En pocas palabras: Javier J. Jaspe
Washington D.C.
The 2024 National Book Festival was
held in the nation’s capital at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday,
August 24, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Several programs were livestreamed, and video
of all talks can be viewed online after the Festival’s conclusion.
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/
Una lista completa de los autores que participaron en el
Festival Nacional del Libro de 2024
(FNL2024) puede verse
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/authors/
La
serie que continuamos hoy se refiere a escritores de origen latino que
participaron en el FNL2024. Su objeto no consiste en realizar un análisis de su
obra, sino el de publicar material encontrado en Internet relacionado con la
misma y sus autores. Los textos de Internet se transcribirán en itálicas, en
español o inglés, según sea el caso, con indicación de su fuente. Esta sexta
entrega se refiere a Abby Jimenez. Veamos:
Abby
Jimenez
Abby Jimenez is a No. 1 New York Times bestselling romance
author. Her novels have sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into
28 languages. She has received a Good Morning America Book Club pick, a Book of
the Month’s Book of the Year Award and a Minnesota Book Award. Before her
writing career, Jimenez was in the national spotlight as a “Cupcake Wars”
champion and founder of Nadia Cakes bakery, which has gone on to win numerous
Food Network competitions and amass an international following. Her latest
novel, “Just for the Summer,” is featured at the 2024 National Book Festival.
EN: https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/authors/item/n2018063925/abby-jimenez/
Videos en el FNL2024:
PBS Books 2024 National Book Festival Author Talk:
Abby Jimenez
EN:
https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/schedule/item/webcast-11415/
Abby Jimenez and Casey
McQuiston: Modern Dating, We Love It, We Hate It
EN:
https://www.loc.gov/events/2024-national-book-festival/schedule/item/webcast-11491/
Selected Works at the Library of Congress
EN:
https://www.loc.gov/search/?all=true&sb=date_desc&uf=contributor:jimenez,%20abby
Website de la autora:
https://www.authorabbyjimenez.com/
Biografía de la autora en Wikipedia:
EN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abby_Jimenez_(writer)
Entrevistas/Reportajes
Abby Jimenez's journey from baker to bestselling author
Abby Jimenez has a sweet tooth for love.
Image….
April 2,
2024, 4:57 PM EDT
By Kelly Vaughan
EN: https://www.today.com/popculture/books/abby-jimenez-author-interview-rcna145924
Abby Jimenez's fans devour her
cupcakes and her
romance novels. The author of "The Friend Zone" and her most recent,
"Just for the Summer," is at the top of her literary and culinary
games.
“These are my hobbies. Baking
was always a hobby for me, writing was always also a hobby for me. I just
happen to be able to do things that other people like, which is great,” Jimenez
tells TODAY.com.
The winding tale of Jimenez's
twin careers begins in 2007. At the time, Jimenez was working as a retail
manager when she got pregnant with her third baby in three years.
Six months later, she lost her job and found herself scrambling to earn enough
money to pay the bills.
"I decided to take some
cake decorating classes at the local Michael’s just to distract myself from how
depressed I was,” Jimenez says.
What was supposed to be a
band-aid on a temporary financial hardship became the foundation of Jimenez’s
success.
Image….
On launching her baking business
Jimenez never intended to start selling her baked goods, let
alone open and operate a brick-and-mortar bakery. But the bills kept piling up
and so she saw only one choice: to launch Nadia Cakes, named after her middle
child, from her house.
AD….
For two years, Jimenez
baked and sold assorted cupcakes from her California home while her three
children climbed on her as if she were monkey bars.
Jimenez, who says that
she was chronically exhausted, ended up developing carpal tunnel in both of her
hands. “My nerve damage was so bad in my right hand that (the doctor) said
‘surgery on Friday,’” she says.
While Jimenez was
recovering, she found herself on the brink of a mental and financial breakdown.
“I told my husband, ‘I
can’t keep doing this.’ People who do this either have a bakery or they have a
daycare,” she remembers saying.
