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Cameron D. Garriepy, Author

Smart, sexy, small town romance

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Authorlife

What Am I Doing, You Ask?

March 8, 2022 by Cameron Leave a Comment

You didn’t, but that never stopped me from answering…

I’m writing! I’m wrapping up a ghostwriting project that I might even get to tell you about someday!

I’m writing! I started working on a new full-length, stand-alone novel. It’s got:

  • đŸ‘±đŸ»â€â™€ïžfat heroine
  • đŸŽ€musician hero
  • 💞high school sweethearts
  • đŸ„ˆsecond chances
  • đŸŸa rescue pug named Guillermo

I’m writing! I put up a little story noodle on Patreon. I’m going to keep doing that there for the time being. It’s available to Tiers 2 and up. Come check it out if you’re into supporting creatives financially between releases.

I’m not narrating! Amy Jo Steele is, and Buck’s Landing will finally be available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes in short order!

I’m Tweeting! I dipped a toe into TikTok (yikes!), I’ve more or less walked away from Facebook, except for big announcements, and Insta is just…not holding my interest lately. But Twitter has been a huge distraction of late.

Want to hear about this stuff in a slightly more timely fashion? Scroll down an subscribe to the newsletter. You can even manage your preferences and only get the emails you want to get. Choices, right?

Filed Under: Authorlife Tagged With: new release, romance author, writing

I Need to Talk About Midge and Lenny

December 14, 2021 by Cameron Leave a Comment

*SPOILER ALERT: if you are one of the two people left who haven’t watched this show, and you care about spoilers, stop reading now!*

I might be the third to last person to watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but I am all. caught. up. now.

I am also breathless over “Comedy or Cabbage.” Still.

I keep coming back to the last 17 minutes of that episode, and how just…perfect it is, from the angsty Cuban rock song and the hot lights in the club, right down to the camera work and blocking as Midge walks Lenny back to his hotel room. He is always angled towards her, and the way he turns, almost dancing, to keep his body facing hers reads like a deep crush, the kind you’re almost afraid to admit to yourself.

I mean, the sequence at the club is everything–I get little shivers when Lenny loops Midge’s hand around his neck and holds her forearm. It’s so earnest and tender. And panty melting (props to Luke Kirby, who smolders like a six-hour campfire on an August night)–but that walk and the tension so thick you could make a sandwich from it outside shiny-number-thirteen-with-the-missing-one are subtler, which I seriously dig.

The other underrated moment for me happens on the set of Miami After Dark, when Lenny goes for the easy joke, leaning back to get Midge’s attention while flanked by matching blondes, and she responds by waving a cruller. His laughter there feels so authentic, and like he really didn’t expect it, because she can–and does–surprise him, which only makes him love her more.

I get super invested in my favorite characters, to the point where I yell at them on-screen, cry, gasp and clutch throw pillows. When Lenny says, “Someday? Before I’m dead,” my heart made a little squeak of grief that physically whooshed out of me.

The almost imperceptible shift in expression from a caricature of rejection to abject misery as Midge walks away and the shot tightens on him? Oof.

Mutual pining is one of my favorite tropes. I love when two characters just long for one another and the longing stretches to the breaking point. Like, I LOVE it. Usually, I’m in it for the payoff, but on this one? I’m with the creators, who’ve been pretty vocal that this pair won’t cross any lines. That said, I’m a thousand percent here for more unrequited, on-screen chemistry.

Also, Mr. Kirby, if you’re reading this, you would make an excellent Adrian Tempest. Just saying.

Filed Under: Authorlife Tagged With: lenny and midge, Luke Kirby, midge and lenny, mutual pining, romance analysis, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel

An Interview of Sorts

November 27, 2021 by Cameron Leave a Comment

This post originally appeared as part of Damselfly Inn’s AudioBookWorm tour.

 

I recently answered a few questions while promoting the release of Damselfly Inn’s audiobook, and thought I’d share it with you, since the tour is over.

How did you select your narrator?

Robin’s professionalism and range impressed me, and she nailed Nan’s voice in the interview. 

How closely did you work with your narrator before and during the recording process? Did you give them any pronunciation tips or special insight into the characters?

Robin has an extensive and insightful list of questions for her authors about the characters. Taking the time to answer them thoroughly really brought out the best in my characters when she performed the book.

Were there any real life inspirations behind your writing? 

Lots! Thornton itself is modeled after an idealized version of Middlebury, Vermont, where I went to college. The Damselfly Inn is inspired by an old Victorian house in a meadow not far from Middlebury College. When I was a student, it was abandoned and quietly falling apart. I was fascinated by the house and wished I could rehab it and run it as a B&B. None of my characters are autobiographical or based on real people, but I trained as a chef after college, and my husband is a contractor and fine finish carpenter, so…

How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain your enthusiasm for writing?

