Tired of law, she wanted to indulge her creative side by writing fiction. She had previously worked as a freelance writer for several publications, but never tackled something as large as a novel.
"Writing seems to be a better fit for my personality," said Summers, who was raised in Mississauga, but moved to Orangeville earlier this year. "It's a chance to express a funnier side of myself, and law can be rather serious."
What came from her experiment is the new novel, Men Are Like Mocha Lattes.
The story follows 29-year-old Lindsay Breyer, a lawyer who has her heart broken by the "love of her life." Desperate for a fresh start, she hops on a plane for New Zealand. There, she meets a number of potential husbands, but none seem right for her.
Summers playfully describes the story as "chick-lit" and said she sat down to write a novel that would be a quick and easy read, yet highly entertaining.
"Basically, I felt like there wasn't enough out there for single women," said Summers. "Lots of books end with the girl getting the guy and riding off into the sunset. Why can't we have a female character who winds up being single and happy at the end?"
The novel has a conversational feel to it and breaks away from slightly more traditional prose. Instead, Summers breaks up the text by inserting diary entries, daily affirmations and scales down the chapters into smaller sections that can be read in minutes.
"When writing this, I was influenced by television," said Summers. "Television has a certain structure that I thought I could play with (and work it into a book format). I've read so many law textbooks, maybe that's why I wrote the book a little differently."
Summers met her "Mr. Right" while writing the novel and is now happily married to her husband, Lyle. Despite being out of the singles' game, Summers said she still relates to Lindsay Breyer.
"I'm confident I can keep the character going and stay true to who she is," said Summers. "If I ever start to forget, I have a big stack of journals I can turn to. I was single for so long, it really made an impact on me. I still identify more with my single friends than the married ones."
The novel, which sells for $17.95, is available through www.lisasummers.com or Chapters.ca and Amazon.ca.
cclay@mississauga.net
