Save Room For Ice Cream @emlynley #amreading

EM Lynley, welcome to Romance Lives Forever. Let’s talk
about your book, Brand New Flavor.

Genre: Gay Romance, M/M, Contemporary

Buy links: http://dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3369&cPath=190
(pre-order now, release November 21)

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Cover artist: LC Chase

Length: 150 pages/37,000 words

Heat rating: 4 on a scale of 1-5

I’m so excited to be here at Romance Lives Forever to talk about
my upcoming release Brand New Flavor. For anyone who’s read more than one of my
books, you may have noticed a common thread: I love to write about food and cooking.
Even if the character is wandering the streets of Bangkok, as in Rarer Than Rubies, you’ll get a
mouthwatering description of the most delectable duck dish that had dozens of readers
heading to their local Thai restaurants. I love to cook (and eat) and I’ve taken
food writing courses and spent seven years in the Northern
California wine industry.

Brand New Flavor is all about Jericho “Jay” Brown,
an artisan ice cream maker. He’s passionate about his frozen treats and the secret
recipe he spent more than a year perfecting. He’s just as passionate about Cameron
Clay, a food critic, but their romance hits a rocky road before they can find out
whether they belong together or not.

Be prepared for plenty of mouthwatering descriptions of ice cream–and
hot guys–without the calories or guilt. But I’ll confess, my editors and beta readers
all went running for ice cream while they were reading this story. It comes out
the day before Thanksgiving, probably the biggest food fest in the United States, so
it’s a perfectly fitting date.

Research for Brand New Flavor was fun! I visited and sampled
ice creams, gelatos, sorbets and other frozen desserts while I was deciding just
what would make Jay’s particular ice cream so spectacular. I actually created my
own fantasy of what ice cream could be, though as far as I know no one makes anything
quite like I’ve described. I even spent some time in the kitchen at Scream Sorbet,
a local shop where I watched the staff at work and peppered the kitchen manager
with dozens of questions, about their process, ingredients, sourcing, and how to
grow a small business. I also spoke with chefs about flavor combinations to make
sure the flavors I made up would really work, and taste as good as I think they
sound.

Along the way I tasted:

Hopefully this will whet your appetite for Brand New Flavor (you
can pre-order from Dreamspinner Press now and download on release day Nov 21). And
if you like that, stay tuned. It’s just the first book in my brand new series, Delectable,
which features characters from the food and wine industry.

When artisan ice cream maker Jay Brown first meets food writer
Cameron Clay at a charity tasting event, they get along like strawberries and chocolate
sauce. Jay’s unique flavors thrill more than Cameron’s jaded palate, but after a
delicious encounter in Jay’s delivery truck, where extra-creamy frozen treats are
not the only delights sampled, Cameron loses Jay’s contact info–and any hope of
a real date.

Desperate, Cameron convinces his editor to host an artisanal
ice cream contest in hopes of drawing out the elusive genius. But more complications
threaten to intervene. Will Jay even enter the contest? Or will the chance of a
happily ever after melt away?

On Monday Jay descended the stairway
from his apartment over Glace’s industrial kitchen, making sure he had his cell
phone and that it was fully charged. He even brought the charger with him, just
in case. He didn’t want to miss the call from Cameron Clay. Jay believed Cameron’s
promise to call, and even if it didn’t turn out to be anything more than the one
casual encounter for them, Cameron had enjoyed Jay’s ice cream almost as much as
he’d enjoyed Jay. Hadn’t he?

Jay never had very good judgment when
it came to guys. He’d made the mistake of jumping right in with both feet before.
Best to take it slow, and not get burned again. He still hadn’t recovered from the
last time. One thing to want to get a guy’s clothes off, but it was never a good
idea to fall in love too easily. Not that Jay had fallen in love with Cameron or
anything. He hadn’t. How could he? Cameron had said “mmmm” and “oh yeah” and a few
other things along those lines. Certainly flattering to Jay and his ice cream, but
not enough to base a relationship on; even Jay understood that.

But Cameron Clay did know how to speak–or
at least write–coherently and use words with multiple syllables. The guy even knew
when to use semicolons, which impressed Jay. He’d Googled Cameron Clay as soon as
he’d gotten home from his deliveries. He’d read a few of Cameron’s articles and
columns and ordered two of his books from Amazon. Real paper and two-day delivery
and everything–not just Kindle versions. Fuck, maybe I am in love already.

He certainly was in love with the way
Cameron thought and wrote about food. Jay had never read anything quite like it
and it practically gave him a hard-on just reading Cameron’s words. Okay, it actually
had turned him on if he was going to be honest about it. Cameron was a mixture of
James Beard, Julia Child, MFK Fisher and Ruth Reichl all in one extremely sexy package.
A sexy gay package–even better.