Jimenez was operating
both, all while descending into deeper debt. Her husband casually suggested
that they open up a formal bakery, an idea that Jimenez says she gawked at. Yet
she found herself begging a local bank to offer her a loan.
After securing a $5,000
loan, Jimenez recalls the “scary” moment when she and her husband charged
$125,000 additional opening expenses to their credit cards.
“We were so broke. We
were like, ‘this is really all or nothing.’ We’re either going to be successful
and have a bakery or we’re going to lose our house, our cars, we’re gonna lose
everything,” she says.
If Jimenez’s life was a
fairytale, this next moment would be one in which she’d be garnished with pixie
dust and sent to step into her new fantastical life.
In 2009, she opened the
doors to Nadia Bakes in Palmdale, California to “instant success” with “lines
wrapped around the building.”
The bakery made a name
for itself with its geode cakes, which looked like they were cut from the side
of a crystal. One cake broke the internet for its resemblance to a certain body part.
Jimenez says that she
couldn’t keep up with the demand, so her husband quit his job as a retail
manager to join her formally as CFO, handling the financial and logistical side
of the business.
Within six months, she
was cast on TLC’s “Fabulous Cakes,” followed by Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars,”
where she won $10,000 for her Rose Bowl-inspired display of cupcakes.
At that time, she found
herself ready to open a second location, but the oversaturation of cupcake
shops in California encouraged her to look East.
“We really wanted to
move somewhere where there were seasons. So we took a five-week cross-country
trip with all the kids in the car and drove through 23 states. When we came to
Minnesota, we were like, ‘This is nice,’” she says.
Within three months, her
family packed up their California home, trading in palm trees for parkas in The
North Star State.
Photograph….
On stumbling into her writing career
After opening not just
one, but two locations in Minnesota, Jimenez once again found herself itching
for something new, so she turned a page and picked up a romance novel, her
go-to genre.
“I was chasing a certain
kind of romance and I had a really hard time finding it. I wanted something
that was funny, but also had depth. I wanted to read stories that felt
realistic, like they were people I would know. I had such a hard time finding
exactly what I wanted and I was like, ‘You know what, maybe I can write my own
romance,’” Jimenez says.
It’s at this point that
I decide, if given the opportunity, I would be hesitant to accompany Jimenez to
an amusement park. She strikes me as someone who only moves at one speed —
which is faster than humanly possible — and never looks back. But she corrects
me.
“You know, I am really
not a risk-taker actually. I’m very risk-averse. My husband is the one that’s
like, ‘No, you can do this,’” she says.
The self-proclaimed
risk-averse writer decided to write what she describes as a YA dystopian novel
that was “absolutely terrible.”
After receiving some
advice from a literary agent, she decided to try her hand at writing a
contemporary romance novel. Again, Jimenez submitted the book to a new literary
agent, who decided to take her on as a client.
If you’re reading this
and thinking that Jimenez was born under a rainbow and sleeps on a pot of gold,
she’ll be quick to correct you too.
“It was not all sunshine
and roses after that. After that, everything was hard,” Jimenez says.
She says she was in
submission to publishers for so long that she had enough time for her to write
a draft of her second book, "The Friend Zone."
“Nine months into this,
we ended up getting an offer for a three-book deal and I got two offers on the
same day,” Jimenez says. Now, you may start to reconsider that pot of
gold.
Jimenez’s sixth book,
“Just for the Summer,” will be released on April 2, 2024 but she’s well on her
way to doubling her batch.
“I have two more books
after that that I have book deals for. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop
because I love it too much.”
In some ways, her
writing process hasn’t changed since those early dystopian days. Success has
meant that she now has a lake house she can retreat to when she needs to “bust
out 10,000 words” but most of the time, you’ll find her writing on the sofa in
her living room with her laptop resting on her body.
She likens her home to
an “international airport,” with three teenagers and four dogs passing through
at any given time. “It’s very distracting and not conducive.”
