Seattle-based baker Craig Oliver leads a life that is happily routine: baking cupcakes for an enormous family reunion, managing Sucre Coeur for its frequently absent owner, and closing out his day with a pint at the local pub. He has a kind heart, a knack for pastry, and a weakness for damaged people.
Habitual playboy Alex Scheff is looking to drown his sorrows, but instead discovers that he may have a weakness for Englishmen who carry cookies in their pockets. Can a seemingly incompatible pair find the recipe for love in a relationship they claim is casual?
Author Name: Lissa Reed
Book Name: Definitely, Maybe, Yours
Release Date: August 11, 2015
Pages or Words: 296 pages
Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist:
Cover photography by LaToya Conward
Cover design by Buckeyegrrl Designs
With a wink, Craig pulls a ten-dollar bill out of his left coat pocket and a carefully bagged almond and raspberry-lemon croissant, Katie’s all-time favorite baked good, out of the right. He passes them across the bar as if he’s James Bond—a very cheeky and cheery sort of 007. “You know I’ll always look out for you. Keep the change.”
Katie squeals and flops across the bar to squeeze him breathless, and her ponytail slaps him in the nose. She bounces off with her treat in hand and Craig shakes his head and pulls long black and red hairs from his face, as he does every time this happens. Katie really is his favorite bartender at The Order of the Garter, hell, his favorite bartender in Seattle and maybe even the world. Much too good to be working at a grotty little pub, fending off unsavory advances and spilled drinks four nights a week; that’s why Craig will bring her any bakery treat she wants, anytime she wants it, until she finally wises up and gets the hell out of this place.
Time for another sip of this excellent, excellent stout: Craig reaches forward. It’s a good Thursday.
Of course, that’s when it takes quite the sharp turn, leaving every Seattle-pub-Thursday Craig’s ever known in the dust.
“Well, aren’t you a hit with the ladies,” comes a surly drawl from his left, startling Craig just as he’s got his fingers around his glass. “Was that a croissant in your pocket, or were you actually happy to see her?”
“Both,” Craig replies, shifting around to lean on his elbow and survey the formerly silent pile of misery hunched over two stools down, the limp guy at the end of the bar Craig had spotted on his way in. He is not unconscious after all, much to Craig’s surprise; judging by the row of empty shot glasses upside down in front of him and the distinct aroma of tequila emanating a good four-foot radius from his person, he should be. Craig winces and turns away as the fumes burn his nose.
“Baked goods. That’s a new one. Never saw anyone use baking to hit on the ladies before.” Mr. Misery sways his head upright, pushes a wild flop of brown hair out of his eyes and swings around until he locates Craig. He blinks. “Does it work?”
Surprised by the color of the eyes meeting his—an unusual shade, gray, not blue-gray or blue, but the gray of a sky covered in early storm clouds—Craig answers without thinking. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t hit on girls. Katie’s my friend, not my type.”
Author Interview:
Today I’m very lucky to be interviewing Lissa Reed, author of Definitely, Maybe, Yours.
Hi Lissa, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.
Hello, and thank you so much for having me here! I’m a writer, banking software encyclopedia (almost, but not quite, my actual day job title), cooking enthusiast and dubious gardener living in north Texas. It’s me and my cats and my laptop and my many, many books all living in cozy, if hazardous harmony. Definitely, Maybe, Yours is my first novel. It tells the story of Craig the English baker-slash-freelance writer and how he met Alex, the slightly neurotic and freshly broken-hearted advertising creative with a hidden love of photography.
- Tell us something about your character’s friends.
Craig is the kind of fellow who is friends with everyone he meets! He’s still close friends with his college ex-boyfriend, Nate, who is a bit of a sci-fi geek and wants to write a screenplay one day. Nate is now dating Samantha, and Craig has befriended her as well. She’s a newly minted elementary schoolteacher who loves vintage pinup fashion and indulges herself with shopping trips and eBay binges frequently. Nate and Samantha are a pair of little firecrackers who gleefully meddle in the lives of the people they love and they are disturbingly well suited to each other.
Alex’s best friend since he was a kid is Connor – they met when Alex went to Connor’s father’s shop to buy his very first camera of his own. Connor does photography and now he owns his father’s shop, but he’s also a former boxer, and he’s very blunt and grounded. His presence in Alex’s life gives Alex a touchstone when things might not be going as well as he can cope with, and he never shies away from telling Alex the truth.
- What is your character’s favorite meal? Favorite dessert? Favorite snack food?
Craig loves Indian food – well, the English version of it! He loves a good curry. Alex is a fan of Chinese food. Both of them like the S’mores Brownie Pie that Craig makes. Alex isn’t a snacker, but Craig likes kettle-cooked potato chips.
- What activity does your character absolutely hate?
Craig detests jogging. He’ll engage in pretty much any other form of fitness but jogging.
Alex cannot stand getting into arguments of any kind. He tried to join the debate team in high school at his father’s request. It ended very badly. Interjecting “Shut up, you’re wrong!” is not an acceptable practice, he found out.
- What other author’s book do you think your character would be good in?
I think Craig would have a lot of fun in the Dirty Job universe by Christopher Moore. He can be pragmatic when he wants to be, so what would be the big deal about living in San Francisco, surrounded by supernatural creatures and the living incarnation of Death as a tiny schoolgirl? He’d probably end up as one of the Death Merchants strictly through his desire to help everyone, everywhere.
Alex…maybe in the Girl With A Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson. Yes, he would have to get used to living in Sweden, and languages have never been his strong suit, but I can see him getting hired as a freelance backup photographer for Millennium, and then Lisbeth Salander grabs him to help her with an investigation because he’s new and nobody knows who he is like they do the regular staff photographer, and he’s freaked out but also kind of a danger junkie deep down, and he’d just go with it once he gets past the part where he has an anxiety attack just thinking about what he’s working on.
- What’s your favorite decade and why?
I was a teenager in the 90’s, and lord help me, I still love it. I still listen to so much 90’s music, and I still love boots and jeans and flannels, and I cannot tell you how excited I am that Clearly Canadian is making a comeback. My love for my home decade is hopeless, but let me tell you, I will never go back – I would miss my iPhone too much, and you can’t make me put up with dialup internet again.
Smashwords: (For some reason, this isn’t showing. It should. I’ll check it out and send you the link)
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Nw89ne
Our books are also available for order from the Apple iBookstore, Book Depository and Indiebound.
Lissa Reed is a writer of fiction, blogs and bawdy Renaissance song parodies. She traces her first interest in becoming a writer to the fourth grade, when her teacher gave her the gift of her first composition book. A former newspaper editor, Reed shifted her focus to romance and literary fiction early in her writing career. She lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and is currently working on her new novel, Certainly, Possibly, You—the sequel to Definitely, Maybe, Yours.
Where to find the author:
Connect with Lissa Reed at lissareed.com;
Tumblr at http://lissareedbooks.tumblr.com/;
Twitter @LissaReedBooks
Goodreads at http://goodreads.com/LissaReedBooks
Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authorlissareed
Goodreads Link: Goodreads.com/LissaReedBooks
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Rafflecopter Prize: Grand Prize: $25 Interlude Press gift card. Second prize: One of five e-copies of ‘Definitely, Maybe, Yours
udded leather belt, and his red skinny jeans showed off his ass. So when the bass’s double take had turned into something more like a quintuple take, Cody knew what those lingering glances meant. Knew it despite the fact that the bass looked fresh off the farm, all wholesome and rosy-cheeked and wearing a tie/sweater vest combo perfect for performing in a church choir.
