Baked with Love has been one of those hard labors where in the afterglow, you forget all of the pain and fuss and sweat and tears, and simply stare in awe at the beautiful thing that you just produced.
Much like having a baby, but with a lot less stinky diapers.
After Arrested by Love (when Wyatt did a beat-down on Richard Schmidt for daring to drive drunk), and then Flames of Love (where we found out the history behind Sugar and Richard’s forced marriage), and then Lessons in Love (where we found out the pain and destruction that Richard caused in Hannah’s life, too), I had a lot of readers who were calling for justice to happen in Richard’s pathetic, worthless life. Who doesn’t want the bad guy to finally lose in the end, right?
So with all of that in mind, I hope this book lived up to y’all’s expectations. 😉
Being a small town, though, the consequences of this will continue to reverberate through the years. In other words, this won’t be the last time you’ve seen Richard Schmidt, Sr and Richard Schmidt, Jr in the Long Valley world. #FairWarning
Assholes aside, one of my absolute favorite parts about writing in one world is that I never have to say goodbye to anyone. There are the people I would like to say goodbye (and good riddance!) to, of course, but for the most part, it’s a town filled with good people just trying their best to succeed in this not-always-so-friendly world. They are as real to me as my friends and family are, and it’s one of the great blessings of my life that I get paid to share them with y’all. Life really doesn’t get any better than this.
I wanted to touch on the subject of Cady (soon-to-be Dyer) Walcott for just a moment. As human beings, we’re drawn to stories of bravery and leadership, and it’s easy as an author to write stories about women who kick ass and take names – who are fearless and tough – but what about the women who’ve gone through a lot of trauma in their lives? Who are afraid of their own shadows? Who have overwhelming phobias and fears that keep them from living a “normal” life? I wanted to write about these women also, to let people see themselves in the fears…and thus in the triumphs, too.
I know that Cady (and Hannah) are not your typical tiny-waisted, big-boobed, violet-eyed, sassy, fearless heroines. I hope that you’ll draw inspiration from them for this very reason.
In the last month or so of writing this, my family was hit hard by tragedy. My gorgeous, athletic, loving, smart niece got in a car wreck and is now a paraplegic. At age 17, she’s between her junior and senior year in high school, and the odds are quite a bit better than 50/50 that she’ll never walk again.
We realized quite a few things in the wake of this:
- We’re so very blessed as a family that we haven’t been hit by major tragedies more often. We’re a big family, and thus there are lots of opportunities for one of us to get hurt, or killed, or paralyzed, and yet, we’ve escaped this…until now.
- We’re so very blessed by the luck involved in the car wreck. Yes, Heidi is paralyzed from the waist down, but she was kept alive by a friend who sat in that car for two hours and held her hand and told her to keep breathing. A large rock came to rest against the cheek of my niece, not even scratching her in the process. A few more inches and my niece would’ve had irreparable brain damage, if she’d lived at all.
- We’re so very blessed to have each other. Life without family is no life at all.
So all of that ^^ to say: You shouldn’t be surprised if you read a book about a woman who overcame the odds and walked again after a terrible accident. This is a storyline my heart is demanding that I write.
Speaking of future books by me, I think y’all are going to love some of the storylines that are coming up soon. First, a new sub-series, Servicemen of Long Valley, will be hitting the shelves. The first book in the sub-series, Thankful for Love, stars Gunner Nash, the younger brother to Luke Nash from Blizzard of Love. (Yes, we get to hang out with Luke and Bonnie again – it’s been a while since we got to see how they were doing, and it’ll be so much fun to peek back into their lives).
The second book, Commanded to Love, will be even more anticipated by y’all, I think, because finally – finally – Emma Dyer is going to be tested by the battle of wills (and love) that her brother just finished going through. And if you think that Gage won’t take every opportunity to tease her through every bit of it, you obviously don’t know Gage well enough. 😉
Thank you to everyone for your support of me, my career, and my fictional books. Thank you for loving Gage and Cady and Sugar and Jennifer and Abby and Wyatt just as much as I do. May we have many more years of sharing our love for them with each other yet to come.
~Erin Wright
July, 2019