Julie Kenner's Blog, page 33
January 31, 2018
Meet Mr. February – Spencer Dean in HOLD ON TIGHT!
A hard body. A dangerous past.
Meet Mr. February.
Reality-TV star and reformed bad boy Spencer Dean doesn’t trust women. Not after his fiancée, Brooke, left him at the altar five years ago, breaking his heart and hardening his soul.
Now, Brooke is close to a deal for her own show that will launch with the remodel of a popular Austin bar. The problem? The network insists that Spencer step in as her partner.
He’s tried to forget her—but he can’t deny that he still wants her. More than that, he wants to punish her. And so he agrees, but only on terms that are provocative, demanding, and wildly sensual.
It’s the perfect set-up for extracting revenge. But he doesn’t expect to fall for Brooke all over again…
Revenge never looked so hot.
**Hold On Tight is part of a binge read series by New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and #1 International bestselling author of the million copy Stark series, J. Kenner.
Each novel in the series is a STANDALONE romance with a guaranteed HEA!
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January 16, 2018
Have you met Reece? Down On Me is available now!!
Ink. Muscles. Whiskey.
Meet Mr. January.
Certified bachelor Reece Walker wants two things—to save the bar he manages, and Jenna Montgomery.
In his fantasies, long days at the bar lead to even longer nights in bed. The things he imagines doing with her change, but they all end the same way—with her pleasure.

He has a few ideas for the bar. But Jenna . . . well, he’s going to have to rely on cold showers, because she’s been his best friend for years, and that’s a line he just can’t
cross.
Until one wild kiss on a dark night changes everything. Now Reece is certain Jenna’s meant to be his—but only if he can convince her that friends make the best lovers.
Winter’s never been so hot …
**Down On Me is the first in a binge read series by New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and #1 International bestselling author of the million copy Stark series, J. Kenner.
Each novel in the series is a STANDALONE romance with a guaranteed HEA!
The post Have you met Reece? Down On Me is available now!! appeared first on JKenner/Julie Kenner.
January 3, 2018
Thank you readers for Five Fabulous Years with Damien Stark! (Signed book giveaway!)
People often ask me which is my favorite out of all the (almost 100!!!) books I’ve written as both J. Kenner and Julie Kenner, and I always reply that books are like children–you love them all equally but differently.
Instructions on how to enter the contest are at the end of this post!
I stand by that answer … but at the same time, sometimes the characters in a book will resonate so much with an author that you want to continue spending time with them. That happened to me with Nikki & Damien Stark, and as I leap into the new year, I can’t help but look back in amazement and realize that it’s been five years since Release Me hit the shelves — a book that was originally supposed to be only one book, but turned into a trilogy during the course of writing it. And that trilogy sparked “epilogue novellas” as well as multiple spin-off series. And, because at some point the characters repositioned themselves in my mind from a romance hero/heroine to a romantic saga hero/heroine, there is now a fourth full-length book in the “trilogy” (Anchor Me) with a fifth coming out later this year (Lost With Me). (Yeah, I’ve rebranded it as a saga. A trilogy with 5 books and multiple novellas seemed a bit whack).
I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I turned in Release Me to my publisher in late 2012 for its January 1, 2013 release day. I had high hopes that it would do well (foreign rights had sold well before the book was published, so I knew that expectations were high), but I truly didn’t know if readers would fall in love with the characters the way that I had.
I was not just pleasantly surprised, I was blown away. Release Me marked the first time that I hit the New York Times bestseller list in my career (which at that point, I was thirteen years into) and only the second time I’d hit the USA Today list. In the second week, it fell off the NYT list, and I was fine with that. But then–holey moley–word of mouth had gotten out and readers were talking about the characters, and it went back onto the list and stayed on NYT and USA Today for multiple weeks. Even more exciting, I was getting reader mail pretty much every day, and we pushed the release day for books two and three (Claim Me & Complete Me) from July and December to April and July (which tightened my writing schedule, but I was fine with that. I was in love with the characters and happy to immerse myself in their lives).
Awesome readers once again showed their love for Nikki & Damien, and both Claim Me and Complete Me hit the number two slot on the New York Times bestseller list, and when readers asked to know what happened “after happily ever after” I dove in with Stark Ever After novellas.
Something about these characters just sings for me. They are flawed, smart, ambitious, caring, romantic, and they’ve forged a family from their friends, and have battled so many demons. It has been a pleasure spending so much time with them over the last five years, and I have to thank you, the readers, for allowing me to do that.
I’d like to say that I can write in a vacuum, and that if readers don’t buy the book, that I would continue to write them, but the truth is that I can’t. I wish I could, but there are bills to pay, food to buy, and children to put through college. So I am beyond grateful that these are characters you have wanted to spend the last five years with … and hopefully more years, too!
