BITE ME
KITCHEN GODS BOOK 1
BETH BOLDEN
M/M ROMANCE
RELEASE
DATE: 02.12.17
BLURB
Talented pastry chef Miles
Costa is bored. Working at the celebrated Napa Valley restaurant Terroir is
supposed to be the cherry on top to a promising career, but instead it's a
creative desert. So when he gets an offer to turn his online video series into
a career, he leaves his three best friends in Napa and swaps Terroir for Los
Angeles.
With the resources now at
his fingertips, turning his pastry series into a hit should be easy. Then Miles
meets his producer, Evan Patterson, and realizes he’s screwed. And not even in
the good way.
It's not a meet-cute . . .
Evan lives to work and
loves every minute detail Miles loathes. Not only that, he seems hell bent on
micromanaging every aspect of Miles' show despite the fact he knows nothing
about the culinary arts. Evan doesn’t even like sweets—until Miles seduces him
with a rainbow of delectable confections he can't resist.
. . . it's a collision.
With every confrontation,
the intensity between them flares even hotter until they're not sure if it's
hatred they feel . . .or something else. Is it possible for two people with
nothing in common to discover common ground and romance?
EXCERPT
“You’re late,”Evan said, head bent towards his screen, fingers not
missing a beat as he typed furiously.
“I know, I’m sorry, I thought I’d grab a coffee.”Miles slid into
the chair next to Evan, but Evan still didn’t look up.
“Oh thanks for bringing me one too,”Evan said levelly, even though
he had to know that Miles only had one cup in his hands.
“I . . .uh. . .didn’t know you wanted one?”Miles said sheepishly.
He’d made it back into the building two minutes late, and then had raced to
Evan’s cubicle, only to not find him there. He’d made the rounds, until one of
the writers stopped him and said Evan was in the conference room, still working
after the meeting had ended.
Why hadn’t it occurred to Miles to bring him coffee? He liked the
good coffee place as much as anyone else. It was probably because instead of
actively trying to charm anyone in particular, Miles just fallen into bed with
willing people and had never wanted someone who didn’t want him back—or wanted
him but fought it. Miles knew he was going to have learn to be more aware and
less selfish if he was ever going to convince Evan to consider dating him. A
great almost-blowjob wasn’t going to cut it. Not with Evan.
Sex was probably off the table now, even though Miles knew Evan
wanted it. Miles wasn’t familiar with the sort of self-denial Evan practiced;
if he wanted someone and the feeling was mutual, sex happened. It was an easy
way to live, and an easy way to get off. Everything about Evan was complicated,
but Miles wanted him anyway. Inexplicably.
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring you coffee,”Miles said when Evan
remained silent, typing away, the staccato of the keys all the response he
probably deserved.
“It’s okay.” Evan paused. “I wouldn’t expect you to be looking out
for other people. Me, especially.”
And yeah, that was galling. Especially galling when Miles had
spent the last half an hour discovering that nobody had probably ever really
looked out for Evan before. It probably wouldn’t take an extraordinary amount
of effort to make him feel special and considered. And Miles still couldn’t
figure out how to meet even the lowest of expectations.
“I’m sorry, I’m . . .I know it isn’t an excuse, but I was with
Lucy, and Chloe and Steph and . . .”Miles hesitated, trying to find the best
way to say, sorry, we were gossiping about you and they told me you were a
foster kid and I wish you had told me yourself.
All Miles knew was that was definitely not the way to break the
news.
10 Things I Wish I
Knew About Being an Author I Didn’t Know Before
Bite Me is my
tenth published novel, so I thought it would be fun to do a rundown of my top
ten things I wish I’d known before I started publishing.
1.
Being an author is a job. Writing can’t just
happen when you’re feeling sparkly and excited and full of creative juices.
Writing (especially writing when I still have my full time day job) is
something that needs to happen almost every day. Even when you’re tired,
mentally or physically, and the last thing you want is to sit down at your
laptop and write. One of my favorite writing quotes is by Nora Roberts. She
says, “I can’t edit an empty page.” Get those words, and have faith you can fix
them later.
2.
Being an author isn’t just about writing.
There’s newsletters, blogs, promotion, marketing, and about a hundred other
things that want to compete with your attention. Nevermind social media, which
I never realized would demand so much of my attention (or that I’d enjoy it so
damn much).
3.
