Guest Post Plus Giveaway : Jamie Baywood (Author Of Getting Rooted In New Zealand)

Today, we have Jamie Baywood recounting her experiences in New Zealand and her inspiration to penning her memorable debut:  

It was always my dream to live abroad when I was growing up in California.  I had bad dating experiences in California and read in a New Zealand tour book that the country’s population at 100,000 fewer men than women.  I wanted to have some me time and an adventure. New Zealand seemed like a good place to do so. Although I intended to have a solo adventure I ended up meeting my husband a Scottish man in New Zealand. 

I consider myself an accidental author. I didn’t go to New Zealand with the intentions of writing a book about my experiences there. I had funny experiences that I had trouble believing were true. I wrote the stories down to stay sane. I wrote situations down that were happening around me and shared them with friends. The stories made people laugh so I decided to organize the stories into a book and publish in the hopes to make others laugh too.

One of the first people I meet was Colin Mathura-Jeffree from New Zealand’s Next Top Model. I had no idea who he was or that he was on TV when I meet him. He is friends with my former flatmate. We had a steep staircase that I kept falling down. Colin taught me to walk like a model so I wouldn’t fall down the stairs. 

In New Zealand, I had a lot of culture shock.  One of the most memorable moments was learning the meaning of the Kiwi slang word “rooted.” One night I was brushing my teeth with my flatmate and I said, ‘I’m really excited to live in this house because I have been travelling a lot and I just need to settle down, stop traveling and get rooted’. He was choking on his toothbrush and asked me if I knew what that meant because it had a completely different meaning New Zealand than it does in the States.

I had the opportunity to write and perform for Thomas Sainsbury the most prolific playwright in New Zealand. I performed a monologue about my jobs in the Basement Theatre in Auckland.  The funny thing about that experience was Tom kept me separated from the other performers until it was time to perform. I was under the impression that all the performers were foreigners giving their experiences in New Zealand.  All of the other performers were professional actors telling stories that weren’t their own. At first I was mortified, but the audience seemed to enjoy my “performance,” laughing their way through my monologue. After the shows we would go out and mingle with the audience. People would ask me how long I had been acting. I would tell them, “I wasn’t acting; I have to go to work tomorrow and sit next to the girl wearing her dead dog’s collar around her neck.” 

I love making people laugh more than anything else. I feel very grateful when readers understand my sense of humor. I plan to divide my books by the countries I’ve lived in. My next book will be about attempting to settle in Scotland. 

 About the book Getting Rooted in New Zealand:

Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country's population has 100,000 fewer men. In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs. It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted.

Read my 5 star review of Getting Rooted In New Zealand and Enter to win one of the two copies Jamie Baywood is giving away a Rafflecopter giveaway .

About the author Jamie Baywood:

Jamie Baywood grew up in Petaluma, California. In 2010, she made the most impulsive decision of her life by moving to New Zealand. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her first book about her experiences living there. Jamie is now married and living happily ever after in the United Kingdom. She is working on her second book.

Getting Rooted in New Zealand is available in paperback and ebook on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482601907

Jamie Baywood can be followed on the following sites:

Facebook.com/jamiebaywood
Twitter.com/JamieBaywood
Pinterest.com/jamiebaywood
Goodreads.com/author/show/7069448.Jamie_Baywood
Amazon.com/author/jamiebaywood
uk.linkedin.com/pub/jamie-baywood/87/32a/42b/

Book Review: Getting Rooted In New Zealand by Jamie Baywood.

Recounting experiences from a trip to New Zealand, Jamie Baywood pens a novel, brilliantly fast-paced, rich with humor and highly informative. The one book that would make you think again about planning an 'ultimate' escapade.

Blurb: Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country’s population has 100,000 fewer men. In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs. It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted.

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"Your family seems to have a lot of stomach problems.” I said to Gretchen.

“Yeah, my mum has a giant scar on her stomach from waking up during surgery from getting her appendix out, and my brother has been constipated for over eight years.”

“What? Your brother hasn’t pooed for eight years? How’s that possible? How old is he?”

