Book Synopsis – A Cask for You
All Bea wants is to fly to Scotland and write her steamy new book. Find a smoking hot Scotsman to model the hero on. She can do no-strings, in the name of art, right?
But Bea hasn’t met Cal Butler. Yet…
Bea Gracie, an American romance writer, flees to Edinburgh to escape her broken heart and find inspiration for her fictional love interest. And there he is – the stunning-yet-aloof Cal Butler – in the same Edinburgh coffee shop where Bea is tapping at her laptop. All she has to do is orchestrate a meet-cute and her muse is hers.
Drawn inexorably to each other, Bea and Cal agree to a no-strings fling so they can revel in guiltless passion with a firm end date. But Bea’s feelings for Cal grow like the wildflowers along the coastline of his homeland. Is it possible he harbours feelings for her, too, or is the fire in his kiss something he can safely pack away? And what will happen when this privacy-guarding hero finds out he’s been immortalised in Bea’s spicy novel?
If you love being transported along cobblestone streets and Scottish shores to meet Celtic heroes, then this steamy, contemporary Scottish romance is for you. Discover this passionate new series and fall hard for the Butlers.
Purchase Link – https://books2read.com/A-Cask-of-You
Author Bio
Amber Cooper is a Scottish romance author who lives in a wee flat in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a Scotsman and a Scotscat. When not writing, Amber can be found searching the internet for vintage furniture to upcycle, watching Eastenders (British soap where everyone is always shouting at each other), and going for walks whilst listening to her Spotify playlists and imagining dreamy scenes for her next novel.
Social Media Links – https://www.instagram.com/ambercooperbooks/
How did you get into writing?
My creative outlet used to be acting, but then I developed a chronic illness and writing became a way of creating characters and stories when I could no longer do it physically. Having said that, my initial writing plan was to be a copywriter, but I enrolled on a masters degree in writing and gravitated to the novel writing module instead of business writing, started writing a rom com and it all spiralled from there.
Is “A Cask for You” your first novel?
I’ve written seven and a half novels but this is my first published novel. There are the first three books in the Butler’s series as well as the free prequel. There is also a standalone second chance romance based in the village of Kinshore where the Butlers are from, but with non-Butler characters. I’ll hopefully publish that next year.
Sitting in a lonely drawer, there’s also a standalone rom com and a draft of what I wanted to be an epic love story about the triumph of love through chronic illness. Oh, and I wrote a children’s book about a cow that wants to be a footballer. From that, I discovered that children’s stories are not my forte but that cows are awesome.
Is writing your full-time job?
Sadly, not at the moment, no. I work as a part-time online psychology teacher.
Where did you come up with the idea for this book and this series?
I started A Cask of You in 2019, and it wasn’t an ‘a-ha” moment. I began it during a course in romance writing with the Professional Writing Academy here in the UK. Fragments of what I wanted to include came to me each week as we were asked to put together different elements of a romance novel (meet cute, sex scene, break up scene, etc.). So things like the setting being Edinburgh, whisky, a romance writer, a hero with a big family all pieced together bit by bit until I realised I loved this guy and wanted to meet all his brothers and sisters too. I wanted the vibe of the book to be evocative of Scotland. I am a bit obsessed with whisky in that regard: its colours, its vibrancy, its integration with the land itself. That is why I made the whisky distillery the fulcrum for the whole Butler family. I chose the Kintyre peninsula as their family home because I wanted them to be hardy Scottish water surfers and it combined with the whisky angle nicely.
There are 6 other books planned in the series, anything you want to tell us about the upcoming books?
Each book follows one of the Butler siblings: Jamie, Niall, Sean, Nate, Cara and Eilidh. The books will be set in Scotland, and each novel will spend some time in Kinshore, depending on the character. There is a lot of emphasis on the importance of family but also the characters’ personal issues. The books are steamy with some elements that you might find in romantic comedy such as mistaken identity or over the top meet cutes. But I like to keep the issues grounded in reality.
All the titles are whisky themed, containing words like ‘cask’, ‘measure’, ‘still’, ‘expression’, etc., although this may not be overtly obvious if you are not into whisky.
Book 2: Love Beyond Measure. This is a forced proximity, secret celebrity romance set at a snowed in remote hotel in Scotland and the village of Kinshore. Jamie Butler, the second of the Butler siblings has been left by his long-term girlfriend and is lacking belief in his ways with women. He heads to the hotel to clear his head and think how to improve the distillery finances before his father passes away. Actress, Alicia Jansen, has been revenge porn shamed by her actor ex and has fled to the same hotel to hide. There is instant attraction but Alicia doesn’t trust men, and Jamie, seeing that Alicia is hesitant of him, backs off immediately. The strength of this story is in the building trust between the couple and how Jamie’s holding back makes Alicia come to trust him more. But obviously there are still obstacles when they return to Kinshore because Alicia hasn’t dealt with her shame properly. It’s steamy and sweet with serious themes and fun times in a sauna!
Book 3: Always, Still. A second chance romance with former childhood sweethearts, Niall, a surf instructor, and Carli, a yoga teacher. Australian, Carli, stayed with the Butler family as a teenager after her mother died and fell in love and lost her virginity to Niall, who ghosted her after she left. Reunited at Niall’s father’s sixtieth birthday party, the flame reignites, but Niall has a lot of demons to get past before there is even a flicker of a chance that Carli will take him back. Tropes: second chance, tortured hero.
Book 4: This is forming in my head at the moment but is likely to see Sean and Cherry take part in an outward-bound challenge to raise funds for Motor Neurone Disease which Sean’s father is dying of. Tropes: impossible love, small age gap.
Book 5: Nate, the triplet sibling of Cara and Eilidh, is a hot vet who looks very nice with his top off holding kittens and other cute animals. I know this much – because it’s important to establish this sort of detail before anything else. 😉
Book 6: Cara, an actress, is Nate and Eilidh’s triplet sibling. This one is likely to be set on a Scottish movie set and the MMC may very well be Alicia’s brother Connor from book two.
Book 7: Eilidh, Nate and Cara’s triplet sibling, is a tough cookie who is a teacher at a challenging high school in Edinburgh. I am still working on a worthy hero for her.
Do you have other books planned outside of these?
There are always ideas spinning around. I would like to do things with the books I mentioned earlier, and I am playing with the idea of another series possibly with some secondary characters from this one. But I’ve got my hands full with this lot right now.
Anything specific you’d like me to know or highlight for the reader?
ARC opportunities for Love Beyond Measure will be coming July/August. You can sign up here.
The free prequel to the whole series, The Spirit of a Scotsman, is available to download here (email sign up required).
