Jade C. Jamison's Blog, page 14

Forbidden love might be your thing (if not, we’ve got more)

Love Kissed Anthologies
Don’t miss these LIMITED EDITION boxed sets created to benefit the March of Dimes.





Only 99 Pennies Each!!

Haunted by Love
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Ten of your favorite romance authors have come together for a charity anthology. With vampires, witches, wizards, shifters, shadow walkers, fallen angels, demons, and a wraith king, you’re sure to be enthralled. Be prepared for greed, lust, lies, and betrayal to culminate in coups and menages. After all, the fate of the world often depends on the actions of hot alphas.

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New Love
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Seven of your favorite romance authors have come together for a charity anthology. If you like billionaires and witty heroines, or high school sweethearts and runaways, or southern stories with a love as big as Texas, then settle in for tales of finding home, overcoming the past, loyalty, broken promises, and even a surprise wedding. Even family obligations can’t hinder what’s simply meant to be.

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Lucky in Love
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Ten of your favorite romance authors have come together. Enjoy second chance romances, sports romances, and rocker romances. Meet your new favorite bad boys and blue collar lovers. There may even be a surprise pregnancy or two.

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Dangerous Love
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Prepare to dance with the dark side of love. This collection is full of suspense with crimes like stalking, kidnapping, and murder. Meet some men in blue and some bad boys too. If you have a taste for dystopian, enjoy interracial love, and get hot and bothered over sexy protectors such as private investigators, the FBI and CIA, then one-click right away.

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Forbidden Love
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This set is about as naughty as a collection can get. They may look innocent, like the boy next door, or the brother’s best friend, they may be working like the blue collar guy making a house call, the undercover cop, the rock star, the bodyguard, or the stripper. Don’t be fooled. These stories are filled with romance, suspense, and temptation. Oh, and no one seems to decline the opportunity for romps in public, with a stranger, a roommate, or the occasional affair.
Learn how forbidden love makes for strange bedfellows in these modern fairy tales of love, lust, and deception.

Forbidden Love is the anthology my story, “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words,” is in.  If you like to “try before you buy,” keep scrolling for a small preview!

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY HERE:   https://promosimple.com/ps/bfc0
The prize is a Kindle loaded with books!

~ ~ ~

TEASER PREVIEW OF “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words” (featured in Forbidden Love):

This gig had started like any other…but it moved to awkward really fast. “Ivy, take off your bra, please.”

Long story short—I was a grad student and, even though I earned a little bit of money teaching classes, let me tell you there’s a reason why they call your earnings a stipend. It’s a mere pittance, rather than an actual salary for the work you do. And I get it. I really do. You have to have someone overseeing your work—or, at least, that’s the point of it all. The idea is that you’re also learning.

But it wasn’t enough to pay for housing and food and all the things I loved and wanted. Clothes were my thing, but cosmetics and toiletries, fragrances, hair care products, music, books, my car—those were also things I liked and believed I needed. Sure, I could have gotten by with less, but when you’re in school as long as I’d been and you just wanted to start adulting already, you did what you had to do. I already had two roommates to share the expenses, too, so that helped.

So I had my stipend and I also worked a few hours every morning at a nearby coffee shop. The tips were nice. Between my stipend and fifteen hours a week at the coffee shop, my basic needs were covered.

My fun money, though…that came from the local modeling gigs I did.  And life was good.

It was early April when Greg called me for another shoot. Greg’s book cover business had continued to grow and he had super successful indie authors requesting specific models and images. He had a new male model, a guy whose day job was in business. I found that odd and couldn’t wait to hear his story, but Greg had had a request to have the two of us together in a very specific pose. “I’ll pay you more than the usual,” he’d promised, asking for two hours of my time.

I would have done it for the usual fee, but for a bonus? “Just tell me when.”  I had no idea what I was getting myself into…

If you want to read more, you can get this story and a dozen others for just 99 cents here (and proceeds benefit the March of Dimes!):  http://amzn.to/2uu2aA5

Lita Ford is Still the Queen of Metal: Review of her memoir LIVING LIKE A RUNAWAY

Anyone who’s been around me for any length of time knows that I have always been a huge fan of Lita Ford. And, even if you didn’t know it, you probably figured it out when you read the dedication to Vagabonds #1 (On the Run). So, even though I didn’t learn about her book until recently, you’d better believe I bought a copy and devoured it.  (The book was released in 2016.)  Living Like a Runaway is Ford’s memoir about her life—and not just her career in rock. Near the beginning of the book, she recounts her childhood, moving from England to Boston and then Texas before finally settling in Long Beach, California. Her love for her parents comes through every single chapter and, later, you can feel that same love for her children.

