Hi guys! I am super excited to welcome the fabulous Amy Lane here to Joyfully Jay (Hi Amy!). As you all know, she is super awesome and I am thrilled she is our guest today. Amy is here to talk to us about City Mouse, her new release with the equally awesome Aleksandr Voiniov (see review). She has also brought a great giveaway with her. So please join me in giving Amy a big welcome!
Hi everyone, and welcome to the virtual book tour for City Mouse, our brand new sequel to Country Mouse! Amy Lane and Aleksandr Voinov here, and we’re thrilled to celebrate this new release with you. Co-writing from two different continents isn’t always easy, but with characters like Owen and Malcolm, we couldn’t help ourselves! We’ll be sharing exclusive excerpts & guest posts all week long, and we hope you enjoy reconnecting with these two as much as we did.
Follow along all week—each stop you comment on enters you to win a $10 gift card to Riptide Publishing! Giveaway entry closes March 22nd at 11:59 p.m.
Food Maketh the Man by Amy Lane
So, about two months after Mate and I moved in together—pre-marriage, still living in sin—I decided to make spaghetti sauce.
From scratch.
Diced tomatoes, tomato puree, celery, onions, olives, sausage, garlic, all slow cooked for a day, and put over fresh pasta. I was so proud.
Mate took one bite, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, but my grandma’s is better.”
I, uhm, haven’t made sauce from scratch, and it’s been almost twenty-five years. I mean, seriously—when I get a warmer reaction from sauce out of a jar? Hell no am I spending that much time making spaghetti sauce!
Cooking is one of those things that a lot of people associate with homemaking, of keeping house—but in these days, as more of us depend on take-out and frozen food with more frequency—it’s also become an indicator of wealth. Do you need to cook, or can you afford to eat out? (Of course, some of you sick people out there make exquisite meals for the love of it. Since none of you are inviting me over for dinner, we’re not talking about you for a minute. We’re talking about the people I know, who totally understand why I’ve been serving my husband sauce out of a jar for twenty-five years.)
I think about it like this: In books set in the Regency or Victorian eras, even the poorest of the middle class had at least one servant to help with the bulk of the work. In this day and age, we don’t have servants, per se, but we do have other people making our food for us, making an low hourly wage, who have to go home and prepare their own food. So, we don’t have “Betsy” doing our shopping and cooking our dinner, but boy, howdy! We sure do stop at Chipotle a lot!
So when Owen starts cooking for Malcolm, two things are happening—neither one of which Malcolm is prepared to deal with.
The first is that Owen is doing for Malcolm. By a simple household chore, Owen is showing that he cares, and by aligning himself to Malcolm’s diet, he’s showing that he respects Malcolm’s life choice.
He’s also reflecting back on his childhood, during which money was in short supply, but love abounded.
So at the very beginning of Country Mouse, when Owen says, “Okay, now we have our staples. Money and food,” he gets it. He gets that if Malcolm lets him cook, then Owen isn’t only showing Malcolm that he loves him, but he’s shifting, every so subtly, his priorities, from the work obsessed hard-ass to the caring, committing partner.
I learned the same lesson. I mean, I still haven’t tried to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, but I have other things. I have potato salad and fried chicken and sausage stuffing. I have poor-man’s stew, refrigerator dump stir-fry, chicken soup and stroganoff. I have, in fact, developed an entire backlist of stuff I can cook not only for my husband but for my family. It’s a compromise—it’s stuff that I like to cook as well as stuff I like to eat, and stuff my family will eat as well.
I don’t have to cook it these days, but my husband has come to appreciate walking in the door and having dinner ready. (Just like I’ve come to appreciate the fact that he doesn’t mind me taking off on business trips for conventions and conferences—trust me folks, June Cleaver I’m not!) And, as both of us become more health conscious, that dinner is more about veggies and less about meat, and that’s a sign of love too.