In so many ways, you, readers, are the force behind my keyboard, the rocket fuel that propels my imagination. And for that, I’m so truly grateful.
It’s been a great ride … I hope you continue to join me as the journey continues!
For a chance to win a signed copy of Release Me, just leave me a comment about the series. When you first met Damien? Favorite scene, favorite quote. Or, if you haven’t yet met Mr. Stark, tell me why you’d like to!
XXOO
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December 21, 2017
Lost With Me: The Birth of Nikki & Damien Stark’s Upcoming Cover
In case you missed it, Lost With Me, a new full-length Nikki & Damien book will be out next fall (yay!). I’m super-excited about this story, which features all the emotional depth you’ve come to expect from a Nikki & Damien Stark novel, plus all the heat … and, yes, edginess and an encroaching danger. Things are heating up for Nikki and Damien and their family and friends in more ways than one!
But this post isn’t about the book, but about the cover, because this is one of the few covers for which I was there for every step of the process … and I thought that it would be fun to share that process with you!
The final, lovely cover for Lost With Me (Stark Saga #5) Amazon
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Isn’t it pretty? The photography is by Annie Ray of ARC Photography (who also shot some of the calendar images for my upcoming Man of the Month series), and the cover design is by Michele Catalano of Michele Catalano Creative (who also designed the actual calendar!). Both are incredibly talented women who made the process a dream!
So how did it start? Well, with the idea for the story, of course. I’m not ready to give away too much yet, but there’s definitely danger lurking in Stark World, and I wanted the cover to reflect that. Not only danger from the outside, but emotional, internal danger as well. (Don’t worry! There’s an HEA! But, drama, folks. There’s lots of drama and the characters we love are seriously tested and put through the wringer in the story!)
How to convey all of that with an icon, though? Because if you know the series, you know that these aren’t covers that have couples or gorgeous guys on them. It’s always an icon, and always with some meaning to the story.
If you’ve read Anchor Me (book 4) then you know that we ended on what I’ll call a Happy Note And Then Some. And I think the cover reflects that. The wine glasses by the spa-style bath can be seen as representing the calm before the storm … and Lost with Me definitely brings a storm.
So after bouncing around many ideas for icons with Annie and my assistant Melissa (a broken emerald and diamond ankle bracelet, a shattered glass) we all ended up falling in love with the idea of spilled red wine in crystal. Why red wine? Well, the crystal goblet suggests wealth and an emotional heat, and if it’s red wine, well, it looks a little like blood, and if it’s spilled wine … well, that definitely signifies danger.
But while the book does have that touch of danger, it also has deep emotional resonance and–let’s just say it, shall we?–lots and lots of sex. Thus, the pearls to represent that sensuality and erotic heat. Yes, pearls. (Surely you all remember the pearl scene in Complete Me), although we also considered the emerald and diamond ankle bracelet from the book for a while, too!
Then the task was how to put that all together, and Annie did an amazing job. I brought the pearls, a diamond bracelet and the glass to her South Austin studio (the glass is Waterford, and was part of my grandmother’s collection that she gave to my husband and me for our wedding).
We toyed with this idea — see the diamond bracelet on the stem. But just not the right impact for the story … Not to mention that getting it to photograph properly was going to be a challenge! (And we didn’t have an emerald bracelet!)
Before the shoot, Annie did several test shots, wanting to get the spilled wine right. Because it’s not as easy as it seems!
She ended up using something called Thick-it in colored liquid — which gives the right effect — and keeps the wine from running all over creation! (For those who wonder, yes, the color did come out of the string for my pearls! Which are not real, and which I got a few years ago through a Groupon deal! Every girl needs a REALLY long strand of pearls!)
The paraphernalia of making “red wine”
Once we had the wine right, it was a question of setting the angles–getting the placement just right with the glass and the pearls!
Getting ready to shoot …
Trying different strands of pearls — looking for the best effect!
THAT’s not enough “wine”!
Annie adds more “wine!”Once we had the look we wanted, Annie captured it on camera. And because computers are awesome, she was able to do some adjustments in the studio so we could see something close to the final version (she did the detailed clean up later).
Pretty cool!
And once we had the final image, we sent it off to Michele who turned it into its own unique cover, but still keeping in the same style as the previous Stark books!
And, voila! The transformation from image to cover:
It takes a team to make a great cover! I think mine rocks!Be sure to pre-order Lost With Me! And if you have friends who were fans of the original Nikki & Damien books, be sure to share with them and spread the word that another book is in the works!
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XXOO
JK
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December 15, 2017
Crossover characters-the fun doesn’t stop!
I’m one of those readers who doesn’t want a book to end.
Like, ever. Seriously, EVER. Once I fall in love with a character, I want to hang out with them for a long, long time. And not just in the book where I met them. I want them to live in the big, broad world of books. That’s the way I am as a reader, and that’s the way I am as a writer.