"He’s ten. No, he has pooed. It’s just after he was potty trained when he was two, he only poos in his pants now.”

“That’s not constipation, that’s something else. You should take him to the doctor.”

“We have. He has ADHD. He’s so hyper when he comes over to my house; I just lock him in the bathroom."

"I guess that’s a good place to keep him with his condition."

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This book was fantastic. Nothing short of it. It's fun to know all the penned down had happened. Nothing but the truth. Wriiten in a form of a journal entry, it's so hilarious when you figure this time you've hit rock bottom, sitting on your butt and wondering how you can move on, then all of a sudden jetting away to a place where no one knows you so you could start afresh seems superb, but your destination wasn't as you thought it was and you wound up in a shitty country with a shitty economy with not much to brag about in the 'American Junk Food' department and you are stuck with eating what isn't close to healthy either. You want to move back into your country but you think you can make it all work, "It's cake." you keep telling yourself. The thought of failure drives you on and on even though you share cubicle walls with co-workers who send pics of their dicks taken from various ranges (nothing bothers much when that weiner in concern is ugly and teeny and weenie), and a workplace where no one gets your jokes, a boss whose mouth reeks of the habitat of a dead mouse yet won't stop to consider mouth-spray when they think it's OK yelling at you for something which they are clearly responsible for. Then when you ever think of really leaving, you can't, not because the US universal tax law for work-abroad citizens is the best idea govt over the years implemented, but you have made some very good friends, had the most hilarious experiences, found yourself and most importantly found the most charming man with a thong-dropping Scottish accent. Worse of all, you are not sure what labels to put on this relationship, but you are sure when you stick around, and chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, answers might come soon.

It's Eat. Pray. Love gone Cheat. Pay. Sort of Love. But you would love it for all the laughter it will bring you, the truth that's been lurking on the surface untold (like why everyone hates America when she's in charge of bailing them out of financial woes), and why you should be thankful you are not living another country's dream.

With a heroine you can relate to, (I mean, who hasn't hit rock bottom and felt like escaping? Who hasn't fallen in love in another country/state and fought hard to be with the person? Who hasn't craved Ben and Jerry's being in another country? Who hasn't struggled with confusing foreign accents? And most importantly, who hasn't dealt with words that have totally different/embarrassing meanings elsewhere?) it's fascinating we make such a connection with our lead that whatever emotion she's going through we feel for her. I don't know if it's because it's non-fiction or it's because she was well-written, but even if she's sex-deprived we all relate to her and kinda feel horny too (if my dad appears around the block, I DO NOT OWN THIS BLOG!).

The characters in this book are just so hilarious. From Jamie herself, the heroine who tells jokes you'd want to laugh at and hit your head against something in the process but wouldn't because everyone else in the room is glaring at her. To the paralympics sports promoter who could have been a prospective date except with one teeny problem about Jamie's roommates coming in to carry him onto her bed and allow her have her way with him. Barry, the dickhead who distributes professionally taken pictures of his dick around the office and tries convincing Jamie into escorting him buy a (crotchless) pantyhose. Gretchen the co-worker whose rough childhood (accidents) would get you guffawing. There was Grant, the sweet, sensitive, Scottish boyfriend who you would all envy about Jamie's life (I didn't despite my colorful description). All these characters and so much more I couldn't catch up with made this book one blast of entertaining.

Together we roll with Jamie till she makes that fulfilling decision that would change her life forever. Including her single status.

But while I would give it a five star elsewhere, I have to be honest about its shaky start. Struggled at the opening chapter to get to love, love it. But I did eventually.

So, my rating stands at a 4.5 star.

Jamie Baywood's hilarious travel memoir is available on Amazon in both kindle and Paperback.

I recommend this book to anyone whose ever thought of jetting away at the slightest problem. Anyone who loves crossing borders to find out how people are living (or is coping a more appropriate term?). Anyone overseas who has the feeling other internationals don't like them and judge based on a nationality label. You looking for sweet ooey-gooey love? This is your kinda kindle/paperback. More importantly, anyone who wants to have a fantastic time laughing so hard they beg for a refund when they can't take it anymore.

My work not done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads and Amazon.