Manhattan lawyer Ellen Branford is going to fulfill her grandmother's dying wish - to find the hometown boy she once loved and give him her last letter. Beacon, Maine, home to blueberry fields and eccentric locals, is the last place she wants to go so close to her upcoming wedding.
Hoping to be in and out in 24 hours, Ellen ends up the talk of the town when a tumble into the ocean introduces her to Roy Cummings, the carpenter who saves her life. Roy happens to be the nephew of Ellen's grandmother's lost love, and the one person who can bring closure to her quest.
But as Ellen learns what Beacon has to offer and what her grandmother left behind, she may find that a 24 hour visit will never be enough...
Today I have a Q&A with Mary Simses as part of her blog tour for her debut book The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe which has just been published here in the UK.
Can you tell us a little bit about the Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Café?
It’s a novel about a 35-year-old attorney named Ellen Branford who leads a fast-paced life as a partner in a large New York City law firm. Her grandmother dies, unexpectedly, one weekend when Ellen is visiting her at her home in Connecticut, and, just before she dies, she asks Ellen to deliver a letter. The letter is to a man who Ellen’s grandmother knew when she was young. Ellen leaves Manhattan and her fiancé, Hayden, who is also a lawyer, and travels to the small coastal town of Beacon, Maine (where her grandmother grew up) to deliver the letter. Shortly after Ellen’s arrival, she falls through the rotted boards of a dock, gets swept away by a rip current, and is rescued by a local carpenter named Roy. Ellen’s plan of delivering her grandmother’s letter and quickly returning to New York soon goes astray, but Ellen discovers some interesting secrets about her grandmother’s past and some insights about herself as well.
Where did the inspiration come from for this story?
The idea came from something I heard on the radio one morning. A woman told a story about how just before her grandmother died, she said, “Erase my hard drive.” I began to wonder what that grandmother had on her computer that she wanted to keep secret. It led me to think about a much broader range of questions, such as what someone in their later years might want to change about the life they had lived and what regrets they might have about decisions they’d made. All of that led to the idea of an elderly woman reviewing her life and feeling the need to set certain things right before she died. I used a letter as the object that would get the story going, as I wanted something old-fashioned and tangible, but the computer-hard-drive story is what led me to write the book.
It’s a novel about a 35-year-old attorney named Ellen Branford who leads a fast-paced life as a partner in a large New York City law firm. Her grandmother dies, unexpectedly, one weekend when Ellen is visiting her at her home in Connecticut, and, just before she dies, she asks Ellen to deliver a letter. The letter is to a man who Ellen’s grandmother knew when she was young. Ellen leaves Manhattan and her fiancé, Hayden, who is also a lawyer, and travels to the small coastal town of Beacon, Maine (where her grandmother grew up) to deliver the letter. Shortly after Ellen’s arrival, she falls through the rotted boards of a dock, gets swept away by a rip current, and is rescued by a local carpenter named Roy. Ellen’s plan of delivering her grandmother’s letter and quickly returning to New York soon goes astray, but Ellen discovers some interesting secrets about her grandmother’s past and some insights about herself as well.