I can’t imagine not being excited about writing. When I burn out, it’s the things around writing that get me down. Day jobs, chores, the never ending work of caring for my home… Writing? That’s a pleasure, and it’s fueled by life, by reading, by soaking in new experiences and cozying up to memories. 

Are you an audiobook listener? What about the audiobook format appeals to you?

I am learning to be. I’ve been an avid book readers since I could sound out words, but sometimes there just isn’t time to snuggle up with a book, and audiobooks are so wonderfully portable in a way that even eBooks aren’t.

If this title were being made into a TV series or movie, who would you cast to play the primary roles? 

This was an easier question a decade ago when I started working on the book! Mandy Moore and Nathan Fillion were in my head for Nan and Joss. Kate is absolutely based on Lauren Graham’s portrayal of Lorelei Gilmore in Gilmore Girls. I think now, I’ll just have to trust the folks at Netflix (hello, Netflix, Thornton would make a great series…just saying!) to cast it.

What do you say to those who view listening to audiobooks as “cheating” or as inferior to “real reading”?

I’d say that’s nonsense. Before we wrote stories down, we told them to those who wanted to hear them. Listening to a compelling voice tell you a story still takes your imagination to new places, still expands your world, still comforts you like reading the words from a page. 

In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of writing a stand-alone novel vs. writing a series? 

The pros are often the same as the cons, I think, and vice versa. Stand alones don’t require the same sense of overarching plot, or twining plot, that a series does, but that can be both pro and con. Sometimes, leaving breadcrumbs for future stories helps move the narrative along in ways a standalone can’t, but there’s no pressure in a stand alone to set up those future stories or establish things in the world of the book that have to endure past The End.

What’s your favorite:

Food: This is like asking me to pick a favorite child! (Actually, it’s harder, I only have one child!) Sushi and ice cream, probably


Song: So. Many. Favorites. But here’s a sampling: Strange Currencies by REM, Buried Treasure by Grant Lee Phillips, Slow Show, by the National, June Hymn by the Decemberists, Debauchery by David Gray

Book: Again, I don’t know how people choose
 I will always love Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery (the diamond sunbursts and marble halls proposal? swoon!), and I have a lingering adoration for Daphne DuMaurier’s Frenchman’s Creek. Katherine Neville’s The Eight captured my imagination when I was a teen and I still love to re-read it. Recently, Kate Clayborn’s Love Lettering, which does one of my favorite things so well: makes the reader fall in love with the place as well as the characters.

Television show: Ooh! An easy one. The West Wing. Currently airing: Better Call Saul. Runner Up: Schitt’s Creek.

Movie: The Princess Bride

Band: tough call. See the artists listed under favorite song…

Sports team: What are sports? 

City: Florence, Italy.

Are any of those things referenced in appearance in your work? 

I can’t cite specifically where, but I bet they are, hiding like Easter eggs. I don’t write autobiographically, but little bits of me shine through everywhere in my stories.

Filed Under: Authorlife, Personal Tagged With: author interview, Cameron Garriepy audiobook, Damselfly Inn audiobook

The Best Books I’ve Read in the Last Little While

November 20, 2021 by Cameron Leave a Comment

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click, I might make a few pennies…at no cost to you. This post originally appeared as part of Damselfly Inn’s AudioBookWorm tour.

 

I challenged myself to read 48 books this year, which, when I think about how much I read when I was a young, single woman with a job and no real responsibility, is nothing…but, writing, parenting, practicing with my bow…it all takes time, time I don’t have to read.

And it is a truth universally accepted that a writer must read.

I completed my challenge this week, which means I could draw this top ten list from those books alone, or…I could go back a calendar year and choose from all of them. So, in no particular order, here are my ten favorite books from the last year of reading:

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn: I love when the setting of a novel becomes a character, and Clayborn excels at this. New York City came alive in a beautiful and unexpected way in this book, and the relationships around the central romance were very relatable to me.

A Wicked Kind of Husband by Mia Vincy: Confession: I love Regencies, especially saucy ones with anachronistically fierce heroines and cinnamon roll heroes. There will be more than a couple in this list. This one I loved for the marriage on the rocks trope.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern: I felt like Morgenstern walked into my dreams and wrote them out as a fairy tale. Keys and bees and honey and extravagant architecture and secrets…oh, my stars. I also loved The Night Circus, but I connected more with this book.

One Good Earl Deserves A Lover by Sarah Maclean: Another Regency, this one definitely fits the saucy and fierce description above. From the tortured but lovable hero to the prickly bespectacled heroine and the Fallen Angel itself. I mean who doesn’t love an exclusive gaming hell run by rogue members of the nobility?

Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston: I loved the interaction between the siblings and their friends as much as the love story. I love found family and it’s one of McQuiston’s strong suits, and I love the idea of a prince and a first son as a couple.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab: I tumbled into the richness of the prose in this book and the dance between Addie and death. The intertwined destinies and complicated nature of loving and living, and the way Addie survives and self-realizes, were beautifully done.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade: I found the heroine in this book crazy relatable (that she’s okay with her body, but not okay with how people want her to feel about her body, in particular) and the way the hero loved her dreamy, even if the premise of the book had some flaws. I’m a big believer in suspension of disbelief, which helps.

Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron: The. Food. I mean, the writing and the storytelling and the romance, too (I kept picturing Sendhil Ramamurthy as Nadim. Yum), but the cooking in this book…and cooking is one of my catnips, right alongside rich settings and cinnamon roll heroes.

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert: Found family and a road trip, neurodiverse, LGBTQIA characters, fandoms, gaming, and geekery…really good stuff.   There’s also something about awkward young adult longing that just gets me, though I suspect it’s the mom in me hoping those kids will get their HFN.

The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon: This is a fourth, maybe fifth re-read for the flagship book, but I reread the whole series in anticipation of Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone. Since I read seven of them as one Kindle bundle, I guess that means my total books read count to 54!

Filed Under: Authorlife, Personal

Into the Woods

June 18, 2021 by Cameron Leave a Comment

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t have to keep it all spinning all the time.

Wait.

I needed to hear that.

I don’t (usually) publish fast. This we know, but I also work two part time jobs and a freelance gig to pay the bills. I have a family and a few hobbies. Since last March, my family has been very cautious about our stay-at-home efforts. We cancelled our 2020 summer travel plans. We stayed put until it was deemed safe to do more than go out for groceries, and even then, we kept it to small groups we could manage outdoors. Our close families, one other like-minded family we teamed up with to survive the summer, the little pod we meet on the outdoor range to draw bowstrings with at the archery club…

Even with stay-at-home orders and school closures, I spin a lot of plates. Guessing you do, too.

I work from home. My husband can’t always, but he does when he can. Our son is home with me. The chickens do their best to keep me entertained, but I know I’m not alone when I say:

It was a lot. I was lonely. I missed my friends. I was tired of my own thoughts and the increasing anxiety over school and the looming cold season and the election and social media and ohmygodIamscreaminginsidemyheart…

Last August, our survival team friends invited us to go camping with them.

::backstory break:: I grew up far more outdoorsy than I’ve become. Girl Scouts, camp, fishing, canoeing, tents, rifles, rambles and splashes in the woods, campfires, dirt and bugs, all of it. I fell out of the habit somewhere along the last few decades, tired of the smell of musty, poorly cared-for tents from the supply shed and eating dinner made with ingredients flooded by splashy Brownies with canoe paddles. I declared myself done and moved on. I did not figure I would find myself ever craving the gentle filter of morning sunlight through evergreen trees, or the smell of a starry night in the dog days of summer, again::

Twenty-one year old me never imagined the possibility of the fifteen months we’ve just been through. Sweet summer child. 

Next week, I’ll release the third novelette…novella? Short novel? book in the Green Mountain Hearts series. I’ll start working on a few new things, new stories, new pen name for a new genre, maybe? New mediums, definitely. Lots of plates, but I am grateful to my friends who knew me better than I knew myself, and forced me to set them down.

Next week, I’m releasing a book, then going back into the woods for a few days, and I can’t wait to tell you more when I get back.

Filed Under: Authorlife, Personal Tagged With: Camping, covid-19, Green Mountain Hearts, I don't know who needs to hear this, writing

Love small town romances? I have an announcement for you!

February 8, 2021 by Cameron Leave a Comment

Y’all.

I’ve been sitting on this news since forever, or at least since November, when I was frantically writing a brand new mini-series.

It’s here!

Seven romance authors–including yours truly–have come together to share a limited edition collection filled with nothing but small town love stories.

Here’s the deal: You download the Love in a Small Town ebook and get seven exclusive romances from…

  • CA Miconi
  • Jade C. Jamison
  • Katrina Marie
  • Monique McDonell
  • Nan O’Berry
  • Zoe Hart
  • and me!

As a special thank you, we’ll send you one book a month from each author in the anthology! (To review: that’s one collection full of seven romances, plus seven additional books to be delivered to you over the next seven months!)

My offerings are two brand new novellas in a new Thornton-adjacent series, GREEN MOUNTAIN HEARTS: AMBITIOUS HEART (in the collection) and UNBOUND HEART (my second, monthly offering). The third novella, TROUBADOUR HEART will be traditionally released, along with the other two, once the promotion is over.

If you’d like to check out the beginning of AMBITIOUS HEART, click the title to read the first scene.

Click the image above to head over to Book Funnel where you can download the book to your device. Please note, by downloading the anthology, you’re agreeing to subscribe to all seven authors’ newsletters, along with Love Kissed Book Bargains, and Love Kissed FREEBIES. Feel free to unsubscribe anytime.

Grab your copy of Love in a Small Town!

Filed Under: Authorlife, Fiction Tagged With: love kissed book bargains, romance anthology, small town romance

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