But I wanted to read her perspective on her rock career. While I was brought up as a strong young woman with the examples of my mother and grandmothers (and even my father, all of whom taught me there was nothing I couldn’t do), seeing someone like Lita Ford play amongst the big boys of metal was proof that a woman could do what a man could—or maybe even what he thought she couldn’t.

Reading first about the Runaways was awesome. I hadn’t enjoyed them in my youth, unfortunately, because I hadn’t yet discovered rock. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of country, but my mom embraced the disco era of the mid to late seventies. I loved it, too, and still to this day hear old disco tunes that make me feel groovy.

Lita Ford is Still the Queen of Metal: Review of LIVING LIKE A RUNAWAY (book)

Anyone who’s been around me for any length of time knows that I have always been a huge fan of Lita Ford. And, even if you didn’t know it, you probably figured it out when you read the dedication to Vagabonds #1 (On the Run). So, even though I didn’t learn about her book until recently, you’d better believe I bought a copy and devoured it.  (The book was released in 2016.)  Living Like a Runaway is Ford’s memoir about her life—and not just her career in rock. Near the beginning of the book, she recounts her childhood, moving from England to Boston and then Texas before finally settling in Long Beach, California. Her love for her parents comes through every single chapter and, later, you can feel that same love for her children.

But I wanted to read her perspective on her rock career. While I was brought up as a strong young woman with the examples of my mother and grandmothers (and even my father, all of whom taught me there was nothing I couldn’t do), seeing someone like Lita Ford play amongst the big boys of metal was proof that a woman could do what a man could—or maybe even what he thought she couldn’t.

Reading first about the Runaways was awesome. I hadn’t enjoyed them in my youth, unfortunately, because I hadn’t yet discovered rock. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of country, but my mom embraced the disco era of the mid to late seventies. I loved it, too, and still to this day hear old disco tunes that make me feel groovy.

Lita Ford is Still the Queen of Metal

Anyone who’s been around me for any length of time knows that I have always been a huge fan of Lita Ford. And, even if you didn’t know it, you probably figured it out when you read the dedication to Vagabonds #1 (On the Run). So, even though I didn’t learn about her book until recently, you’d better believe I bought a copy and devoured it.  (The book was released in 2016.)  Living Like a Runaway is Ford’s memoir about her life—and not just her career in rock. Near the beginning of the book, she recounts her childhood, moving from England to Boston and then Texas before finally settling in Long Beach, California. Her love for her parents comes through every single chapter and, later, you can feel that same love for her children.

But I wanted to read her perspective on her rock career. While I was brought up as a strong young woman with the examples of my mother and grandmothers (and even my father, all of whom taught me there was nothing I couldn’t do), seeing someone like Lita Ford play amongst the big boys of metal was proof that a woman could do what a man could—or maybe even what he thought she couldn’t.

Reading first about the Runaways was awesome. I hadn’t enjoyed them in my youth, unfortunately, because I hadn’t yet discovered rock. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of country, but my mom embraced the disco era of the mid to late seventies. I loved it, too, and still to this day hear old disco tunes that make me feel groovy.

The “Weaker Sex” Ain’t So Weak

Recently, I read a book supposedly set in the 90s but it felt like it belonged in the 60s. One of the things that made it feel that way was the characters. One of the college-aged men constantly addressed everyone as “old man,” “old chum,” “old chap,” and that was bad enough, but the one young woman in the group of friends was asked—and expected—to iron one of the male’s shirts.

And. She. DID. IT!

Sorry…but Nicki Sosebee (a character of the new millennium but written by someone who grew up in the last century and, therefore, in the same era as the author who wrote the book I referenced in the last paragraph) wouldn’t just iron the guy’s shirt. She’d tell him to do it himself, probably with a colorful epithet thrown in just for good measure. If he asked nicely (and was good looking), she might demonstrate to him how to use an iron, but no way in hell would she pick up that damned thing unless it was to bean him with it, trying to knock some sense into him.