The Freedom app is a lifesaver. This is a direct
relation to items #1 and #2. Because the words have to get done and I have so
many other things battling for my attention. Plus add in my natural
procrastination instincts, and if I didn’t turn my internet for chunks of time
I would never actually finish books.
4.
Every book will be your favorite. Then give it a
few months, and suddenly you wish you could go back and re-write it completely
differently. It’s important to be able to leave a work behind and move on. You
can’t fix old mistakes, but you can avoid making them on future novels.
5.
Writing books are invaluable. No matter how good
your instincts are, no matter how creative you are, there’s a structure to
great books and to creating interesting characters and character/plot arcs. You
can’t rely on your instincts to always lead you onto the right path and keep you there. Which is why, even if
you are pantser, doing character work pre-first draft is vital, and if you
aren’t a pantser, you should have an outline as well as your character work
done.
6.
Following the rules is important. Breaking the
rules is important. I did not promise that every single one of these would make
logical sense. There’s a long-held belief that you need to learn the rules
before you can break them. This is partially true. Some rules you shouldn’t
break. Don’t write a romance and kill one of the main characters on the last
page. Learn the basic tenets of your genre. Research what people who read your
genre like to read. But also don’t be afraid to take calculated risks. Some of
the best books out there do that. Were they smart or lucky? Impossible to say.
7.
Write what you love. Or find something about it
to love. There is a point in every manuscript where you will hate your book.
You will greatly consider throwing the whole thing away. You will consider even
printing it out and physically burning it, you hate it so much. You will get
over it, I promise. You’ll fix your problems. There will be a breakthrough. It always
happens. And it usually happens in roughly the same spots. Some authors hate
beginnings, some hate the ends, some hate the middle of books. Find craft books
that help you address those spots, because as comfortably predictable the “I
hate everything and this book sucks” meltdown is, it’s not fun.
8.
People will hate your books. People will love
your books. Both are okay. Also, don’t ever, ever, EVER respond to a review.
Don’t post a review, no matter how terrible, on your social media and send your
fans after the reviewer. Be gracious in success and especially in defeat. And
of course, no matter how many times you insist to yourself that a bad review
isn’t personal, it still feels that way. You poured everything you had into
this book. You defeated the “I hate everything” stage. You wrote “The End.”
You’re invested, with your time and your money and your energy. If a bad review
will throw you into a writing funk or just a funk in general, don’t read them.
For a long time I read reviews and tried to glean advice from them, but I
discovered better ways of writing better books. It doesn’t make you an overly
sensitive person to not want to read bad reviews; it makes you human.
9.
Find a balance. Want to write fast but also
write good books? Find a happy medium between writing the best you can a little
bit faster. Want to write really incredibly angsty books but people find them
depressing? Figure out a way to put a slightly more positive spin on an event,
or a character. Think you write better books without outlines but the editing
process takes you forever? The lesson here is that balance is something you
discover over time. It usually doesn’t come easily, and you will fuck things
up, more than once. It’s inevitable so don’t beat yourself up over it.
Eventually you will hit on a happy medium, and the trick is to stick to it,
especially if it’s a happy one. This is your career, or your side career, or
your hobby. It’s meant to be fulfilling and at least partially, bring you joy.
Balance will help you find both fulfillment and happiness.
10.
Don’t ever forget that you began your publishing
career because you loved to write, because there were very important stories
that you were dying to tell, that nothing felt better than the first book you
ever sold. It’s easy to lose track, to become obsessed with the details and the
minute successes and losses. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the other
publishing things you have to do and by the word counts you have to meet. But
you started writing because you couldn’t not
write this story down. And no matter what you have to do, make sure you
re-discover that joy once in awhile. Write something that isn’t for a deadline.
Write a book that’s been on your idea list forever that you weren’t sure fit
your marketing or your brand. Write fanfiction for your favorite TV show. Ask
yourself at least once a month, “what do I want
to do?”
Beth Bolden lives in Portland, Oregon with her
supportive husband. She wholly believes in Keeping Portland Weird, but wishes
she didn’t have to make the yearly pilgrimage up to Seattle to watch her Boston
Red Sox play baseball. She’s a fan of fandoms, and spends too much of her free
time on tumblr.
Beth has been
writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first
foray into novel writing, titled Big
Bear with Sparkly Earrings,
wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published eight novels and
two novellas, with Catch
Me, the next novel
in the Kitchen Gods series, releasing in May 2018.
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