curtain is her writing partner, Shira Anthony). EM and Shira are introducing their new novel, Lighting the Way Home. I’ll let EM tell you about it, but here’s important information:
Leave a comment on the blog WITH YOUR EMAIL and you’ll be entered to win:
- 1st prize –a $10 gift certificate to All Romance eBooks
- or 2nd prize –the winner’s choice of any book from EM or Shira’s backlist
Winners will be selected in mid-May, so leave a comment and you could get a nice Spring surprise!
Here’s EM–
Lighting My Own Way Home by EM Lynley
My newest novel, co-written with Shira Anthony, has been very close to my heart. It’s the first book I’ve written with Jewish characters. Even though I’m Jewish and I’ve written a Christmas story every year, I’ve never featured Jewish characters. So the experience was something new!
In Lighting, the main character, chef Joshua Golden, left home to travel the world and work abroad after experiencing a broken heart at the hands of friend-turned-lover Micah Solomon. Josh turned his back on his home, his family and his Jewish heritage and didn’t think twice about it as he made a new life for himself in another country.
Like Josh, I also moved abroad after college and spent most of the next ten years living in London, Tokyo and traveling the world. I also lost touch with my own Jewish heritage. So, writing Josh’s story as he comes home and rediscovers what he’d been missing was a very familiar feeling for me.
Shira and I had a great time fleshing out our characters. We have had different Jewish experiences, but we still found common ground with our connection to the Jewish community and the enjoyment of being part of that close-knit community, no matter how much time one spends away. We had similar ideas for Josh’s parents and recognized some of our own relatives in their mannerisms, opinions and personalities. It was such fun to bring those memories to life on the page and share them with our readers.
Like most Jewish families, a big part of any get together involves food. For Josh Golden, whose parents run a kosher restaurant in Manhattan, food is an even bigger part of life. Many Jewish rituals revolve around meals, so it’s no surprise! And because Lighting the Way Home is part of my food-centered Delectable series, there’s plenty of cooking and eating in the story. Even better, we’ve included some of the recipes the characters prepare, so you can share the experiences with your own family.
Like Josh, I’m glad I made it a point to revisit my own roots in Lighting the Way Home, to remember what was so special about my family and childhood, and reconnect with Jewish ideas. I hope you’ll enjoy visiting part of the world that Shira and I love being a part of.
EM Lynley’s website: www.emlynley.com
Shira Anthony’s website: www.shiraanthony.com
Lighting the Way Home is Book 2 in the Delectable series from Dreamspinner Press.
World-class chef Joshua Golden is homesick for Paris before he even arrives in New York, but he’ll endure it—his parents need him to help run the family restaurant while his mother recovers from surgery. Running a place so far beneath his talents is bad enough, but bad turns to worse when Josh discovers his former best friend and lover, Micah Solomon, is living at his parents’house with his ten-year-old son, Ethan.
For ten years, Josh has done his best to forget how Micah shattered his heart into tiny pieces. Now Micah’s back, fresh out of prison, and helping out at the restaurant. Micah may not be the kind of sous chef Josh is used to, but he is more helpful and supportive than any of the other employees. But Josh finds it hard to keep his distance when, time after time, Micah proves himself a better man than Josh thought. Reluctantly, Josh realizes there is more to Micah than his lousy life choices… but that doesn’t mean Josh is ready to forgive him.
Dreamspinner Sales link: http://bit.ly/dsp-ltwh1
Amazon link: http://bit.ly/amz-ltwh1
Excerpt:
When they arrived home, the house was noisy and crowded. Add some music and it might be mistaken for the club he’d been to the night before. Well, not quite. Today’s visitors were a gaggle of elderly Jewish ladies—friends of his mother—who bustled around the downstairs, rearranging platters of food and catching up on the most recent neighborhood gossip.
“Joshua! Look how you’ve grown.” A woman he didn’t recognize came up and squeezed his cheek. “Oh, how handsome you turned out.” She still hadn’t let go of the cheek when she kissed him on the other.
Josh glanced down and saw a gleeful smirk on Ethan’s face as Josh got the same treatment Ethan had endured at shul. The first pincher was replaced by a series of other half-recognizable ladies smelling of baby powder and kugel. Josh made his way through the women and found his dad sitting in his arm chair in the living room. They called it his Archie Bunker chair, after the character in the old TV sitcom. Now the chair made his dad look like a kid.
“Your mom’s upstairs. I made a rule of two people at a time and the crew”—he waved a hand at two ladies guarding the foot of the stairs—“is enforcing it for me. I just want some coffee and a knish.”
“Let me see what’s in the kitchen.” Micah came in behind Josh and then left on the food-hunting errand. Ethan waved at Seymour
“How was shul?” Seymour
“Fine. Good. Actually really good.” Josh noticed his dad’s eyes light up. “Lots of people asked about mom. The rabbi made me lead the prayer….”
“Yeah. I really felt like a fish out of water.” He noticed his father was looking at him strangely. He couldn’t think why, but his own attention was on what he hadn’t noticed before. His dad just looked burned out, exhausted. Why hadn’t he seen it? Because you haven’t been looking. He’d been preoccupied with his own concerns of coming home and finding Micah here, and of course his mom’s surgery. But he hadn’t taken two minutes to really look as his father. He’d spent more time putting on eyeliner the night before. His stomach churned at the idea. At how he’d spent his night—thinking only of his own enjoyment—and not what and who mattered most.
“But you did it. That’s the main thing.”
“I almost didn’t. But Ethan helped me.”
“He’s a smart kid, that one. He’ll go far. You’ll see.”
“Dad, Micah said—” Before Josh could continue, Micah arrived with a plate of food for Seymour
“Joshy,” a voice called from halfway up the stairs. For once, Josh didn’t cringe at the nickname. In fact, he realized he kind of liked it. “Come up here and see your mother!”
Upstairs, Miriam lay on the bed propped up with about two dozen pillows. She looked like a tiny china doll. Her two best friends, Mrs. Zimmerman and Mrs. Samuels, sat at the foot of the bed. They used to babysit Josh and his sister when they were little.
“Joshy, look at you.” He knew another pinch was coming. Mrs. Zimmerman could have played a crab on TV if she didn’t keep kosher. Mrs. Samuels went for the other cheek. “Oh, my you’re so handsome. Why are you still single?”
“I remember you in the bathtub and—”
“Okay, Mrs. Samuels, thanks for that memory.” Josh cringed at the idea of what she might say. Knowing these two ladies had seen him naked and might now be telling eligible singles about his penis scared the daylights out of him.
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Than you EM. This sounds so great. and thanks to all for coming by. Sign up for the newsletter to get announcments about guests, contests, and of course, new releases.