Even in my very first book, Nobody Does It Better, the heroine’s best friend jumped up and down and demanded her own story. Characters in my bestselling Stark series crossover with characters in my other series. Evan from the Wanted series appears in Take Me, Dallas from the Dirtiest Trilogy appears in Deepest Kiss and other Stark books. And I fell so in love with Noah, a secondary character in the Dirtiest trilogy, that he’s now the hero of my current release, Wicked Torture (which also has a few characters who will show up in my upcoming Man of the Month series).
Honestly, one of these days I need to put a character from my Demon Hunting Soccer Mom series into the Stark series!
Want to meet Noah in both books? Grab your copy of Wicked Torture … and then be sure to grab Dirtiest Secret for the on-sale price of only $1.99. Hurry, though! The sale is limited!
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Lexi Blake brilliantly says exactly what I’m trying to convey:
“There is nothing I love more than a crossover. I think it’s because I came into writing romance from comic books where universes collide on a regular basis. For me, if I’ve got two series going, I’m always trying to see where they can intersect. Does my billionaire tech guru from Lawless need some security? Why not call up McKay-Taggart from Masters and Mercenaries? Does someone from Bliss, Colorado need a lawyer? I’ve got several in Texas Sirens. It’s one big universe!”
Yes! One. Big. Universe!
The trick, of course, is to make sure that when a character leaves Series A for Series B, that new readers can jump in without having to read Series A first.
As a reader, it should be seamless. You want to know that character had a life before their book in Series B, but you don’t want to feel compelled to read about that life in order to understand the story. The story needs to stand on it’s own.That’s the desire from a reader standpoint, and the goal from a writer standpoint. And without turning this into a “how to” writing post, the way the author handles that is the same iceberg principle that we use for most any story.
What’s that? Well, it means that what you see on the page of the book is what you need to know in order to read that book, understand the story and the character, and become emotionally involved with the story. What you see, in other words, is everything that is above the water, or the tip of the iceberg. What’s below the water is what you know is there, but you don’t have to know it for that story.
The character knows it, though, and it colors their behavior and choices, and that resonates in the story.For example, if Joe’s brother was killed in Series A, and now Joe is getting his own book later in that series or in a spin-off series, depending on the genre, Joe’s new book may not need to know the gory details around the brother’s death. So long as the reader understands Joe’s state of mind and conflict without reading the book from Series A, all is golden! And you just might intrigue a reader into popping over to the Series A book, too!
I did a highly scientific (not!) poll among other authors via late night messaging the other day, and most everybody loves and has included crossover characters in books.
Darcy Burke jokes that all of her crossovers tie into treasure hunters!!I
Same with Dee Davis, the current President of Romance Writers of America:
Sometimes characters take on a life of their own and refuse to be quiet until they have their own book. Harrison Blake from my Last Chance Series was supposed to be the third hero of the last book (Exposure). But instead I wound up going another direction. Not to be put off, when an opening occurred, Harrison jumped over to a black ops team in my A-Tac books, wormed his way into the readers’ hearts again, and finally was the hero of his own book in Deadly Dance – the fifth book in my A-Tac series.
The amazing Larissa Ione says,
I’m a huge fan of crossovers so when I started the Lords of Deliverance series about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I featured a lot of characters from my Demonica series. They mixed so thoroughly that I’ll be writing a new series merging the two!
JK here: Personally, I can’t wait!
And, of course, crossovers can jump into other author’s stories, too! In fact, Larissa and I, (along with Carly Phillips, Corrine Michaels, and Susan Stoker) are crossing characters over with Lexi Blake’s Masters and Mercenaries series! Larissa, with her Demonica series, and me with the Stark series!
So what about you? Do you like crossover characters? What character out there in booklandia would you like to see crossover from one series to another?
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November 14, 2017
Wicked Torture is available NOW!
I’m so excited that Wicked Torture is available now!
I’ve loved Noah since he first appeared in my head while I was writing Dirtiest Secret… and his tortured backstory just broke my heart. I’m so excited that his story is finally here!
Meet Noah now!
He’s very good at being bad…
Outwardly, Noah Carter is riding high as the tech world’s hottest new genius. Inside, he’s still reeling from the abduction of his wife and baby daughter eight years ago, and then the devastating discovery of his child’s body. For years, he kept up hope that his wife was alive, but now that she’s been declared legally dead, he’s thrown himself even more deeply into his work, cutting himself off from emotional ties because they just hurt too damn much.
Then he meets Kiki Porter, an eternal optimist with a killer work ethic and dreams of fronting a band. And everything changes. Even though he tries his damnedest to fight it…
Sexually, they are combustible together. But their true fire is emotional, though it is a slow to burn. But once it lights, it is all consuming. The relationship grows emotionally, the sex is hot, things are good.
