Inspired by Netflix’s baking competition Nailed It!, I set out to recreate the colourful, sugar crave-inducing cover of my new release, Have Your Cake my latest contemporary romance set in Camden, London, about a woman forced to reinvent herself and a man forced to reconsider his priorities…

It was pouring rain at the time. There was a baby whizzing about my feet, stealing my tea towel and tunelessly smashing spare measuring cups on the floor. Everything was done in short bursts, as is most of life as a parent. But wow, it was fun. Messy, tasty fun which broke up the long days of self-isolation at home.
And I’d like to think the end result might have earned me Nailed It’s prized golden chef’s hat. Or at the very least, a good laugh from the judges!

via GIPHY

Ingredients:

• Packet cake mix
• Eggs
• Milk
• Butter
• Ready-made icing
• Food colouring.

Materials:
• For the flower pot I found something similar in my garden shed
• For the background I taped four hot pink manilla folders together
• For the pretty material square beneath the bouquet I used one of my daughter’s Size 0 shirts
• For the name card I used brown cardboard, crème cardstock, and leftover ribbon from a baby sensory activity, and my name was done on my home printer.
• There is a Styrofoam craft ball in the centre, more sticky tape than I want to confess to, and toothpicks holding the cupcakes in place.
• To replicate the hand, I attached exactly three acrylic nails to my left hand for approximately three minutes, then shed the glamour.

So what do you think? Did I “nail it”?

Elise K. Ackers

Elise K. Ackers is a freelance editor and award winning fiction author of contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and young adult fiction.

Elise has completed undergraduate studies in Psychology and Communications, and post-graduate studies in Professional Publication and Editing. She’s been writing since she could hold a crayon and telling stories all her life. She’s a magnet for unusual accidents, a laser tag enthusiast, and an animal adoption advocate. Elise travels wherever she can, whenever she can.

Can she have it all? Or will starting over leave a bad taste in her mouth?

Abigail Mullins is in the business of happy ever afters. Owner of a London boutique cake shop, she caters to brides wishing to express themselves in unusual ways, and relishes her small, creative life.
That quiet life is disturbed when intriguing, albeit lonely, socialite Dillon Wheeler literally crashes into her life, and one of her clever cake concepts becomes an overnight sensation. Now the media is asking questions about the woman behind the cake. Not only does this new-found popularity threaten the anonymous life she’s created, but it brings in a customer who might otherwise never have found her. A customer from Abigail’s life before London, who knows what Abigail did to escape it, and who could ruin everything.
For who’s going to trust her with their happy ever after once they know what she did to sabotage her own?

Find it here