bed and breakfast

This is book two of the trilogy Cupcake Lovers. Rocky Monroe is the owner of a bed and breakfast in Sugar Creek, Vermont. She’s also president of the Cupcake Lover’s club, a group of women (and one hunky man) that bakes cupcakes to raise money for charities. Ten years ago, when she was only 17, she lost her virginity to her brothers’ best friend and family friend, Jayce Bello. He was 22 at the time and overwhelmed with the love he felt for Rocky and the fear of being found out by her brothers. He felt at the time that the best thing he could do was leave town, so he begins a new life in New York City. Rocky was hurt and confused and claims to hate Jayce, but in reality, she can’t get him out of her head. It would be helpful to read book one first – Fool For Love – as it sets up the background story of Rocky and Jayce. But if you don’t get to read it, you can still understand the dynamics between them.

Rocky needs to go to New York City to help negotiate a publishing deal for the Cupcake Lover’s Club’s first cookbook. Of course the very first day she is there, she gets mugged and hit by a car. Having no money and reluctantly needing help, she calls Jayce, who is more than happy to help. He’s been doing a lot of thinking and has just made the decision to move back to Sugar Creek and try to come to terms with his demons about his family and to try to reconcile with Rocky. The timing of Rocky’s call couldn’t have come at a better time. He begins his plan to woo her while she’s in New York and continues it when they return to Sugar Creek.

There are many twists and turns in Rocky and Jayce’s journey. With true love, you have to fight hard for that someone special and that’s what this story is about. The whole Town is behind them and the cast of characters provides comic relief as well as emotional support. It was also nice to see the continuation of Dev and Chloe’s story from book one, and Luke’s story is nicely set up for book three – Anything But Love coming out in September.

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Springs, Maryland, the youngest of five children. She married young and worked briefly as a legal secretary – “the worst ever”. After her two sons were born, she became a stay at home mom and immersed herself into gardening, canning, stitching and knitting.

Her road to writing began during the February blizzard of 1979. Stranded at home with her two young sons and a lack of chocolate, she was looking for some non-child related entertainment. Coming from a family of readers, she got a notebook and started writing down a story that was in her head. She knew then that writing was the thing she was supposed to do.

She started writing category romance (also known as “series”), since she had just started reading Harlequin romances. At the time, Harlequin had mainly British authors and was the only publisher of category romances. All of her manuscripts were rejected.

In 1980, she heard of a new publisher, Silhouette, who was looking for American authors to write category romances and in 1981, they bought Nora’s first manuscript, Irish Thoroughbred.

In July 1985, Nora married her second husband – a local carpenter she hired to build some shelves for her home. He went on to build many things in her home – including a solid marriage.

In 1987, she began writing single title books for Bantam. In 1992, she moved to writing single title hardcovers as well as original paperbacks for Putnam under the name of Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb.

In the early years, she wrote when she could squeeze in the time between her sons’ school time and activities. Now she spends 8 hours a day, every day, writing. She has written over 200 books. When she’s not writing, she tries to exercise in her pool or elliptical trainer and she is an avid gardener.

Nora’s husband, Bruce Wilder, owns a bookstore named Turn the Page Bookstore and Café in nearby Boonsboro, Maryland. Directly across the street was an old, run down hotel which Nora and her husband bought in 2007. They began renovating it into a bed and breakfast called Inn BoonsBoro. This was not an easy undertaking. In February 2008, the Inn caught fire and was completely destroyed, and many buildings on the block were damaged. Undaunted, they started from scratch and in February 2009, the Inn opened to rave reviews. This experience inspired The Inn BoonsBoro Trilogy. The titles of this trilogy are: The Next Always, The Last Boyfriend, The PerfectHope.

Some fun facts:

Since 1999, every Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb book has made the New York Times bestseller list. Fifty-three have debuted at number one.
Celebrity in Death is the 34^th book in the series.
She is the third author to sell more than one million Kindle books.
Her books are published in over 34 countries.
If you place her books from top to bottom, they would stretch from New York to Los Angeles 18 times.
Many of Nora’s books have been made into movies shown on Lifetime television.
Nora was one of the first authors to communicate via the web when she launched her website in 1996.

Her latest book as Nora Roberts is Whiskey Beach and as J.D. Robb, the title is Calculated In Death and are available at the Cheshire Library.