So, staples. Owen has it right—from that first sandwich, Owen knows that food isn’t just the way to a man’s heart, it’s the opening negotiations to a long-term investment.
With Malcolm, that investment pays off!
Book Blurb
A magical weekend, a breathless declaration, a happy ever after . . . Right?
Wrong.
When Malcolm Kavanagh took his first step toward emotional maturity by declaring his love to Owen Watson, that was just the first chapter in their story. Anyone who’s ever been in love knows that happy endings take a lot more work than that.
One problem: Malcolm has never been in love. He doesn’t know the rules of a relationship and isn’t confident enough to trust that his is real. He learns the ropes by sharing his life and his flat with Owen, but relationship boot camp proves a challenge. Everything is a struggle, from accepting Owen’s low-status job to putting his boyfriend above his personal trainer.
Luckily, Owen knows a little more about relationships, and labors patiently to survive the first six weeks of their life together. From the art galleries of Cambridge to the tawdry majesty of the Dominion theatre, Owen adapts to England while Malcolm adapts to the whole human race. Maybe, if Owen is patient enough and Malcolm learns to give, the two of them can make it past Relationship Armageddon to a real happy ending.
Buy link: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/city-mouse
Author Bios
Amy Lane exists happily with her noisy family in a crumbling suburban crapmansion, and equally happily with the surprisingly demanding voices who live in her head. She loves cats, movies, yarn, pretty colors, pretty men, shiny things, and Twu Wuv, and despises house cleaning, low fat granola bars, and vainglorious prickweenies. She can be found at her computer, dodging housework, or simultaneously reading, watching television, and knitting, because she likes to freak people out by proving it can be done.
You can find Amy at:
- Website: www.greenshill.com
- Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com
- Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/amymaclane
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001702070484
Aleksandr Voinov has been published for twenty years, both in print and ebook. He has ten years’ experience as a writing coach, book doctor, and writing teacher, and he works as a financial editor in the research department of a pan-European investment bank.
After co-authoring the M/M military cult classic Special Forces, Aleksandr embarked on a quest to write edgy, dark, sometimes literary M/M and gay fiction (much of which is romance/erotica)—the only way he can use his American Literature degree these days. He’s been published with Heyne/Random House, Carina Press, Samhain Publishing, Loose Id, Dreamspinner, Storm Moon Press, and others.
You can find Aleks at http://aleksandrvoinov.com.
Been eyeing this novel. Looks interesting. Thanks for the blog, definitely going to add it to the TBR.
Don’t forget the prequel, Country Mouse! Where it all began:-)
Yes, these two are great. Definitely start with the first one (country mouse) as it will give you a much better feel for their relationship. Enjoy!
If I ever win the lottery, I would get someone to cook day to day meals – I like doing meals when folks come round, but the daily what will we have tonight’ grinds me down!
Good luck with the book
RIGHT? Seriously– Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, YES! What are we gonna eat tonight? Uhm… Top Ramen?
Thankfully, I have a canteen at work, so breakfast and lunch are taken care of most day (def. work days). Leaves the evenings, but I’ve started cooking now because I was getting tired of toasted bagels with cheese. 🙂 (And I discovered I like it.)
I won’t turn down a nice meal out, but I tend to avoid the faster food places. When it’s just me (and my dietary restrictions) it’s usually easier to make stuff at home. Not that I would turn down a personal chef because some days even putting a sandwich together seems like too much effort.
My family used to LIVE on fast food–the bad stuff. I finally just made an arbitrary rule– one fast food and one upscale fast food (like Chipotle or Rubios) a week. I actually buy McDonald’s oatmeal almost every day, because they have the fresh fruit that goes in it, but I’ve been seriously cooking more. Not great, but it’s been me!
I spend WAY too much time cooking (especially baked goods and ice cream)…it’s hard when I go to a restaurant and shell out for something, and think “I could have made this better myself.” The cooking is the fun part, but if somebody would shop and do the cleaning up afterward for me, I’d be all over that!
