Author Post : Tamara Matya and Missed Connections

My Inspiration for MISSED CONNECTIONS

When I was younger than I am right now, I lived in a house with the best friends you could ever have. (But you can’t have them because they’re still mine.)

And one day I came home from work, and my roommate Gen pulled me aside and said, “You’ve got to see what’s in the basement.” Now, for her to say this to me was quite a thing, as we were a little wilder in those days. So, I followed her downstairs where a couple of our other roommates were DJing…and there was this beautiful new friend of theirs we’d never met.

Gen shot me ‘I told you’ eyes when I gave her ‘The look,’ and we eagerly awaited the return of our other girlfriend so we could show her the beautiful DJ in our basement as well.

Our jets were cooled considerably when we learned of this DJ’s reputation for naked shenanigans. Hearing about one night, where DJ Madhead, as he was called, had a line of 13 girls waiting for him in his DJ booth was enough incentive that none of us ever did anything with him.

Now, I feel like that’s slutshaming—because if you’re safe and get checked, who cares what your “number” is—man or woman. But years later, it got me thinking about partners who are “off limits.”

I also discovered Missed Connections and, to be honest, still find them fascinating. I knew I had to incorporate these into a book somehow, and found the perfect match with my character Sarah—who was spending way too much time on the computer surfing the internet after losing her job.

Missed Connections is a romance, but it’s also very much a fish out of water story based very loosely on the time I worked for hippies at a new age spa. Now, I have worked in a few clinics in my life—and indeed, I took bits and pieces from each job I’ve ever had, some in administration in other sectors, some only from job interviews I’d had with some, um, interesting characters. Some aspects were completely made up for comedic value, but I wanted Sarah to be in a place where the people are so different from her that they stretch her boundaries.

I wanted to show a darker side of people who profess only to be doing good. I wanted to show someone who needed to stay true to herself when the pressure to compromise came from all sides—hell, even from INSIDE herself!

I wanted to take all of those, a partner who is “off-limits” and also incorporate technology in a sexy way with the communications between Sarah and her Missed Connection.

Missed Connections is also about perception. How we perceive people has more to do with ourselves than anything else.

Is Jack just a DJ who is never going to grow up?

Is Phyllis just a stunned nightmare coworker?

Is Sarah unfairly judging her bosses?

We apply filters to photos to change the way people see them, not always realizing that our hearts and expectations already do the same every day to the people we see around us. Sometimes drastic measures are needed to get someone to really see us for who we are—not who they think we are.

All these ideas came crashing together and ended up becoming Missed Connections—the posts themselves are also very much about the way we influence others when we might think no one notices us. We go through life making moments, sometimes with loved ones, other times with strangers.

But noticing them when they happen is where the real magic lies.

And if you don’t notice them when they happen? Maybe there’s a Missed Connections post about you!

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Missed Connections by Tamara Mataya

Series: Summer Love, Book 1

ISBN: 9781492621218

Release Date: June 7, 2016

Genre: Contemporary Romance

About the Book

Missed Connection: I saw you standing there, and I was struck by your eyes. Gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as your smile.

Thanks to her job at a crazy New Age spa, what should have been a sizzling NYC summer is being hijacked by demanding hippie bosses. To unwind, Sarah spends her nights cruising Missed Connections, dreaming of finding an uber-romantic entry all about her. Of course, the moment she finds that Missed Connection, real life comes crashing down around her in a night of unbridled passion with someone completely different: totally off-limits Jack.

Best. Hookup. Ever.

Gorgeous and wealthy, hot as sin, Jack can give Sarah everything she needs—except an emotional connection. That she gets from her Missed Connection, the romantic stranger who never fails to make her swoon. But there’s only so much of Sarah to go around. Torn between the bad boy she can’t keep and the sensitive stranger who bares his soul online, her heart and body are soon in two very different relationships…or are they?

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About the Author

Tamara Mataya is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, a librarian, and a musician with synesthesia. Armed with a name tag and a thin veneer of credibility, she takes great delight in recommending books and shushing people. She puts the 'she' in TWSS and the B in LGBTQIA+.

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