Love at the Pickleback: Starting a New Book Is Always Exciting

Listen to the Stones is winding down. When I finish a labor-intense book like this one, I like to follow it with one that is as different as possible from the previous one. That’s where my Cocktails for You series comes in. Written from the heroine’s point of view, these are lighter stories designed to entertain, no deep thinking involved.

The woman on the left looks polished and perfect, maybe a little too perfect, like an AI version of a real woman. Maybe she’s had a facelift. Maybe someone bobbed her nose, I don’t know for sure, but she looks unhappy. She looks as if she’s longing for something more, something different, maybe even freedom.

That’s the thinking that went on inside my head and led to my creating Love at the Pickleback. Strange title? Not really. Each book in the cocktails series is based on an alcoholic drink. A Pickleback is a shot of Jack Daniels with a pickle brine chaser. It’s becoming quite popular in the US. Not sure I’ll drink one, but I’ll bet my daughter would.

So far, I’ve written the first chapter, which I’ll keep under wraps for now, although my beta reader had a look at it and gave it a big thumbs up. No cover yet, but here’s the blurb.

An heiress masquerading as a bartender-comedian falls in love with a man with secrets. When the truth comes out, will their love be strong enough to survive?

Being the plain-Jane daughter of a Texas cattle mogul is one thing, but having to fight off unwanted advances from every man in the state hoping to cash in on her daddy’s fortune is another. Knowing there’s no real escape, Andressa Myers finds the perfect place to hide behind the bar at an LA Comedy Club as Andie Harper. That is until the bar’s new owner, Cole Rayburn, a millionaire every bit as elusive as the legendary Howard Hughes, decides to make changes—changes that will take the little bar out of obscurity and into the bright lights.

But her concerns fade away after she meets LJ, a man Andie can’t resist. When she realizes that he’s the man Rayburn has hired to renovate the club, she’s thrilled and soon finds herself getting a lot closer to the man than she expected. Everything is going along smoothly until, on the night of the club’s grand reopening, a woman recognizes her.

Will discovering her true identity change things between her and the man she loves? LJ has secrets, too, and when he proposes, will she believe he loves her and not her father’s fortune? All secrets have a way of finding the light, and when she discovers his, will love be enough?

You’ll have to visit the Pickleback to find out. It’ll be out sometime this summer.

I will let you in on a secret. One blogger in the A to Z Challenge posted the word Umami for the letter U. When I thanked her for increasing my vocabulary she suggested that i needed to use it in a book. I did.

Here’s the sentence: “Life is filled with all kinds of men … bitter ones, sour ones, sweet ones and salty ones. I like mine umami, pleasant, savory, and very satisfying. Not sure you qualify.”

Have a great day. We’re expecting some heat today. Hopelly, it comes with sun and not rain.