Lex Sakai’s family, big, nosy, and marriage-minded, is ruled by a crafty grandmother. When her cousin Mariko gets married, Lex will become the OLDEST SINGLE COUSIN in the clan, a loathed position by all single female family members.Lex has not dated for years.
Grandma homes in on this fact and demands, bribes, and threatens Lex to bring a boyfriend (not just a date) to her cousin’s wedding.
Lex does not want to date ... not since that terrible incident a few years back ... but, Grandma doesn't give her that choice.
Lex's options are slim because she has used her Bible study class on Ephesians to compile a huge list of traits for the PERFECT man (and the more she dates, the more she adds to the list).
The one man she keeps running into (and is completely attracted to) doesn’t seem to have a single quality on her list. It’s only when the always-in-control Lex loses control and lets God take over that all the pieces of this hilarious romance finally fall into place.
The book link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310273986
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Camy Tang is a member of CFBA and is a loud Asian chick who writes loud Asian chick-lit. She grew up in Hawaii, but now lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious poi-dog. In a previous life she was a biologist researcher, but these days she is surgically attached to her computer, writing full-time. In her spare time, she is a staff worker for her church youth group, and she leads one of the worship teams for Sunday service.
Sushi for One? (Sushi Series, Book One is her first novel. Her second, Only Uni (Sushi Series, Book Two) comes out in February 2008!
To celebrate the launch of her debut novel, she's got a huge contest going on. Camy is giving away baskets of Christian novels and an iPod Nano! Only her newsletter YahooGroup subscribers are eligible to enter, so join today.
For more information about the contest, visit her website.
Contest ends October 31, 2007!
Now let's meet Camy (as if there's anyone left who doesn't know the most well known blogger on the web...LOL)
Sabrina: Hi, Camy, congratulations on your fab new release, and welcome. Now, a lot of your bloggees and fellow ACFW members know the story about how Brandilyn prayed over you and you realized you were to write about your heritage. But what about your family? How did they perceive the book? Did they laugh with you, cry with you, try to find themselves in the book, etc... LOL.
Camy: It's kind of funny, because I purposefully made an announcement at a family party earlier this year: "NONE OF YOU GUYS ARE IN MY BOOK!" LOL
Seriously, none of my family is in my book. The characters are purely
from my rather scary head.
However, my family is SO proud of me. My mom especially is very proud because she was a high school English teacher and always encouraged me to write. She never once told me, "It's not really very likely you'll actually become published." She always just told me to keep writing,
and she even proofread my first manuscript.
Sabrina: Man, what a great mom. ;) I'm sure she's bursting with pride. Now, without giving too much away, what scene did you have the most fun writing?
Camy: The funnest scene was actually the first one in the Chinese restaurant at the Red Egg and Ginger party. For one, it involved lots of really good Chinese food--always a wonderful thing--and for another, it was so true to life about how a real Red Egg and Ginger party is like:
tables packed in a restaurant, people scrambling for food, waiters sliding in between chairs, the younger folk jammed into the back of the room and fighting for space.
Sabrina: That scene really drew us in right away. You did a great job helping us to see the scene.
Having read your blog, quite often, I know you are actively involved with the youth at your church and very involved in the lives of the kids you mentor. You could tell in the book, you have a handle on the young adult scene and how they live/talk/believe, so what did the girls you mentor think of the book?
Camy: Not many of the girls in my youth group read romance, but the ones who have read the book have liked it a lot. It's a little hard for them to relate to the protagonist, Lex, because she's a lot older than they are and dealing with different issues related to her stage of life, but they like the humor and the scenes with Lex's family, because they mirror their own families to an extent.
Sabrina: Some writers say they never use real life people for the idea of a certain character, I'm not one of those people. LOL. I have all kinds of people I've seen or known in my book, never the same as the real life people, but I know where they got their traits from. All that to ask, is there any Camy in the book? Though I think I might know this answer, I'm curious to see if I'm right. ;)
Camy: I do have a camy-o appearance in the book, it's a volleyball player who's not very good whose name is, incidentally, Camy. She gets beamed by a spiked volleyball and lands flat on her back. That actually happened to me. My volleyball friends call me the ball-magnet.
Sabrina: I thought that was so cute using your name. Now, tell us a little about book two.
Camy: Here's the blurb:
Will Trish Sakai be able to follow her three simple rules and hold out
against two gorgeous guys?
Trish Sakai is ready for a change from her wild, flirtatious behavior.
And her three cousins are anxious for her to change, too. Trish is
always knocking something over, knocking herself out, and taking hard
knocks in her perpetual confusion about men.
When Trish's ex-boyfriend, Kazuo the artist, keeps popping up at all
the wrong moments, Trish decides to be firm with herself. She creates
three simple rules from First and Second Corinthians and plans to
follow them to the letter. No more looking at men! No more dating
non-Christians! She will persevere in hardship by relying on God.
Except now Kazuo is claiming Trish is his muse, and he can't complete
his major work of art without her. And a gorgeous coworker is
reassigned, bringing him in daily contact with Trish. But her cousins
are determined to hold her accountable to her plan. She thought three
rules would be a cinch, but suddenly Trish's simple rules don't seem
so simple after all.
Sabrina: Man, I can hardly wait. I'm already ready for it...can't you write any faster, woman. ;) Actually that leads into my next question. Now that you have raving fans to think of, what's your writing day like?
Camy: I'm a night owl, so I tend to get up later in the morning and work late into the evening. I try to get some exercise done first thing (although that doesn't always happen) and I also spend time with God. (Right now I'm going through a lectio divina book that's totally fabulous, and I've done the Bible in 90 Days a couple times.) That time with God is the most important part of my day, because if I don't work to develop that relationship with Him, then He won't be in my stories, and if that happens, what's the point of writing?
I spend about 1-3 hours on email--it depends on what I have going on, for instance when the Genesis contest is running, I'll be spending time doing emails for that--and then the rest of the day is writing. Sometimes I'm plotting, sometimes I'm working on character, sometimes
I'm editing, sometimes I'm writing the manuscript. It depends on what
my next deadline is.
Sabrina: How long do your books take from concept to end?
Camy: Six months, although I'm trying to cut that down. That includes several months of planning and plotting, about 6 weeks of writing, a couple weeks for my crit partners to get the manuscript back to me, and a few days to incorporate their suggestions before turning it into
my editor. Then I get macro edits and after that line edits.
Sabrina: You left us wanting more at the end of Sushi. Will we see more of Aiden and Lexi in book two?
Camy: A little. They're minor characters in Only Uni, but they do play a significant role in Trish's story.
Sabrina: What's the take away for this book? What do you want people to feel or know by the end of the book?
Camy: While I hope the story encourages Christians in their spiritual walks, I won't lie--first and foremost, I hope they just enjoy the read.
Sushi for One is the kind of book I like to read--clean, funny, romantic, light, spiritual. It's not Oswald Chambers or Lee Strobel--it's a flirty, fluffy, entertaining novel with a message of
encouragement for women struggling with some of the same issues Lex is struggling with--identity, career, the shadows of her past, her relationship with God.
Sabrina: Thanks, Camy. I appreciate you taking the time to be here, and I look forward to all those fabulous books in your future. ;)
Camy: Thanks, Sabrina! I also want to remind everyone that I have a huge website
contest going on right now where I'm giving away baskets of Christian fiction and an iPod Nano! Only my newsletter YahooGroup subscribers are eligible to enter, so join today! (and mention you heard it here!)
1 comment:
Thanks so much for the interview, Sabrina!
Camy
Post a Comment