Author event with Sarah McCoy and *The Baker's Daughter*

We had the great pleasure of hosting Sarah McCoy and The Baker’s Daughter at the bookshop this past weekend.

If you’ve followed Sarah on twitter (@SarahMMcCoy) or on her Facebook page, you have a sense of her fun, bubbly personality, and know what a treat she was!

The Baker’s Daughter is Sarah’s second novel. Her first, The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico, is a coming of age story; it’s out in paperback (and high on my to-be-read stack).

Sarah walked into the center of the bookshop wearing this gorgeous red cloche, very similar to that on the cover of the novel – what an entrance! Between the red hat and these kicking Texas cowboy boots, she represented both settings of the novel.

She opened by telling a little about the inspiration for The Baker’s Daughter. Sarah had met an elderly vendor at a farmer’s market. The vendor, originally from Germany, was selling delicious baked goods. That was the spark that got Sarah thinking – how and when did she come to the United States? What did she leave behind? What types of adjustments did she need to make? What sacrifices were offered? She showed us the journal in which she asked her questions and plotted possible answers (expect sales of Moleskine journals to soar in the areas of Sarah’s book tour!).

Sarah read an excerpt from each of the two strands of the story – that of Elsie, the elderly German baker, and that of Reba, the young journalist in El Paso.

She then sat and answered questions from the audience. These ranged from “how did you weave the two stories together?” to “where do the recipes come from?”.

The answer to the first is that Sarah outlines everything; she then wrote each woman’s story all the way through, then took them apart and pieced them back together to make them somewhat linear. Audience members commented on the seamless transitions between the stories (no abrupt shifts), and the appreciation for “voice” shown in the letters and notes the characters write.

As for the dozen or so recipes in the back of the book, these came from both Sarah’s mother and mother-in-law. Both families lived in Germany during military service, and still often cook these German specialties. The Tex-Mex recipes tie-in to the city that both Elsie and Reba have transplanted to.

I didn’t scale up one of the recipes to served at the bookshop, but we did have chocolate (a small consolation). I plan to bake one of the treats for a future #weekendCooking post. Any of the dishes will add a nice thematic treat to a book group discussion of The Baker’s Daughter.

Author events are always fun – this was especially enjoyable because of Sarah’s warm personality and the enthusiasm with which she greeted the audience. Many attendees had “met” her on Twitter and were able to make the face-to-face connection at this event. Really, those hugs were like those between college friends who hadn’t seen each other in years – big grins all around.

The Events page on Sarah McCoy’s website will show you the other spots she’s touring on this leg of her book tour. From Pennsylvania and Virginia, to Tucson and Nashville; Sarah will be racking up some frequent flyer miles!  I hope you can see her on one of her tour stops!