> The cooking is the fun part, but if somebody would shop and do the cleaning up afterward for
> me, I’d be all over that!
I second that wholeheartedly.
Love Owen and Malcolm. Hoping for more.
Me and Aleks are hoping for moar too!
We are. 🙂
(And, hell yes. I need a cleaner. Urgently.)
I don’t mind shopping (I get some of my best blogposts at the grocery store!) but I DO loathe cleaning up. My OTHER house rule has been that if the kids want mom to shop AND cook, the kids must clean up. My son is hating life right now, but he’s still doing the dishes!
Now *there* in an argument for kids. 🙂
One even Mal would like!
Not much for cooking myself 🙂 It’s often either sandwich or salat or a frozen dinner! Too much effort after a day’s work! But then again it’s only me, I guess it’s different if you have kids! IMO people fit in one of two categories: a) love cooking and b) hate cooking 🙂
The sequel looks great!
Yeah– but I think all of us fall into the “can cook but hate cleaning” category! I hope you enjoy the sequel!
Love cooking. What a surprise. Never thought I would.
I don’t mind cooking, but mostly do either big batches for the freezer or cook when my partner or friends are round – I can’t find the energy for it when it’s just me.
And definitely agree that it’s better when someone else does the cleaning up! I’d say and the shopping, because I struggle with crowds, but I’m also picky enough that I prefer to be able to choose the ingredients – just handing over a list still isn’t quite enough 🙂
Planning to read this later this evening – really looking forward to it – I loved the first one 🙂
HOpe you enjoy then! And yeah… I only go shopping when it’s REALLY quiet in the mall!
Sounds like a smart way to do things. Our fridge (inherited with the rest of the kitchen from the previous owner) is so tiny I’m glad I can fit in week’s worth of shopping, and the freezer is microscopic, so freezing anything more than a chicken breast is right out. I do want a bigger fridge, it would make some things much easier (like, keeping some food around so I don’t have to cook EVERY day).
LOL, Aleks how do you survive with that tiny fridge? Mine is ridiculously huge, sort of my accident as we didn’t realize just how big it actually was until we got it home. I have joked that I could probably fit a body in there (and multiple bodies if I chopped them up!). But I love being able to store so much in my freezer and adore my big fridge.
I hate cleaning up, so most of the time I only cook if I really really need to. LOL
goingtoreadnow (at) gmail.com
alas… giving birth means that, at some point, you really MUST feed the children… otherwise, I could live on snap peas and hummus!
Tonight’s dinner is eggs, sausage and biscuits; not healthy but it’s great comfort food. Tomorrow, fresh tomato sandwiches.
I loved Country Mouse and am looking forward to City Mouse.
Uhm… yeah– I miss sausage gravy and biscuits! And I so hope you enjoy!
Hate, hate cooking…so I have to say it is love that forces me to do it. Otherwise I’d exist on the same handful of staples and call it good. But if someone cooked for me, oh yes, love, love, love!
omg… watching my husband cook for me? Is about the sexiest thing I’ve seen in my life!
Heyla,
I loved Country Mouse and I am looking forward to reading City Mouse!
I don’t mind cooking, but I hate having to come up with ideas for dinner. My husband is the best ever (27 years and counting) cooks half the time.
Don’t EVER trade that on in for a newer model!
I loved the first book in this series and can’t wait to read this one 🙂
smaccall AT comcast.net
I so hope you enjoy it!
It is absolutely essential that I read this sequel, even though cooking is involved. I know how to order, and I know how to eat, (geez) but I don’t know how to cook worth a damn. I fo to the grocery store three or four times a week, because i love going to Asian, Latino, and other markets. All hail my microwave! Thank you!
*applauds*
I’m trying to learn new recipes, and thanks to your story I think I’ll pass on trying spaghetti sauce from scratch! Thanks for saving me some time! 🙂 Country Mouse was great, and I am glad that you both wrote a sequel! I’m definitely looking forward to reading more about Owen and Malcolm. Thank you for participating in the blog tour and giveaway!
