Welcome to my stop on the Unmasking Maya book tour Bonanza!
Yesterday I had my review of Unmasking Maya up. If you missed it, you can check it out HERE
Today I have a guest post and yummy giveaway for you š
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The odds are good, but the goods are odd.
This funny little saying is well known around the San Francisco Bay Area. It refers to the uneven ratio between men and women on the Peninsula, AKA Silicon Valley. In my latest novel, Unmasking Maya, Mayaās new friend, Lin, explains the idea behind the phrase. She says:
āItās, like, a rite of passage for single San Francisco women. They know the stats and figure, āhey, the Peninsula is packed with intelligent, single men with great jobs,ā so they traipse on down here only to find a whole lot of socially awkward oddballs.ā
Now, I must admit to having the exact same idea when I first moved to San Francisco as a single gal. Surely I wouldnāt have any trouble meeting my one true love when the odds were stacked so heavily in my favor. I soon signed up on a dating website and before long, I had a date.
He was nice ā very gentlemanly, not bad looking and clearly very smart. But, man, could that guy talk. He talked and he talked and he talked some more. For the most part, he seemed normal. Wellā¦ looking past the fact that he didnāt seem to understand how conversation is supposed to work, he seemed normal. But as he continued with his monologue, the red flags started popping up.
He liked cats. Great, I thought. I like cats. I had one at the time, and Iāve got two now. But he had five cats. Five. And he wrote down the web address to his Flickr account or whatever, so I could see all the photos heād taken of his cats. Because he had lots of really awesome ones, he said.
Um…
Later, he casually mentioned āone of his carsā. This led to a monologue about his four cars ā one for everyday use, one for driving to the mountains and two flashy sports cars he purchased just for fun. I knew he was trying to impress me with this and let me know how successful he was, but it didnāt work.
Iām not trying to come off all high and mighty. Sure, money is great. Iād love to date a guy who could afford nice dinners and maybe a weekend trip somewhere. But this guyās methodā¦ working his numerous fancy cars into the conversationā¦ it felt like heād pulled out a bank statement to show me, as he declared, āSee? I am a good catch!ā
We didnāt have a second date. The car thing was just symbolic of his insecurity, which I could understand and even relate to, but I couldnāt overlook the cat thing and the incessant chatter.
Not long after, I made some women friends who clued me into the San Francisco/Silicon Valley dating reality, and this is when I first heard the āodds are goodā saying.
According to these gals, most of the guys who work on the Peninsula are a bitā¦ off. Youāve got your gaming enthusiasts, and youāve got your Live Action Role Playing fans. A bit goofy, sure, but neither of these things is really a deal-breaker. Not for me, anyway. However, youāve also got your socially impaired left-brainers and your motherās basement types.
I should point out right now that not all the men who work in Silicon Valley fit these profiles. In fact, I have a couple of friends who are married to Peninsula guys who seem very normal. (And these are not the same friends who advised me against looking for love in Silicon Valley, by the way.) Still, that saying is quite well known around here, and surely not without basis.
You may wonder why on earth I chose to make Derek, the love interest in Unmasking Maya, a Silicon Valley guy. In many ways, he fits the profile. Heās extremely left-brained, and his social skills are a bit questionable. I guess Iām just fascinated by these highly intelligent people, and I enjoyed figuring out what happened in Derekās past to make him the man he is today. And to be honest, I think itās the weird quirks and the oddities that make a person truly attractive. Iāve always had a bit of a thing for oddballs.
Thanks so much for having me here today, Michelle!
Thank YOU so much for being here Libby š
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Published December 12th 2012
Age Group: Adult
Source: eARC from author
Series: N/A- standalone
Buy this Book: Amazon Kindle
Summary:
Defamed, Disgraced and Displaced…
Fresh from a career-killing scandal, New York fashion girl, Maya Kirkwood, arrives in San Francisco to reinvent herself as a fine artist. She’s offered the opportunity to create an installation at the Silicon Valley headquarters of a hot new tech company. Fabulous, right?
Not so much.
She can’t stand Derek Whitley – wunderkind software genius and CEO of the company. Hot as he may be on the outside, inside the man is a cold, unemotional, robotic type. Way too left-brained for her right-brained self.
As Maya and Derek get to know each other, however, their facades begin to crack. She catches her first glimpse of the man behind the superhuman tech prodigy, and he starts to see her as the woman she used to be. But is this a good thing? Once that last secret is revealed, will it bring them closer together or will it tear them apart?
Author bio:
Born and raised in the Midwest, Libby Mercerās adventurous spirit kicked in after graduating from high school, and sheās since lived in Boston, NYC and London. San Francisco is the city she currently calls home. For several years, Libby worked in fashion ā first as a journalist and then as a shopkeeper. She also dabbled in design for a while. Even through the crazy fashion years, Libby never let go of her dream of being a published author, and has since developed her signature writing style, crafting quirky chick lit/romance hybrids. Fashioning a Romancewas her first published novel, and Unmasking Maya will be her second. Libby has a third novel, The Karmic Connection, scheduled for release in 2013.
Connect with Libby:
Libby is giving away this delicious assortment box of Ghirardelli chocolates. Yum!
To enter fill out the rafflecopter below:
Rules:
-Must be 16+
-Open to US only
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Bwahaha.. I love this post. I soooo know “those guys” and totally gravitate to them.
I wonder if Libby would have felt differently if her date had 5 dogs instead of 5 cats.
Teeheehe. I’m so glad you enjoyed the post, Christy! I think 5 dogs would have been just as worrisome, but in a different sort of way. More crazy, less bizarre if that makes any sense at all. š Thanks for reading!