Inheriting a Sweet Tooth

I inherited a sweet tooth from my father. He loved desserts and somehow even managed to stay trim all his life. Good DNA, I guess. Fortunately for Dad and me, my mom was a great cook and an incredible baker. She never made anything from a package or a mix. She made it all from scratch – cakes, pies, cookies, whatever.
I still have the Fannie Farmer cookbook she loved to use, fourth edition, copyright 1965. The cover is mottled with stains and has separated from the spine. The pages have yellowed. Still, it’s my favorite cookbook. Every time I use it, I think of Mom.
Maybe it’s not surprising that sweets are an element in each of my novels. In The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café, blueberry muffins are important. In The Rules of Love & Grammar, apple pies play a big role.
In my novel, The Wedding Thief, the Rolling Pin bakery is known for its orange chocolate chunk cookies. Orange zest, orange extract, and three kinds of chocolate make these cookies really special. Here’s the recipe:
I had so much fun taking over my publisher’s (Little, Brown’s) Instagram page last Thursday, two days after my book, The Wedding Thief, came out. It was great connecting with readers and with other authors about the book and about writing in general.
When Sara Harrington of The Wedding Thief arrives at her childhood home in Connecticut one July day, she’s greeted by this picturesque driveway, complete with a horse barn and day lilies bowing over the stone wall. I would love to have grown up in a home that had this driveway and barn – which is probably why I was attracted to this photo and used it as inspiration for where the Harrington sisters grew up and where their mother still lives. This property is located in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

I’m very excited about the cover of my new novel, The Wedding Thief, and the lovely blurb written by James Patterson. The book is being published by Little, Brown and will be out in July of 2020. The story is about two sisters in love with the same man. One is about to marry him; the other is about to sabotage the wedding. Imagine the possibilities …. It’s not the book I originally planned to write, though. In fact, I was several months into working on a completely different novel when I decided it wasn’t coming together the way I wanted it to. So I shelved it and began something new, which turned out to be The Wedding Thief.