THYME FOR LOVE - Pamela S Meyers

Bio:  A native of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, author Pamela S. Meyers lives in suburban Chicago with her two rescue cats. Her novels include Thyme for Love, and Love Will Find a Way, contemporary romantic mysteries, and her 1933 historical romance, Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. When she isn’t at her laptop writing her latest novel, she can often be found nosing around Wisconsin and other mid-western spots for new story ideas.

Welcome back, Pamela. God has really been moving in your writing life. What do you see on the horizon?

I recently received my rights back on my first two published books and have been busy updating the first one, Thyme for Love (TFL), which I just published independently through Amazon. It’s exciting to do the entire process of publishing myself. Now that TFL is published, I’ll begin work on editing Love Will Find a Way. Then after that, I hope to write the third in the series, which I am calling The Cooking Up Trouble series. Although I haven’t published anything traditionally since Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I still hope to publish that route in addition to the Indies.

Tell us a little about your family.

Since I am an only child and never married, my family connections are not exactly the same as a lot of people. My parents are both deceased, but I have first cousins whom I see periodically. I have a number of very close friends from church who are my sisters in the Lord and they count as much as family to me as any siblings would have.

I love friends like that. Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

Yes. First, I don’t have as much time as I used to for casual reading. But I do try to read current releases in my genre to keep up with what is out there and also to better my craft by reading other writers. Sometimes it’s hard to turn off the “editor” hat and just read for enjoyment.

What are you working on right now?

Having just published Thyme for Love, I’m working a lot on getting the word out to people about the book through promotion on social media and in blog interviews like this one J. The ACFW conference is coming up next month, and I need to focus on the novel I’d like to pitch to editors there and prepare for the appointments

What outside interests do you have?

I enjoy knitting and crocheting, both great stress reducers after a busy day of writing and editing. I attend Bible Study Fellowship each year from September to May and I really enjoy digging deep into the Bible and learning how to apply God’s Word to my life. This coming fall we’ll begin studying Revelation and I’m very excited about that.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

All three of my published books are set in southeastern Wisconsin where I grew up. Love Finds You in Lake Geneva is actually set in my hometown. I was very blessed to have the opportunity to set a novel there. The two mystery/romance novels are set in the small town of Canoga Lake, a fictitious community about ten minutes east of Lake Geneva. I chose to not have the story in Lake Geneva because in the first book, Thyme for Love, the police chief is a bungler, and I didn’t want to paint the police chief of my hometown that way J. I love setting my stories in Wisconsin, or the Midwest in general, because there are so many wonderful settings throughout the area. You have the Apostle Islands at the very northern most point in Wisconsin, the rolling glacier-formed hills of the Kettle Moraine in southeastern Wisconsin, the large and beautiful city of Chicago…I could go on, but I’ll stop.

If you could spend an evening with one historical person, who would it be and why?

I think I would love to go back in time to how my hometown of Lake Geneva was in the thirties when my Love Finds You book is set. I learned so much about the town in doing my research and I’d love to just hang with the townspeople and enjoy getting to know them. Then after that it would be great fun to go back even farther to the very late 19th Century in the same area. Many of Chicago’s wealthy built large mansions on the lakeshore and they lived a very different lifestyle than the townspeople. I’d love to go back and hang out in some of their homes, attending their tea parties and ride on their steam yachts.

What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

That can take a very long while to become established and just because someone tells you that your writing is ready to be published, it may not be that ready. I had quite a letdown in the early days of my writing because someone told me I was ready to be published and I really was not. That didn’t stop me, but it wasn’t realistic to tell me that.

What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

Just today He showed me from Hebrews 13: 5-6 that I have been obsessing too much about how many books I’ve sold so far since I went Indie. It’s nice to be able to check on your sales right up to the minute, but it’s easy to become too caught up in it and almost make it an idol. I want all my writing to be to His glory, and it doesn’t matter if I sell a small number of books or thousands.

I don’t look at the numbers of my Indies until it’s royalty time. What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

Work hard, never stop learning the craft, and be flexible.

Tell us about the featured book.

New chef, April Love, has landed her dream job, but she never anticipated her former fiancé and a murdered boss would be on the menu.

When April Love applies for a job as an in-house chef at a century-old lakeshore mansion in Canoga Lake, Wisconsin, she never expected to find her old flame, Marc Thorne, working there and looking more gorgeous than ever. He’d left her high and dry weeks before their planned wedding, and last she heard, he was living on the West Coast. Soon, the old attraction heats up. But, April senses Marc isn’t spilling all the beans about his past eight years, and no amount of questioning has him talking. Despite being unable to trust Marc for her future, she’s determined to not let him stand in the way of living out her dream.

Their boss is murdered, and Marc is falsely accused of the crime. He’s about to be indicted, and April has no choice but to turn detective and find Ramón Galvez’s real killer. It isn’t long before she realizes she may be the murderer's next victim if she doesn’t stop her sleuthing. If she stops now, hopes for a future with Marc will end in a cellblock.

Sounds interesting. Please give us the first page of the book.

The kitchen door opened, and I came face to face with a ghost. Not a Scrooge’s Christmas Past kind of ghost. More like the Ghost of Long-Lost Love. Bronze complexion, espresso-dark eyes, hair as black as licorice, and the new addition of a short beard that grazed his jawline—Marc Thorne looked as gorgeous as he had when he walked out of my life the day before college graduation.

Limp as overcooked pasta, I gripped the island’s granite counter, its rock-solid support my only hope of not toppling off my four-inch-too-tight heels. Why now? I opened my mouth to speak, but a vise-like grip on my chest had squeezed out every ounce of air.

Marc stepped closer, and a whiff of his citrusy aftershave tickled my nose. Thankfully he wasn’t wearing the spicy fragrance I’d always liked. One sniff of that stuff and I’d have been transported back to a time I preferred to keep dead and buried.

“April? What are you doing here?”

What was I doing here?

I forced a ragged breath into my lungs. “I’m waiting to interview with . . . Mr . . . Gomez for the chef position.”

I can’t wait until my copy arrives, so I can see what happens. How can readers find you on the Internet?

Website:  www.pamelasmeyers.com

Blog: www.pammeyerswrites.blogspot.com

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/pamela.meyers

Twitter: www.twitter.com/pamelameyers

Google+:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PamelaMeyers/post

Thank you, Pamela, for sharing this new book with us. I know my readers will be interested in the story, too.


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Thyme for Love (Cooking Up Trouble Book 1)

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