I prefer my heroines strong. That’s how I’ve always been. Even when a book is set in earlier times, I prefer reading about women who find their strength anyway. I think that’s why the character of Scarlett O’Hara has always appealed to me and why I admire the women of history who really were strong in spite of the fact that they were fighting to be heard in a male-dominated world—women like Joan of Arc, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Wollstonecraft, Marie Curie. My list could go on and on, really. It is to many of those women (and probably hundreds more I haven’t named or even learned of) to whom I owe gratitude. We are living in a time when women are not thought to be intellectually inferior and we are the masters (yes, masters) of our own destinies; I have often marveled at the fact that I was born at the exact right time in history. I realize that, because of the way I think and feel, I likely would have been executed or enslaved were I living in earlier times. So I am grateful to be living now. I am thankful too to my mother and my grandmothers who also modeled for me that traditional female roles didn’t need to bind me.

I think that’s where characters like Nicki Sosebee come from: she and other female characters I write come from the need to explore complete autonomy as a female. That’s not to say that my characters are militant feminists because they clearly are not; rather, they are women who embrace their destiny and they don’t need a man to do it.

For readers who prefer more traditional roles, there are plenty of books out there to satisfy, but I write what I want to read. I don’t want to read about a subservient woman or one whose only interest is to capture a husband. And so I don’t write that, either. I write characters like Nicki (who works not one but two jobs in order to be independent, and she shuns societal expectations while she’s at it, refusing to be labeled a “slut” just because she likes sex and doesn’t always feel the need to be in love just because she wants to have a good time), Valerie Quinn (who comes from a more traditional family but soon learns that she can play with the big boys), and Kyle Summers (who definitely does not need a man although she does find someone who revs her engine).

Considering my age and my outlook on life, I don’t expect I’ll change. I figure I’ll be writing characters like these women for the rest of my life.  I hope you’re along for the ride!

[As a quick aside, I feel the need to counter a few critics. Many readers view Val as weak-willed and/or stupid, but I think they forget that she is still a teenager throughout the first part of the book and she was a sheltered young woman before beginning her journey. She grows; she learns; she becomes strong. I know when I was nineteen, I did some stupid things. But I learned and grew—as do many of my characters…including Val.]

Who are your favorite female literary characters?

Places You Can’t Visit in Colorado

Earlier this month, I talked about real Colorado cities and towns I’d used as locations in my books, but now I want to talk about the fictional places I’ve written about. There aren’t as many of those, because they exist only in my head—and I need to be able to keep them straight!

Does Realism in Fiction Matter?

First off, before we go any further, let me stress that I know (having taught many creative writing classes) that “truth” or “reality” doesn’t always make for compelling fiction. I know without a doubt that sometimes what really happened makes for a boring—or unbelievable—story.

Now that that’s out of the way, I can continue.

Colorful Colorado Cities (and Towns) Found in My Books, Part 2

Last week, I told you about a few cities I’ve written about in my books (places like Boulder and Pueblo). This week, I’m going to tell you about a few more. I like using real places in my stories sometimes because it adds an element of realism—and those of you who know me pretty well know how much realism in books means to me. While fictional settings are good from time to time (especially when I need a town to be like what’s in my mind), it’s sometimes fun to work within the real parameters of a real place!

Without further ado, here are a few other places in Colorado I’ve written about.

Beaver Creek

This lovely ski resort village is actually not the sort of place I’d ordinarily go, mainly because I’m a middle class girl and this place is made of money…but in my day job, I’ve enjoyed many a conference there. It’s a beautiful spot just off I-70 a little over an hour west of Denver. It might be a village, but don’t think you can’t find a Starbucks there!

Val, Brad, and the kids get away from it all by taking a holiday vacation here in Christmas Stalkings. Unfortunately, as you can tell from the title, they’re not the only ones there!

Golden

This lovely town is actually part of the Denver Metro area. If you’re not paying attention, you can drive from one suburb to the next without realizing you’ve done it. Like many Front Range cities, Golden lies right next to the foothills. In fact, Jefferson County calls itself the Gateway to the Rockies—and with good reason. There are several roads leading from Jeffco into the mountains—just a few minutes on the highway and you forget you were even in the city!

Golden’s a charming city with a rich history (oh, and beer! They make Coors there!!!). If you’re ever visiting the Denver Metro area, I recommend taking in Golden as well.

If you don’t remember when I’ve mentioned this fair city, you might recall it’s where Valerie and Ethan settled down. Their house is Golden is one of the settings in Rock Bottom. It’s also mentioned in Savage—one of Nina’s children attends college at the School of Mines.

Grand Junction

When I was younger, Grand Junction always reminded me of Pueblo but on a smaller scale—and on the western side of the Rockies, rather than the east. It was smaller too, but it just reminded me of home (which was Pueblo at the time). I believe it’s the largest Colorado town on that side of the mountains, but don’t quote me. It’s pretty dang close to Utah too, not too far away from Arches National Park.

