Today the spotlight shines on Bryce Stone & Sam Sinclaire

Loree Lough brings us a Christmas story in her latest novel in the popular Love Finds You series from Summerside. Combining a Christmas theme with a humourous and tender tale of finding love in the town of North Pole, Alaska! Enjoy this look behind the scenes:~

Brief physical description

Taken straight from the synopsis that ‘sold’ the story to Summerside:

BRYCE STONE

SAM SINCLAIRE
26
5’5” tall
115 lbs.
blue eyes
black hair (long, shiny, curly)
petite
chef
scars on knees; childhood fall from tree
a tad klutzy

Actor/famous person

While writing LFY in North Pole, I had a clear picture of a Tom Selleck (the way he looked while working on Magnum P.I.) as Bryce Stone. Can you just see Tom (sans mustache) with a black eye patch. Dre-e-eamy!

Samantha, could easily be played by Melina Kanakaredes, who plays the beautiful, dark-and-curly-haired cop on CSI New York. Only… Sam has blue eyes.

Strengths and weaknesses

Bryce, the only child of ‘hippy’ parents who died years before the story opens, is a stoic, wounded war hero who comes back from Afghanistan with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. If not for his injury, he’d have re-upped for another tour of duty; if his Aunt Olive (who’s been running Rudolph’s Christmas Emporium (his folks’ cluttered gift shop), Bryce probably wouldn’t have returned to North Pole. At least… not to live. He wants everything done “the Marine way”—even by civilians!—and has very little patience when things don’t fall neatly into place. Because Bryce has experienced a lot of sadness and loss in his life, he tends to seem stand-offish and reluctant to get close to people. But Sam proves to him that nothing could be further from the truth!

Sam, on the other hand, is the youngest of 8 kids. As the only girl in this big happy family, she has a lot to prove when she arrives in North Pole, contract in hand to take over chef duties at the town’s only hotel, where part of her salary includes a small suite above the restaurant. On her first day in town, Sam learns the owner has given the job to his nephew, leaving her jobless and homeless. She can’t go home, because that would only prove that her rowdy brothers were right when they teased that she couldn’t ‘cut it’ in the frozen north. Sam ‘settles’ for a job as the manager of a small gift shop in the center of town. Little does she know she’ll end up managing far more than the store!

Quirk (if any)

Sam loves Christmas, a fact that inspires grins and gentle chiding from her dad, who often worried when she was a little girl that if he didn’t rein in her enthusiasm, she might just decorate every nook and cranny of their house—inside and out!—and keep it that way, all year long.

Bryce, on the other hand, having grown up in “The Town Where It’s Christmas, All Year Long”, is pretty much fed up with reindeers, Santas, and elves. Play a Christmas carol in his presence, and his expression becomes a blend of Scrooge and the Grinch!

Your inspiration for the characters

My inspiration for Bryce was to pay tribute to all the brave men and women who don uniforms and make sacrifices every day of their military lives to ensure our freedom and safety.

Background to the story

Description: Not even a former marine is a match for the spunky Samantha Sinclair….

Bryce Stone has returned home from war-torn Afghanistan a broken and wounded man, and being back in “The town Where It’s Christmas All Year Long” doesn’t appeal to the self-admitted Scrooge. What’s worse, his aunt Olive retires, forcing him to postpone his dream of opening a carpentry shop to manage the family’s cluttered and cramped Christmas shop. He hires an inexperienced young woman to run the place, figuring that even if she fails, he can always sell “Rudolph’s Christmas Emporium”.

But he seriously underestimates Sam, who learned ‘stick with it’ from her seven older brothers. She has a lot to prove—to them, to Bryce, and to herself—and will stop at nothing to survive the frozen north.

It’s a battle of wills, and the two soon find that they’re fighting for more than just the success of the shop. After all, love—and Christmas—takes as many forms as the snowflakes that blanket the streets of North Pole!

Thanks, Loree! Just in time for Christmas 🙂

On Thursday, I will be spotlighting Jason Elam & Steve Yohn’s, Riley Covington from the soon to be released, Blackout, the third instalment in the Riley Covington Thriller series.

Relz Reviewz Extras

Review of Love Finds You in North Pole, Alaska

Visit Loree’s website

Buy Loree’s books at Amazon or Koorong