The idea for A Touch of Cinnamon came to me shortly after I published Crescendo. I was posting chapters of Hello, Goodbye at the time, and I was trying to sell copies of Crescendo on Amazon. But it felt like, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get people to see me as an author. My family is very supportive. My boyfriend is incredible and is always cheering me on. But I only had one friend who really cared that I was trying to make a career doing this. It really hurt, and I felt totally invisible.

And then I started wondering how a character might react if they felt the same way. Thus, Gen Cross was born. A young woman who felt so out of place in her family. Even her name was out of place. Her sisters are Avalon and Viviane, both Arthurian names. But hers is Genevieve. I wanted everything about her to be just out of place. Almost right, but not quite.

Originally, she was a chef. Think Gordon Ramsey. And the book was called On the Line, because not only did Gen work as a line cook, but she had a lot on the line in this story. I hated the title, and after a while I started calling it The Trading Game. I hated that too. I kept writing it, but finding a title for it was so hard. But then I came up with A Touch of Cinnamon, and I liked it so much that Gen went from being a wannabe chef to an aspiring pastry chef. And Vale went from having green eyes to eyes the color of cinnamon. I loved it!

The idea for the trading game came from an article I read about a woman who traded a hair pin and ended up getting a house at the end of her trading game. I thought it was such a cool concept, so... I used it for my character.

I worked in data entry at the time, and the name Vale came up on one of my documents. You ever see a name, and just... fall in love with it? Because that was me with that name. And I knew he would be the love interest for my Gen. Thus, Gen and Vale were born. But originally, Vale was supposed to be a stranger she met on her trading game journey. Until I realized that all my characters fall in love with strangers. So I thought it would be fun to challenge myself and make my two main characters best friends from the start. And oh my goodness, it was so fun to write!

Gen and Vale's friends, Keke, Tyler, Taylor, and Tree, all come from my desire to have a group of friends like that. I have individual friends I've met in different areas and times in my life, but I've always wanted a group like they have. The friend group was fun to write too.

But what did I learn from Gen? I learned to give myself a break and to see things for what they really are. Just like Gen had to learn that she wasn't as invisible as she thought she was, I had to learn that I was doing better than I thought I was. Crescendo is doing better than any of my other published books I've ever written, and every day I learn something new to help market it. It's a slow process, but it's happening. So take a deep breath and see the successes in your life rather than hone in on your failures. That's what Gen taught me.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading A Touch of Cinnamon. And if you decide you want to skip this chapter, that's totally okay. Not everyone enjoys reading about how the story came to be. I just know that I do. So thank you for reading, and I will be back very soon with another story!
XOXO,
~Aly