Grand Junction is one of Casey’s stops in Then Kiss Me, and it also gets a mention in Savage.

I took this shot of the old Adams Mountain Café (they’re now in a new spot) in Manitou Springs because I thought it looked like the parking lot of Merlotte’s in HBO’s True Blood.

Colorful Colorado Cities (and Towns) Found in My Books, Part 1

Stephen King has said more than once, in advice to aspiring authors, “Write what you know.” I don’t recall if that is the exact phrase he’s used, but that’s one of the distilled nuggets I’ve been left with after reading his memoir/ advice book On Writing (as well as various articles he’s written on the topic). I’ve been a lifelong writer, but I didn’t read On Writing until sometime around 2004 if I had to guess a precise date, and that book did two things. The first thing it did was help me affirm that my writing process was not weird; but the second thing it did was give me permission to do things I’d pulled back from before (for instance, encouraging me to be “honest” in my writing—if the character in my head says the F word, then he should on paper—no censoring!). Until that point, I’d never used real locations in my writing, and I’d also been quite generic in describing what characters ate and where they went in their real life (my characters would drink a diet soda instead of Diet Coke, for example). Reading On Writing helped liberate so much of my composition process and my words have thrived because of it.

But back to the point. I now had “permission” to write about real places, but that doesn’t mean I used real places from that point forward. I also have a few fictional places set in Colorado, the main locations of a good many of my books, and that’s also because I need flexibility. There are certain things I need my settings to be, and no one city or town could encompass all my stories required. Besides, the fictional town of Winchester, Colorado, is turning out to be quite corrupt—and I’m sure no real town in Colorado would want me tarnishing its image!

I have used real Colorado towns and cities when either that location works for the story or when it’s minor to the plot. A lot of times, I’m not using them as the setting but rather referencing them in another way. Do you want to know more about the towns and cities I talk about in my books? Considering I have readers from all over the United States—and even the world—I thought some of you might be interested in knowing more…so here you go!

Pueblo

I might as well mention Pueblo first. I was born there and lived the first fourteen years of my life in that city. According to Wikipedia, it’s

A glimpse of the steel mill in Pueblo, Colorado

the ninth largest city in the state. There’s a university there (Colorado State University-Pueblo) and a community college, as well as a steel mill (responsible for the city’s early growth in the early 1900s). Most people not from Colorado might know Pueblo as the address for the “government printing office.”

Pueblo is the main setting for Be Careful What You Wish For, but it’s also mentioned in lots of other books. Casey, in Then Kiss Me, was born and raised there, and Fully Automatic toured there in Bullet.

Colorado Springs

I mention Colorado Springs in a lot of my books. While Nicki Sosebee doesn’t live in Colorado Springs, for instance, she visits there a lot and lots happens there in that series, mainly because the fictional town of Winchester is about an hour away from Colorado Springs. But I actually have a few books that have Colorado Springs

View of the Rockies from Highway 115 in south Colorado Springs

as the main location—Finger Bang and its sequel Heat are both set there, and one of the settings in the Vagabonds trilogy is also the Springs.

It’s a natural for me, because I love that city. It’s nestled right up against the Rockies but the view to the east is wide open. What I love the most about Colorado Springs is that, almost everywhere you go, you see a little bit of nature. Most of I-25, for instance, until you get to the northern part of the city, follows right along Fountain Creek, and there’s lots of vegetation. But it’s the views of the mountains (particularly Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain) that take my breath away. Colorado Springs is the perfect city, and it’s mentioned in more of my books that I can count!

Denver

Of course, Denver’s mentioned numerous times in just as many of my books. It makes sense, considering it’s the state capital as well as the largest city in the state. Half of the book Bullet is set there, and Casey in Then Kiss Me has just moved from there to Winchester in the beginning of the book. I know I’ve probably referred to it in more books than I can remember, especially since Sean of the Nicki Sosebee books is a Denver Broncos fan.

Did Somebody Say Free Books?

…yeah, I did.  Check this out!

 

Welcome to the July FREE For All & Giveaway Event
July 3-7, 2017!
Click to download these romance reads.
Thank you for being loyal readers! To show their appreciation, your favorite authors have come together to offer a book for FREE. Download one or all. Maybe you’ll find your next favorite author.

Please note: all sales are limited time offers.

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**Please note: these books may not be free on other Amazon sites and many of these books are free for a limited time only.**

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