Interview With Aletta Thorne author of The Chef & the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins
Give a warm welcome to Aletta Thorne, author of The Chef and the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins.
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Aletta Thorne and her newest release, The Chef and the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins.
I live in an old house that has ghosts in it, and I do believe in them. Now, I never had QUITE the experience that my heroine does (ahem), but I like our ghosts. They keep the place from feeling lonely—really! Also, I think the best ghost stories have a strong element of humor in them. I wanted to write a funny romance with ghosts in it. Ghosts and food. I used to be a chef myself.
What defines you as an author? As a person? Are they one in the same?
I think I am the pretty much same on the page that I am in person. I have always believed that fiction is a true lie—a story that didn’t actually happen but could have and maybe should have. My new book The Chef and the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins comes from the best part of me: the part that is funny, loving, and uninhibited. The pieces of me I don’t like I left out of the story!
How long have you been writing?
This is my first “big-girl” romance, although I have been writing young adult books (under another name) for a while, and I’ve published poetry and articles about music and food since I was in my twenties (a long, long time ago). I started making up my own tales and rhymes when I was about seven. So let’s just say it’s been a million zillion years.
What do you want your readers to take away from your books?
I want my readers to lose themselves in my books and to be entertained and feel like they are in an exciting other world. And I want them to laugh and read the funny parts out loud to their friends. Also, I’d like it if they stayed up late reading and then had a really good night of rest except for a few slightly weird dreams…
Why do you write what you write? Contemporary, paranormal, suspense, etc.
I write paranormal romance, whether it is for a young adult audience (under another name) or for adults. Paranormal is where the magic is, and the author has a wand to wave! Who wouldn’t want a magic wand?
You’re exactly right! Give me that magic wand!
If writing is your first passion, what is your second?
Music: I sing, play dulcimer and guitar, and am part of a really good choir. And I also DJ on an internet radio station I run with my friends.
You’ve got a time machine, a cloak of invisibility, and one hour. Where would you go, and what eavesdropping would you do?
Great question! It actually sounds like the premise for some of the YA stuff I’ve written. I think I’d just take a walk down the main street of my Hudson River Valley town in maybe 1880, and see what it looked like, and listen to the way people were with one another. I imagine I could go somewhere and try to stop a war from happening, but from the time travel I’ve written and read, that doesn’t always turn out well!
So true. Thank you so much for answering my questions.
A Peek Between The Pages of The Chef and the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins.
A ghost. Of course he was a ghost—even though before that night, she’d never felt anything spooky at her place in the almost-year she’d lived in it. Alma still had the plate with the omelet on it in one hand. Ghosts didn’t eat, did they? She held it out to him anyway.
“Go ahead and have your supper,” he said. “I don’t need food. I take it you understand why.”
Alma nodded, not sure what to say. For a ghost, the man looked rather … dashing, she decided was the world. He must have been muscular in life. There were nicely rounded biceps under that loose shirt, and they showed when he moved his arms. His knee knickers fit tightly over a flat belly, and his stockings made his calves look like they were made out of smooth, white marble. His eyes were a startling, luminous golden brown.
“Sadly, we are still perfectly able to smell a good meal cooking.”
“We?” Alma said.
The man nodded. “Your dead,” he said, solemnly.
“My dead?” she said.
“Well, you live here, don’t you? So, I’m your dead, now.” He stopped looking so serious then and as if guys in knee knickers and white stockings were born doing it, he opened her refrigerator and pulled out the bottle of Chablis. “Here, give me your glass,” he said, and topped it off. The glow from the refrigerator’s light made him even more luminous—and just the slightest bit translucent.
“Thanks,” she said, although it was her wine. She put her plate and glass down on a little enamel-topped kitchen table she’d bought at a local church thrift shop and pulled out one of the table’s funky old chairs for herself.
“Fork? Napkin?” he said, pulling those things out of the drawers next to Alma’s stove. Alma used cloth napkins from the restaurant supplier—big white ones.
“You know where my things are,” she said, spreading the napkin across her lap.
“That shouldn’t surprise you,” he said. “Eat your omelet while it’s hot. Go ahead.”
Alma took a bite. “Um, the pepper grinder on the stove?” she said. “Could you, please?”
“My lady.” He smiled and handed it to her with a little bow.
She ground a little pepper over her plate and took another bite and sipped her wine. He sat down across from her, put his elbows on the table, and his chin in his hands.
“I enjoy watching you eat.”
“Okay, I guess. It’s not … weird?”
“No.”
A ghost is watching me eat an omelet. “What’s your name?”
“Bartholomew Addison Jenkins,” he said. “These days, I just use Bart.”
“These days. But you’ve been here since you…”
“Since 1784,” he said.
“Which was when you died, I guess.”
“I must tell you, dear lady, saying that to one of us is considered rude. In better ghostly circles, that is. Some of us are not aware we are dead. Some of us do not like to be reminded of it.”
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Posted in Authors' Secrets Blog and tagged Aletta Thorne, Holiday, mainstream romance, Paranormal Romance by Tena Stetler with 1 comment.
Great interview. Thanks for sharing. All the best on your author’s journey!