Still, Jimenez says she
has a tendency to complete her drafts a few months before deadline. “If I’m
turning my book in on deadline, I feel like I’m late,” she says.
On learning about life in a love stories
Jimenez’s books, which
are all interconnected, fit squarely into the romantic-comedy genre, with funny
scenes bordering the steamy ones.
Don’t call them light,
though. Her books have more serious threads stitched between the pages with
characters who are dealing with anxiety, domestic abuse and
infertility. It was an intentional choice, but not an immediately welcome
one, Jimenez says.
Her newest book, “Just
for the Summer” touches on “the effects that your childhood can have on your
relationships as an adult.”
“One thing that I heard
a lot of during the rejection period was, ‘We’re looking for lighter fiction.
We’re looking for lighter romance right now,’” Jimenez says.
She says those responses
were frustrating.
“I can’t picture writing
anything that doesn’t have these more important themes because romance takes
place in the folds of everyday life. These are the real things that happen to
real people when they’re falling in love,” Jimenez says.
Jimenez believes that
her inclusion of real-life situations is her strong suit. “Every single one of
my books now is run through a rigorous beta read team and rigorous sensitivity
read. I find advisors for important themes in every single one of my books,
which is why they feel so authentic and they feel so accurate,” Jimenez says
proudly.
Quotation ….
At the same time, she’s
found that the stigma around romance novels has changed. Readers and publishers
alike know more than to expect romance authors to present a fluffy manuscript
that can be read in one sitting, then tossed aside.
“When I started writing,
there were bookstores that simply didn’t carry romance. I find that less and
less now. It’s very rare now that I walk into an indie bookstore and can’t find
a romance section. Not only are publishers taking the genre more seriously, I
think that sellers are taking it more seriously," she says.
“I think a lot of people learn how to be in healthy, non-toxic
relationships through reading the right kind of romance.”
Kelly Vaughan Recipe Editor Today
/////////////////////
Review: Are Abby Jimenez’s Books Worth the
Hype?
August
30, 2024
written by STEPHANIE MCKINLEY
The Everygirl’s product selections are curated
by the editorial team. If you buy something through our links, we may earn an
affiliate commission, at no cost to you. We only recommend products we
genuinely love.
EN:
https://theeverygirl.com/abby-jimenez-books-review/
I
first read The Friend Zone, Abby Jimenez’s debut romance
novel, when it came out in 2019, and I rated it five
stars on Goodreads—I knew from the start that she had something special as a
writer. However, for whatever reason, I didn’t read the rest of Abby’s novels
until this year. All of them were sitting on my bookshelf, so I honestly don’t
know what was stopping me from reading them—but when Just for the Summer was all over my feed starting this spring, I
knew it was time to return to Abby Jimenez’s literary worlds. In this book
lover’s opinion, her books are absolutely worth the hype. Here’s why:
AD…..
In
this article
1 Why I love
Abby Jimenez’s Books
2 Is there spice
in Abby Jimenez’s books?
3 Do you have to
read Abby Jimenez’s books in order?
4 Where I think
you should start with Abby Jimenez’s books
Why I love
Abby Jimenez’s Books
In Abby Jimenez books,
we get to see the point-of-view of both parties in the relationship. This means
we get to see every love story unfold
from two perspectives. We know when he first found her attractive and when she
first thought of him as something more. We know how hard it was for her to wait
for the first kiss and how good it feels for him when he finally gets to touch
her.
And
most importantly, we know how much each couple in Abby’s novels cares for each
other. We know that he would conquer his biggest fear in order to be with her
and that she would finally stay in one place long enough to fall hard for him.
We know that they are in love.
They don’t shy away from real-life issues
No matter if a
character is struggling with family, work, or health, Abby
handles the issue with care. Justin makes the best of his situation, getting
help when he accepts that he can’t do it on his own. Alexis continues to forge
her own path, addressing the challenges in her relationships as they come.
Vanessa lives life to the fullest but still breaks down in honest moments of
fear. The love interests in each romance novel are always there to lift each
other up in times of need instead of distracting from the challenge at hand or
making it harder for the other character.
