Rockstar Moments: At Home In Candle Bay

For the past couple weeks, I have been reading Tamara Thorne’s novel, Candle Bay, and absolutely loving it. The story is great, to be sure… but the best part is that I’m not just reading the book… I get to use my editorial eyes in search of formatting issues that sometimes occur when a novel is scanned  to be converted into its digital form. When Tamara told me about the edits she was doing and the frustrations she was having, I was more than happy to offer my help. Under usual circumstances, looking for strangely placed periods and extra spaces between words doesn’t sound like the kind of thing most people would be thrilled about doing… but the thing is, well… it’s Tamara Thorne! I loved her books before the concept of being a novelist myself was anywhere on the horizon, so to not only meet one of the greats, but to get a close-up look at his or her process is really a very rare and incredible opportunity.

Over the past months, Tamara and I have become what I consider to be pretty good friends. Finding that you connect with a person you’ve admired from afar for so many years is one of those nearly-eerie things that makes you stop and wonder why you’re drawn to certain people in the first place, and what it all means. Many such events have happened for me since I began on this writing journey, and those events are what has inspired my new “Rockstar Moments” blogs. These “Rockstar Moments” are the ones that suddenly make me aware of how lucky I am, how amazing some of my recent experiences have been, and how awesome it is to get to know the people I’m getting to know.

That being said, my most recent “Rockstar Moment” came when, as I was reading Candle Bay, I got a message from Tamara asking me what color my wife Heather’s hair is. “Brown,” I told her, because it is. When I asked her why she’d asked, Tamara told me she was going to put Heather and I in Candle Bay. I was thrilled, and sure enough, a few chapters later, I came across Jared and Heather Anders, a pair of the Candle Bay Hotel’s “best customers.” I am returning this gesture, of course, by murdering off a maid who’s based off of Tamara in my current project, Tyranny Hall. I don’t know exactly how I will kill her yet, but I do know it will be gruesome. This may sound macabre… insulting even, but it’s not. It’s good times… for us, anyway.

Candle Bay will be available soon in e-book format, and I’m honored to be able to get a look at it before its release. I am only half through the novel, and I’m itching for more. Given my past experiences with Tamara’s books, I have no doubt that the rest of Candle Bay will only continue getting more and more strange and fascinating! This is where it’s very tempting for me to give out spoilers… but I am going to refrain. I’ll simply say it’s an awesome story, told by one of my personal favorite storytellers, and as soon as it gets released, I will be posting the links where the book can be purchased.