Our pleasure! And maybe learn to make it from tomato puree, not actual tomatoes… that was the kicker!
I cook (and come up with WHAT to cook) the Hubs cleans…great deal! I hate cleaning worse than cooking.Love the books Amy.
Michelle
chellebe(at)comcast(dot)net
SOMETIMES my husband does dishes– but he’s the one who folds clothes almost 100% of the time!
Allow me to add my name here as well. Hopefully I’ll get to snatch one of your books. Thanks bunches!!
Z.
Good luck in the contest!
Here’s a spaghetti sauce version I throw together:
One jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce.
8 0z of pre-sliced mushrooms
1 Onion diced
14 oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes or other favorite diced tomatoes.
1 lb ground beef
Other chopped veggies.
Saute ground beef first, when done, remove from pan and set aside.
In meat juices, saute mushrooms and onions. Then other chopped veggies. Add garlic. Add can of roasted diced tomatoes, re-add the meat, then the jar of spaghetti sauce. Add herbs like oregano and whatever you like. Heat through. And there you have it, enriched spaghetti sauce! 🙂
I also take about two cups of the sauce (serves two) and put it in a freezer bag so it’s premade for a future meal.
penumbrareads(at)gmail(dot)com
Lol– I have been known to dump other stuff from the refrigerator into my Safeway Select spaghetti sauce, yes!
I’m actually VERY useless in the kitchen. and it’s not like I don’t try, I really, really do… but I guess it’s just not something I can do… 😐 lol.. I’m usually just eating frozen meals which is sad. I only eat well when my mom comes. 😛
Judi
arella3173_loveless@yahoo(dot)com
Go mom! And me too– my family has to remember actual table manners when my mom has us over for dinner!
I am so not a cook, and therefore, Husband has always been the cook in the family. It continues to amaze me how effusive the praise is from the family when I do more than throw something together that’s basically pre-made or super, super easy to do. I guess they’re feeling the love. Thanks for stopping by to share, Amy!
You’re so welcome! And the thing is, Mate CAN cook– he can follow a recipe and he has really good taste and instincts. He just only does it once a year.
Haha! Thanks so much for the story! Sometimes it isn’t worth the effort!
Just yesterday my mother and I made roast lamb with these roasted potatoes with caramalized onions. She is trying to teach me to cook so I can go out on my own… When it was finished we loved it! It was to die for, delicious. We were so proud of ourselves! My father eats some, then eats some more, we ask does he like it. He says ‘it’s fine’. Fine? All we get is ‘fine’? That ain’t worth the effort! 😉
Congrats on the sequel!
OceanAkers @ aol.com
*sniffle* You DO understand!
Loved your post! I’ll admit, I’m no chef and I’m crazy busy, so I’m guilty of the just grabbing something to go. Now I have the urge to go cook…
tiger-chick-1(at)hotmail(dot)com
I’m that kind of eater too– it’s like, “food is fuel. Fill.”
I love Country Mouse so I’m really looking forward to City Mouse.
avaliereads(at)aol(dot)com
I do hope you enjoy!
Jay and Aleks – I don’t understand the small European fridges either. I watch househunters international in awe everytime I see a college dorm room sized fridge in a house.
But then again I’m sure Americans are on average more overweight than Europeans so there might be some correlation there. Lol.
I’m sure there is– we tend to buy foods that keep, which means not as much fresh produce! It makes a difference!
Cooking is definitely becoming a lost art… but some of those recipes are worth all the effort!
interesting post
bn100candg(at)hotmail(dot)com
Awful work week in Atlanta this week so just catching up. One of the worst things about travelling for work is having to eat out all the time. I love it when I’m home and my mom invites me over for dinner and she makes my favorite meals from when I was a kid – whether it’s chili or hamburgers or something much fancier, it always tastes better at mom’s 😀