They’re both serious and hilarious
Abby’s characters are always going through tough times, but that doesn’t mean they can’t laugh along the way. You’ll be cracking up at Kristen’s ability to constantly fluster Sloan with her absolute lack of a filter in The Happy Ever After Playlist. You’ll chuckle at the creative dates Daniel plans for Alexis in Part of Your World. The humor infused in these books is what makes them so fun to read because life isn’t always heavy—sometimes, the more challenging moments are intertwined with hilarious ones.
Is there spice in Abby Jimenez’s books?
Ah, the most important question for picking up a new romance novel: How much spice is there on a scale of 1-5 chili peppers? Frankly, Abby Jimenez books are not the spiciest romances out there, probably landing around one chili pepper. You can expect a couple of spicy scenes in each book, but nothing that’s going to get your heart rate up. And that’s totally fine! Sometimes, we need romances that are a little on the sweeter side.
AD…..
Do you have
to read Abby Jimenez’s books in order?
I am not a fan of getting lost in a series. My TBR list is so huge that it’s hard enough to pick the next book I read, never mind the next several. What I love the most about Abby Jimenez’s books is that reading another one makes me love the previous one even more.
Abby’s books are not sequential or character-focused in the way Sarah J. Maas’s books are, but they go farther
than your average companion novel. Each book follows a different couple, but a
narrator in a previous book will likely show up as a side character in the next
book. For example, Kristen and Sloan of The Friend Zone and The Happy Ever After Playlist are best friends. Without giving too much away,
the narrators in Part of Your World and Just for the Summer are more related
than I ever could have guessed.
AD…..
For that reason, while each
book can be read as a standalone, you’ll get the best experience out of Abby
Jimenez books if you read them in publication order. Technically, The Friend Zone, The Happy Ever After
Playlist, and Life’s Too Short are all related, while Part of Your World, Yours Truly, and Just for the Summer are each connected. Does six books feel like too big of a
commitment? You can start with Part of Your World, the first book in her second series. Here’s what you need to
know about each book:
Images
relating to Abby Jimenez’s books….
Where I
think you should start with Abby Jimenez’s books
Still not convinced that Abby Jimenez’s books are worth the hype? You can dip a toe into her writing style with Worst Wingman Ever, a short story in The Improbable Meet-Cute, a Kindle series by Amazon. At only 61 pages, it’s the perfect way to get a taste of Abby’s books. Following a hospice nurse and the “worst wingman ever” who accidentally exchange tons of notes before finally meeting face-to-face, this short story will have you laughing and crying, just like all of Abby’s novels.
Meet the author
Stephanie McKinley, Contributing Entertainment
Writer
Stephanie is a
freelance writer and product designer living in Charlotte, NC. She has been a
Contributing Entertainment Writer for The Everygirl since 2021. She regularly
reads over 100 books per year across young adult contemporary, women’s fiction,
romance, thriller, and more.
////////////////////////
Finally Read My First Abby Jimenez! — Just For The Summer by Abby
Jimenez {Book Review}
By Lindsey
April 19, 2024
///////////////////////
Abby Jimenez’s Yours Truly: My
Review
By
Shanea Patterson - SP Publishing
Feb
22, 2024
EN: https://authorshaneapatterson.medium.com/abby-jimenezs-yours-truly-my-review-dbab38bfcf46
////////////////////////
Abby Jimenez Books in Spanish
EN:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/contributor/abby-jimenez/_/N-2z93Z1z13w9s
/////////////////////
Videos/Podcasts
The Jason Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjPaJVVVw7E&t=5s
Arizona’s
Family (3TV/CBS 5):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SF75xRTJLA
Bethany
Atazadeh – YA Fantasy A…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B29PNebiiQ4&t=9s
También puede
verse:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18446724.Abby_Jimenez
https://www.instagram.com/authorabbyjimenez/?hl=en
https://x.com/authorabbyjim?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/authorabbyjimenez/
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