Today I am so pleased to welcome Eli Easton to Joyfully Jay. Eli has come to talk to us about her latest release, Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles. She has also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

Inspiring Mr. Miggles by Eli Easton

Writers often dread the question “Where do you get your ideas”? Hell, I can’t remember why I walked into the kitchen this morning, much less what might have sparked an idea a few years ago. Usually, that is the case. But “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles” wasn’t plucked from the ignominy of my “stories to write someday” list. I actually got the idea fairly recently, just before I started writing the book. So I can remember all the bits and pieces that inspired it!

A Single Man
I first watched this film with Colin Firth last summer, about the time I was ready to start my Christmas story. I loved the film, but it has a tragic ending (I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say so). Being a romantic, I really wanted student Kenny (played by Nicholas Holt) and professor George (played by Colin Firth) to get together and find true love. Alas, that’s not the way the screenplay goes. But I was captivated by the idea of this May-December pairing, and by Colin Firth’s yummy older man. The passion I felt for that film inspired “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles”. It’s a totally different story with totally different characters, but the general vibe of the older professor type and beautiful young man is similar.

Above and below: Colin Firth and Nicholas Holt in “A Single Man”

The Man Without a Face
A sub-plot of “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles” was inspired by the film “The Man Without a Face” starring Mel Gibson, which I watched years and years ago. I’ve always liked stories with a “mysterious stranger” in a small town who has a tragic past and finds redemption.

It’s a Wonderful Life
This story was a warm and fuzzy, Christmasy, town-pulls-together-to-save-a-good-man vibe to it. The inspiration for that goes to this classic Christmas movie.

Jane Eyre / English Lit
In “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles” our narrator, Toby, was an English Lit major, and he has a head full of stories and tropes that he adores. He often compares the brooding and mysterious Mr. Miggles to Rochester from Jane Eyre. As Toby points out, the comparison doesn’t not put him off in the slightest! Toby is looking for his own dark and tortured manly hunk. And very possibly, he has found him in Mr. Miggles.

That’s it for my inspiration list. I hope you enjoy this year’s Christmas story, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles” as well as the Christmas stories from so many other great authors this year. It’s my favorite time to be a romance reader.
Happy holidays and good reading!

Eli Easton

Blurb

Toby Kincaid loves being the junior librarian in his hometown of Sandy Lake, Ohio. He spends his days surrounded by books and chatting with the library patrons. He especially adores the head librarian, Mr. Miggles, who is kind, witty, knowledgeable about everything, and hopelessly addicted to Christmas.

Sean Miggles is also pretty cute—especially for an older guy who wears ties and suit pants every day.
But Sean keeps himself at a distance, and there’s a sadness about him that Toby can’t figure out. When Sean is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he gives up without a fight. Toby realizes that he alone can save the library—and their head librarian.

Toby will need to uncover the darkness in Sean’s past and prove to him that he deserves a second chance at life and at love too. And while Christmas miracles are being handed out, maybe Toby will get his own dearest wish—to love and be loved by Mr. Miggles.

Bio

Having been, at various times and under different names, a minister’s daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, the author of paranormal mysteries, a fan fiction writer, an organic farmer, and a profound sleeper, Eli is happy these days writing love stories as a m/m romance author.

As an avid reader of such, she is tinkled pink when an author manages to combine literary merit, vast stores of humor, melting hotness and eye-dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most of the time. She currently lives on a farm in rural Pennsylvania with her husband, three bulldogs, two cows, pot belly pig, and cat.

• Her website is www.elieaston.com
• You can email her at eli@elieaston.com
• Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008994061782

Giveaway

Eli has brought a $25 Amazon gift card and a copy of Unwrapping Hank in ebook or audio to give out along her tour. Just follow the Rafflecopter link to enter. 

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