But just when it’s looking like they might have a real future together, the past comes back to haunt them. And Noah’s going to have to decide what he’s willing to give up for love …
All Wicked Novels Stand Alone.
http://juliekenner.com/book/wicked-torture/
Be sure to get your own copy! I hope you enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it! And please leave a review at your favorite retailer and/or Goodreads and/or give it a shoutout on social media. As I’m sure you know, the best way to let an author know you enjoyed a story is to spread the word!
Be sure to check upcoming editions of my newsletter, too. Sign up here – http://eepurl.com/-tfoP There’s a big announcement coming soon!
XXOO
JK
Check out these awesome reviews…
“Wicked Torture quickly became a favourite J Kenner book, and I am impatiently waiting to see what she brings us next.” BJ’s Book Blog
“Another magnificent addition to the Stark universe by the world renowned author J. Kenner. The third novel in the Stark World series delivers us a superb story with outstanding characters that knock us off our feet. ” Wit & Wonder Books
“Finally! I’ve been so intrigued, waiting for Noah’s story, and I was not disappointed. I can’t resist broken characters, and the author has been teasing me with glimpses of Noah and his tragic past in previous Stark World installments. There are so many amazing characters in this series and I really enjoy when they cross paths in each other’s books.” iScream Books
“Wicked Torture was amazing!!!! I FLOVE Noah’s story. I knew there was something in his past that seemed to keep him guarded” Crystal’s Book World
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November 4, 2017
October 20, 2017
Did you see the covers for the entire Man of the Month series…
Who’s Your Man of the Month?
When a group of fiercely determined friends realize their beloved hang-out is in danger of closing, they take matters into their own hands to bring back customers lost to a competing bar. Fighting fire with a heat of their own, they double down with the broad shoulders, six-pack abs, and bare chests of dozens of hot, local guys who they cajole, prod, and coerce into auditioning for a Man of the Month calendar.
But it’s not just the fate of the bar that’s at stake. Because as things heat up, each of the men meets his match in this sexy, flirty, and compelling binge-read romance series of twelve novels releasing every other week from New York Times bestselling author J. Kenner.
“With each novel featuring a favorite romance trope—beauty and the beast, billionaire bad boys, friends to lovers, second chance romance, secret baby, and more—this series hits the heart and soul of romance.” — New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips
Don’t miss JK’s interview in USA Today about the creation of the series and the calendar! Just click here!
READ AN EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT –http://bit.ly/TRSoRMOTMExcerpt
Order your own Man of the Month calendar – HERE
The post Did you see the covers for the entire Man of the Month series… appeared first on JKenner/Julie Kenner.
Cover reveals for the entire Man of the Month series…
Who’s Your Man of the Month?
When a group of fiercely determined friends realize their beloved hang-out is in danger of closing, they take matters into their own hands to bring back customers lost to a competing bar. Fighting fire with a heat of their own, they double down with the broad shoulders, six-pack abs, and bare chests of dozens of hot, local guys who they cajole, prod, and coerce into auditioning for a Man of the Month calendar.
But it’s not just the fate of the bar that’s at stake. Because as things heat up, each of the men meets his match in this sexy, flirty, and compelling binge-read romance series of twelve novels releasing every other week from New York Times bestselling author J. Kenner.
“With each novel featuring a favorite romance trope—beauty and the beast, billionaire bad boys, friends to lovers, second chance romance, secret baby, and more—this series hits the heart and soul of romance.” — New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips
FOR MORE DETAILS AND BUYING OPTIONS CLICK HERE
The post Cover reveals for the entire Man of the Month series… appeared first on JKenner/Julie Kenner.
October 13, 2017
Who is your Man of the Month?
Who’s Your Man of the Month?
When a group of fiercely determined friends realize their beloved hang-out is in danger of closing, they take matters into their own hands to bring back customers lost to a competing bar. Fighting fire with a heat of their own, they double down with the broad shoulders, six-pack abs, and bare chests of dozens of hot, local guys who they cajole, prod, and coerce into auditioning for a Man of the Month calendar.
But it’s not just the fate of the bar that’s at stake. Because as things heat up, each of the men meets his match in this sexy, flirty, and compelling binge-read romance series of twelve novels releasing every other week from New York Times bestselling author J. Kenner.
“With each novel featuring a favorite romance trope—beauty and the beast, billionaire bad boys, friends to lovers, second chance romance, secret baby, and more—this series hits the heart and soul of romance.” — New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips
Don’t miss JK’s interview in USA Today about the creation of the series and the calendar! Just click here!
Purchase your own Man of the Month calendar!
PHOTOGRAPHERS CREDIT
Perrywinkle Photography: All Man of the Month Covers, Calendar Images – Jan, April, May, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec
ARC Book Photography: Calendar Images – February, March, June
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