For romance novelist Abby Jimenez, it’s one happy ending after another

Abby Jimenez is renowned for her romance novels a number of which have become bestsellers Her seventh book Say You ll Remember Me is being issued Tuesday But prior to becoming an author the Twin Cities resident gained fame as a baker She has appeared on cooking shows such as TLC s Fabulous Cakes and the Food Configuration s Cupcake Wars Jimenez s local fans can get their fill of their idol at her Nadia Cakes cupcake shops in Maple Grove and Woodbury Coffee is on tap Specialty cupcakes such as Unicorn Poop a tradition for April Fools are at the ready Stacks of her books signed of subject are available for purchase And her social media It s a hoot Place a special order for her vagina-shaped cake which has quite a viral backstory Jimenez says she is living her dream married to her one true love we ll call the shy guy Mr Jimenez who is her business partner and upon which the men in her novels are to one degree or another based A bakery is born The couple met at Express the clothing retailer where both worked as high-volume store managers in California Jimenez was pregnant with her third child in when she lost her job and at about the same time her beloved day care arrangement went by the wayside It was kind of a shocking situation to be in all of a sudden she declared I was depressed I was devastated In what would be a decisive life s moment Jimenez signed up for cake-decorating classes at her local Michaels for several months She figured she could sell cakes out of her home even with her young children getting their paws into the ingredients In Nadia Cakes the nickname of her second daughter was born Abby Jimenez Courtesy of Ryan LaPlante I would do by myself what now takes four full-time people to do she reported I baked every cake I decorated every cake I did every consultation I did all the billing I did everything All the deliveries She developed a affair of carpal tunnel syndrome so nasty it required surgery so Mr Jimenez suggested they open a proper bakery with a full staff but they had no money So in what she calls a banana pants move they put on credit card checks with no interest for a year We were so cash-poor that we didn t even have enough in the register to make change It was very very very scary she noted The gamble paid off The day we opened in we opened to immediate success she declared All the people who came to order cakes out of my house exhibited up and supported the business And within three weeks of Nadia Cakes opening my husband quit his full-time job to become CFO of our business Jimenez did a good job of putting her store on the map so calls from pastry-related reality shows such as TLC s Fabulous Cakes and the Food Structure s Cupcake Wars began to roll in Jimenez her staff and her store were suddenly collectively TV stars Fabulous Cakes had a relaxed documentary-style format that wasn t as popular but it was a lot more fun to do Jimenez disclosed Cupcake Wars is a competition show that s more stressful She recounted a camera at the time I am an extremely competitive person I will run through that kitchen and do whatever it takes I will not stop until I win Cupcake Wars In she did Minnesota-bound The Jimenezes were starting to plan where to put their kids in schools and it was looking like California wouldn t be it We were also looking at other you know places to open up bakeries she declared And we just kind of realized we didn t want to do it in California It s really expensive to have a business in California And so we thought You know what Let s take a five-week cross-country trip to see if there s any other place that we want to live That s how we discovered Minnesota After setting up her Maple Grove store in and the Woodbury one in she took up the second of her major hobbies writing Her first book-length project a dystopian young-adult novel flopped in her online writers group but a rom-com was a hit Egged on by the other group members she began hunting for an agent Her manuscript would eventually become the popular The Happy Ever Playlist Another of her novels The Friend Zone would end up being published first RELATED Abby Jimenez s romance novels as ranked by our reader Rom-coms are so much easier to write because they are set in the real world Jimenez explained Romance exists in the folds of everyday life she explained You know like Sloan in Happy Ever is dealing with complicated grief when she meets Jason or more precisely Jason s dog who tumbles through her car s sunroof Jason has issues of his own Abby Jimenez speaks to her fans at a gathering in New Ulm Minn on Feb Courtesy of Jennifer Brandes Alexis in Part of Your World is suffering mental and emotional abuse from her ex while trying to nurture a relationship with a man in a far-off town Of subject I did a ton of research on domestic violence Jimenez mentioned And I urged in my reader group if there were any domestic violence advocates or survivors who could help advise me on the book I had them read copies as I wrote them Brianna of Yours Truly has another difficulty Her brother is desperately in need of a kidney transplant with dim prospects of ever obtaining one Jimenez ripped this topic from her own life In her hair started falling out She was diagnosed with an autoimmune sickness that was attacking her kidneys She is now in remission but remembers the very real possibility that I might at certain point in my life need a transplant It was a terrifying time Readers seem to like Jimenez s authenticity Part of Your World was a No New York Times bestseller in Life s too Short won the Minnesota Book Award for genre fiction Going viral When her agent took her on she instructed Jimenez to set up constituents personal social media profiles to promote her books I m a private person so I very reluctantly signed up for authorabbyjimenez profiles on Facebook Instagram and X And you know I didn t have too multiple followers out of the gate But then the vageode thing happened A Nadia Cakes geode rock cake with pink frosting and a gash of rock candy down the side went viral in January because it looked an awful lot like a vagina When messages began coming in social media manager Jimenez had choices She could have hurriedly pulled the product or deleted the messages Instead she faced the social-media storm head-on In a cupboard at Nadia Cakes in Maple Grove in March are key pieces of Abby Jimenez s life Along the top are samples of her continuing career as a baker To the right is the viral vageode a geode cake that looks like a vagina Along the bottom are signed copies of her romantic comedies through Julio Ojeda-Zapata Pioneer Press Instead of being offended by what everybody was saying or just deleting the post I engaged with and was giggling with them and using that to sell my product she revealed The message thread with Jimenez s memorable posts is still available on Facebook The vageode fuss had a tangible effect on my book sales even though it didn t take place on her personal Facebook account It definitely did Her social media use took a critical turn in when she joined TikTok and counterintuitively reduced mentions of her books to a trickle she kept the book promos on full blast on her other channels Instead TikTok is where she now nurtures a reader group focused largely on hijinks in her household often including Stuntman Mike Tess and her two other dogs along with her daughter Maya who plays musical instruments and delights in sparring with mom one such video has logged more than million views Mr Jimenez is media-shy but makes cameos His moustachioed appearance lakeside to bring his wife tacos made her fans swoon Every man that I write into my romance novels is one part that man she stated on the video They do exist In another video Mr Jimenez had a bit of fun with the vasectomy he had just undergone Pictures show him with an animal cone around his head and a this stud has been retired sign hanging from his neck I love that man Jimenez murmured on the video At a California airport one day she had the coolest reader interaction story I have maybe ever had Her husband happened to spot a young commuter with a cool backpack The girl turned around saw her and gasped Jimenez reported They were both bound for a romance book conference The girl s birthday was the next day It felt like a birthday for Jimenez too because the girl had two of her books in that bag and she was able to sign the novels and take pictures Another such chance encounter in an airport concourse made her want to cry that was so cool she stated I think I was as excited to meet her as she was excited to meet me Jimenez has become TikTok-notorious so plenty of times in so several venues that she has had to assemble connect-the-dots videos for her viewers so they can grasp the scope of her personal and professional personas Her new book