I'm sharing the spotlight today with Shira Anthony, my co-author and friend, as we introduce our joint project, Lighting the Way Home, a gay romance from Dreamspinner Press, Book 2 in the Delectable Series.
We're also offering prizes as part of our book release tour. 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!
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.
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.
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
and then scuttled after Micah.
“How was shul?” Seymour motioned for Josh
to sit on the couch.
“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….”
Seymour let out
a strangled sound Josh realized was a laugh. “Made you?”
“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. Ethan brought him a glass of
water—seltzer, his favorite. Josh could wait till they were alone again.
“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!”
Seymour waved
him away and Josh left, but he looked back at his dad with Ethan sitting on the
floor near the Archie Bunker chair, still in his jacket and tie. His dad looked
down and said something and Ethan cracked up. It was good they got along so
well, Josh thought, since Jenna and her kids didn’t live nearby. His father
looked as though he genuinely enjoyed Ethan’s company.
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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