Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
How could everything that seemed so right suddenly have gone so wrong for Mia? Snow is on the ground and Christmas lights twinkle in the German Christmas market. The warm, spiced wine is just right, but there's still one key ingredient missing from her romantic dream. Will Mia's Christmas turn out to be sugar and spice and all things nice - or a deflated soufflé of loneliness and regret?
-- Christmas Cravings is a festive romance standalone episode from the Greedily Yours series.
Kelly has become a fan of the Greedily Yours series by Emma Hamilton so when we were approached to be part of the blog tour for the Christmas episode, Christmas Cravings, she didn't hesitate at the chance to ask Emma a few questions. So I'll hand you over to Kelly and Emma.
How could everything that seemed so right suddenly have gone so wrong for Mia? Snow is on the ground and Christmas lights twinkle in the German Christmas market. The warm, spiced wine is just right, but there's still one key ingredient missing from her romantic dream.
Will Mia's Christmas turn out to be sugar and spice and all things nice - or a deflated soufflé of loneliness and regret?
Christmas Cravings is a festive romance standalone episode from the Greedily Yours series.
About the series: Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. She owns a food PR business that fills her days, and by night she's a food blogger with a burgeoning audience. With her 'Culinary Confessions of a Greedy Girl', Mia takes the reader on a delicious journey, searching for top dishes and the perfect man.
What was your inspiration for the Greedily Yours series?
I was inspired by lots of things really for the series. My love of food, my love of Cornwall, growing up in London and travelling to the places I wrote about. My friends and family, things people said, things that have happened to me, it all fed in to thinking about the story and the characters as I was developing it. But that actual flash of inspiration happened whilst I was riding my bike to work one day. The countryside through which I ride really reminds me of Cornwall, it was the middle of summer, and the sun was glinting on the water and the flowers were out in the field and Mia and Tom just appeared to me really in my head and I knew that these two had to be my star crossed lovers. They sort of burst in on my thoughts and they wouldn't leave me alone for the whole period of writing. I would find myself slowing down on my ride or whilst running, to consider how they would act and what they would do next. As soon as I got to work, I jotted down as many ideas as I could and that evening I prepared a pitch to the publishing company and went for a meeting with them about a month later when we elaborated a bit on how it would all work and then I went off to Cornwall on holiday and got started. The funny thing is that I knew I wanted both Tom and Mia to have curly hair and I started it all before Poldark on BBC started airing, but when I saw the character Ross in Poldark, I was like, oooh, he looks a bit like how I imagined Tom might. I guess he's the classic romantic hero, hidden under a layer of grumpiness.
What made you write Greedily Yours as a series instead of a novel?
Good question. In my head it was a novel, just spread out over 8, then 9 episodes. But the simple answer is that that's what the publishers wanted, a serial book. I'd never read one before, and certainly never written one, but I actually found that way of writing very helpful because it meant that at the end of each episode, you were aiming for a kind of high point which leant a bit more drama to the story and hopefully worked to whet the readers' appetites to want to read more. It was also helpful with structuring the writing, as an episode is much more manageable psychologically than thinking, right, now I have to write a whole book. I think as a first time writer, it would perhaps have been easy to get lost in a plot, whereas the discipline of planning out each episode, so it worked alone and led into the next one, made the whole structure much easier for me to deal with .
Mia Maxwell is one of my favourite fictional characters, where did you get the inspiration for her character from?
That is lovely to hear, thank you. ;-) Well, Mia did sort of spring into my head as a persona in her own right, and she doesn't look like me. (Perhaps she's the me I would love to be, I'm not sure; or maybe truer to say she's an amalgam of many different people I've known ) although she's also her own person really as well. Psychologically, she is quite close to how I was in my early thirties. As I think most writers tend, at least at first, to write what they know. So many of her insecurities and ways of acting and being, I share, or shared back then. So I guess all that helped with the inspiration, but then it's weird, these characters just start acting of their own accord almost. You think you're going to write one way, and then they demand that something else happens to them and I just followed her really and took my cues from her.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 8 of 8: Mia Maxwell would never have guessed that her summer trips to Cornwall could become more of a regular affair. But as she and her man pursue their own culinary ambitions, will sharing plates - or dinner for one - be on the menu for Mia?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 6 of 8: Mia Maxwell is eating her way around Palermo when an old flame invites her to a Sicilian wedding. But can she find her own romance on a moonlit night in amongst the vines on Sicily's coast, or will a series of misunderstandings derail Mia's chance at love?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 5 of 8: Newly single and determined to stay that way, Mia Maxwell sets off to Sicily. But will her guide's charms and the delights of Sicilian cuisine sharpen her appetite for love and romance as she tours the island gathering material for her upcoming book?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 4 of 8: Mia Maxwell gets the break she's been hoping for - the chance to publish a book from her blog. She sets off excitedly on a culinary voyage of discovery to Ethiopia and Lebanon. From ancient grains to coffee ceremonies, will she learn enough about life and love to create her own recipe for love?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 3 of 8: Mia loves to try new things, so Vietnam is the perfect place for her to make some culinary discoveries. But is her boyfriend's refusal to leave his comfort zone going to be a hindrance to their holiday or add new spice to her life?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Episode 2 of 8: Food and travel are two of Mia Maxwell's greatest passions. So when Mia's boyfriend invites her to Miami for his birthday, she jumps at the chance. But will a fortune teller's words and a mysterious man give her food for thought?
Greedily Yours is a serial novel about the quest for top dishes ... with a dash of accidental love.
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all sewn up. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger enjoying a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realize that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Reviewed by Kelly Spillane
Mia Maxwell loves food. She loves it so much that she's made it her career. On the surface Mia seems to have it all. She lives in trendy east London with her best friend, Lizzie, who owns a cupcake cafe. By day she runs her own food PR consultancy, and by night she's a food blogger with a burgeoning audience. Mia has a banker boyfriend, Paul, who enjoys travelling the world, enabling her to taste the globe's culinary delights. But Mia is still hungry and, when she heads down to Cornwall to run a food festival, she doesn't realise that her entire life is about to be cast adrift.
Episode 1 - Mia Maxwell knows that her love of food is tied to her healthy appetite for romance. She's admitted as much on her food blog, "Culinary Confessions of a Greedy Girl." But could a chance encounter with a fellow foodie in Cornwall really entice her to question her own romantic relationship?