For the next thirty minutes, Jay forced
himself to concentrate on ice cream and not on Cameron. He went to the big walk-in
cooler to see what fruit was ripe. He’d used up nearly everything on hand making
the product for the tasting event. He’d use up what he had on hand and then call
his suppliers and see what was ripe and when he should go to their farms to collect
his orders.

He glanced around the cooler and selected
several baskets of berries. He loaded them into a wide plastic tub, shut the cooler
door, and strolled over to the ripening room to see what looked and smelled best.
He picked up and sniffed a series of melons, choosing three varieties that were
approaching perfection. The heady, sweet scent and just the right give under his
thumb. He rinsed everything under warm water in the sink, and then brought his bounty
over to the cutting boards. Within a few minutes, he had a pile of delicious chunks
of three kinds of melon. He pureed each separately, pouring the thick sweet-smelling
result into wide beakers. He did the same with the berries, sieving the ones with
seeds, until he had a little rainbow of beakers. From the blue-black of blackberries
to the celadon of Persian melon.

What were Cam’s
favorite flavors? That did it. Jay’s concentration broke, and he lost the battle
to ignore the phone after only twenty minutes of work. He pulled his cell out of
his pocket just to make sure he had a signal: four out of five bars. What the fuck
am I doing?

“Whatcha working on this morning?” Maya’s
voice shattered the silence and Jay nearly dropped his phone into a beaker of bright
watermelon puree. He hadn’t heard her unlock the door. Had he locked up properly
the night before? Probably too distracted with fantasies of Cameron Clay. Maybe
he needed to increase security.

“Nothin’.”

“Looks like something. Trying a new
combo?”

“Yeah. Maybe some sweet melons contrasting
with a tart berry. Or just layering the melons. I’m gonna play with the proportions
for a while before I prepare a full batch.”

“I’ll help taste test once I’ve made
the calls, okay?”

“Sure.” Jay pushed the phone into his
apron pocket and grabbed a stack of small Pyrex dishes where he’d mix flavors, like
an artist combining shades on his palette.

“Oh, do you want to start selling any
of the flavors we handed out yesterday?”

“No. Not ready.”

“What do you mean ‘not ready’? We had
people lining up three, four times to get samples. Our clients are always asking
for new stuff.”

“Not ready.”

“Jay….” Maya let her voice drop into
the lower register. “What’s wrong?”

Like he was going to admit Cameron Clay
hadn’t called yet. “They’re not ready.”

“They why aren’t you working with them?
Why are you playing with new stuff? Are you just giving up on those flavors?”

“They’ve gone public. I can’t risk it.”

“Come on, Jay. Don’t you think you’re
carrying this stealth thing a bit too far? No one’s spying on you.”

“I won’t risk it. Not after….”

“Jay, that was almost two years ago.
You can’t keep hiding in here like it’s some sort of Batcave because you think someone’s
going to steal your flavors and your ideas. The way to avoid that is to actually
start selling them, get them into the market so everyone knows you created them.
The longer you wait, the more chance you do have of being scooped.” She clapped
a hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. “Sorry.” She dropped the hand and her
expression turned serious again. “I mean it. You’re not helping yourself. You’re
letting that asshole win if you keep this up.”

Jay took a deep breath and pulled himself
up to his full height. He exhaled and watched Maya’s face. His pulse skyrocketed
and he heard the sound of glass shattering. He’d dropped the bowl he’d been holding.
“Crap.” He bent to clean up the shards, nearly bumping his head against Maya’s.

“I’ll clean this up.” She knelt and
pushed at his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I’m sorry.”

Jay stood and watched as Maya swiped
a damp towel across the floor, and fought to get his breath under control. Thinking
about Paul Rhodes always did this to him. He went over to the sink and washed his
hands, lathering up the anti-bacterial scrub and letting the hot water scald away
the memories and distract him from the knot in his stomach.

Rarer Than Rubies (Precious Gems #1), Italian Ice (Precious Gems
#2), A Christmas Bonus, Wicked Good: M/M Angels/Demons Anthology, Going for Gold:
Gay Olympic Anthology, Disguises, Hostile Takeover, Bedknobs & Beanstalks Gay
Fairy Tales Anthology

See more here: http://emlynley.com/books.html

A Lesser Evil, gay angels/demons novella from Total E-Bound and
Lighting the Way Home, Book 2 in the Delectable series, co-written with Shira Anthony,
coming from Dreamspinner Press in March 2013.

Comment to be entered to win a copy of Brand New Flavor in your
choice of e-book formats. If more than 15 people enter I’ll give away two copies.
Contest ends at midnight on November 11. Check my blog for the winner’s name or
leave your email in the comment so I can find you again!

Website: http://emlynley.com

Facebook: https://facebook.com/pages/Author-EM-Lynley/146199905400403
and http://facebook.com/emlynley

Twitter: http://twitter.com/emlynley

Blog: http://emlynley.com/blog

LiveJournal: http://emlynley.livejournal.com

image credit: Creative Commons License: Photo by Alessio Damata