Happy Thursday and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for LOVE FROM SCRATCH! I’m so excited because today I have an interview with Kaitlyn Hill to share with you! This book is truly amazing and I’m so excited to for you to find out more about it!
Love from Scratch by Kaitlyn Hill Published on April 5, 2022 by Delacorte Press
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, YA
Pages: 368
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Author Links: Website, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram
This summer, Reese Camden is trading sweet tea and Southern hospitality for cold brew and crisp coastal air. She's landed her dream marketing internship at Friends of Flavor, a wildly popular cooking channel in Seattle. The only problem? Benny Beneventi, the relentlessly charming, backwards-baseball-cap-wearing culinary intern--and her main competition for the fall job.
Reese's plan to keep work a No Feelings Zone crumbles like a day-old muffin when she and Benny are thrown together for a video shoot that goes viral, making them the internet's newest ship. Audiences are hungry for more, and their bosses at Friends of Flavor are happy to deliver. Soon Reese and Benny are in an all-out food war, churning homemade ice cream, twisting soft pretzels, breaking eggs in an omelet showdown--while hundreds of thousands of viewers watch.
Reese can't deny the chemistry between her and Benny. But the more their rivalry heats up, the harder it is to keep love on the back burner...
What would you do if you spent the day with Reese and Benny? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?
Ooh, I would definitely want to have them cook something for me at the Friends of Flavor kitchens where they work, because I’d want to witness the cuteness and banter from their videos in real life. Then we’d probably hit some of my favorite Seattle spots! Molly Moon’s for ice cream, the Fremont Sunday Market (assuming it’s a Sunday in this imaginary scenario), Gasworks Park to watch the boats on Lake Union, ride a ferry for no real reason except that they’re fun. We’d end the day at Golden Gardens, where Reese and Benny have their first date, because the sunsets there are amazing!
If Reese and Benny were to hang out with other fictional characters, who would they be and why?
Okay, I love this question because it’s my chance to finally speak my truth that Reese and Benny are (very) loosely a modern day Katherine Plummer and Jack Kelly from Newsies. They would hang out with those two, because they’re totally the fictional couple I had in mind when writing R & B and the ways they banter, fight for a cause together, and ever so reluctantly fall for each other. Maybe their time together could involve some spontaneous singing and dancing about injustice, too, as a treat.
If there was one fictional place you could travel to for a day, where would it be and why?
The first YA series I really fell head over heels for was Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls, so I think I would go to the Gallagher Academy. I always wanted to go deep into the sublevels and see all the spy school classrooms, live out my boarding school dreams living with my cool fellow-spies-in-training, practice my covert operations skills by spying on people in the secret tunnels… I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. ☺
If you buried a time capsule with three items inside, what three items would you choose and why?
This is a tough one! I’d probably put a copy of Love from Scratch now, haha. I might cross-stitch something special to me because I love cross-stitching, and then add some bags of my favorite tea. Will it make the capsule smell good, or expire and smell terrible? That’s for the future opener of the capsule to find out.
What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?
There was a scene where Reese and Benny went to Pike Place Market and got to be fishmongers for a day, but I had to cut it for pacing reasons. It still gets referenced in passing, but I did some research on what it’s like to be a fishmonger and to work at that specific market that I didn’t need in the end! In short, I would be so bad at that job.
What is your favorite quote, scene, or moment from Love From Scratch?
There’s a scene in which Reese and Benny have a tense, flirty, food pun-filled altercation in a pantry, and it was probably my favorite to write. Every time I read it, I’m mentally snickering and yelling, “JUST KISS ALREADY!” I hope it’s just as fun for others to read!
Thank you so much!! <3 Kaitlyn
About Kaitlyn Hill
Kaitlyn Hill is a writer, reader, and sweet tea enthusiast who believes that all the world is not, in fact, a stage, but a romance novel waiting to happen. Her debut novel Love from Scratch is out now from Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House.
Kaitlyn has a BA in Sociology/Anthropology and German Studies, which means that she can tell you way too much about the Communist Manifesto in Karl Marx’s mother tongue. Before landing on writing, she worked in roles from city government intern in a small German town to Haunted Mansion Maid at Walt Disney World, and most recently, at her hometown public library.
Aside from books, Kaitlyn's favorite things are giraffes, ABBA, and excessively long naps. She lives with her real life romance hero in Lexington, Kentucky.
What do you think about Love From Scratch? Have you added it to your tbr yet? Let me know in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
Pike’s Place Market holds special memories for me. I have an apron with the market fish logo on it that always reminds me of my trip there. I can’t wait to read this book.