Did I bake Anna’s next recipe? Nope, sorry!
Let’s talk Augie instead!
So, I owe a lot to Augie. A lot, a lot. Before Augie showed up snarking at Michael, this was a completely different story. But Augie showed up on page, intended to be a throw-away side character with a name I would probably change, and he was just… a little shit. At every available opportunity, he was giving Michael the dressing down he needed. Between him, and Celine, they demanded that I set aside the original plot and switch to a historical romance instead. Then they demanded their own books.
I intended The Baker and the Bookmaker to be a a 5k-ish word freebie for signing up for my newsletter. It ballooned into a 35k word novella in just 12 days. To date, this is still the fastest book I’ve written by far. It changed a great deal in editing, for the better I believe, but the first draft, the bones, took just 12 days. Because Augie loves Anna and he absolutely will not shut up about it.
In general, I prefer a slower burn. In some ways, this book is a slow burn, it’s the slowest of slow burns, it’s a 2 decade slow burn. But it’s also instalove. Augie meets Anna and he knows.
In the end, this isn’t just a book about love, it’s also about friendship. In Courting Scandal, Augie and Michael’s friendship can feel kind of one sided, but I wanted to explore why Augie feels such loyalty to Michael in this book too. If we want our characters to be real people, they need to have relationships outside of their love interest sometimes. Augie and Michael are the brothers they never had. Yes, Michael has brothers, but his relationship with Hugh is strained and his relationship with Tom is paternal. With Augie, they can simply shit talk each other.
Fun fact, I’m an only child. As such, I am endlessly fascinated by sibling dynamics as it’s a relationship I will never fully understand or experience myself. I hope that I’ve done them justice.
It is, of course, about romantic love as well. It’s about childish first love, angsty teen love, and mature adult love. Sometimes those experiences are with different people, in Augie’s case, they were all with Anna.
Now, the choice to write the entire book from Augie’s perspective… To be honest, it wasn’t the original intention, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop. I love reading a besotted man’s point of view and Augie is the dictionary definition of the heart eyes emoji.
So, yes. I hope you’ll love getting to know Augie better, exploring the foundations of his and Michael’s friendships, and fall in love with Anna right with him. I mean seriously, look at this besotted man!
I’ll be back next week! Maybe with a baked good, maybe with something else!
<3 Ally