Who better to write a book with than your best friends? Today, we welcome Jeanne Adams, Barbara Devlin and Caitlenn T. Ainnsley, best friends and authors of the new anthology, A JEWEL IN TIME.
Welcome, ladies!
Love, Holidays, Bookish Besties!!
By Jeanne Adams
Do you have
a Best Friend? Most of us have more than
one. And most of us have a circle of
acquaintances who we call for lunch, or a movie, or even a night out on the
town.
But that
best friend? She’s the one you call when
your boss just made a pass and you don’t know what to do. Or he’s the one you call when you just wrote
a breakup letter to your boyfriend. Or
the guy-friend or girlfriend you call to be your “date” for a wedding you don’t
want to go to, but have to, and you know your ex-boyfriend/husband/lover will
be there.
Besties are
all that. They’re moral support. They help you talk things through – whatever
“those” things may be. They’ll laugh
with you till you both nearly wet your pants.
They’ll help you pack when you have to move, and share the box of tissue
until it’s gone.
Besties are
just that…the best. They answer the
phone at 2 am, when they see your number come up on the screen. They tiptoe out to the driveway in their PJs
at nearly 4 in the morning to give you your spare keys, when you’ve been at a
party and you’ve lost your house keys.
They tell you the truth when shopping - “Yes, it DOES make you look
fat. Here, try this one!”
And about
that guy you met on Friday who drives the Mercedes? “No, I don’t think he’s just divine. I think he’s a moron!”
When you’re
a writer, your Besties take on a new set of challenges. You MAKE them read your stuff and tell them
to be honest. Put on the spot, they have
to tell you what they think. Ohhhhh,
that is a minefield! It’s worse than the
dress thing or the boyfriend-is-a-moron-thing.
It’s
dangerous to the friendship. It’s like
callin’ the baby ugly, as we say down home.
But your
REAL Besties won’t let you down. They’ll
still be sweet. They’ll tell you it’s a
good first draft (even when you and they both know it’s the 12th
draft.) They’ll tell you they like the
story, but honey, you SO need to work on your spelling! (“OMG! Didn’t we both have Mrs. Jones for
English in 9th grade? Did you
SLEEP through that class?”)
And when you
get past THAT stage, and maybe a few more, they’ll say, “HEY! Let’s write a
book together!”
Nothing is
more fun.
Two of my
absolute Besties are here with me today. We met at the Denver RWA Conference in 2001
and have been laughing all the way ever since.
And yes, we
wrote a book…TOGETHER!! The Anthology A JEWEL IN TIME came out November, 14,
2014. WOOT!!!
Barbara
Devlin, who wrote the first story, is a fabulous writer. All the novels in her Brethren of the Coast historical series, starting with ENTER THE BRETHREN, have been
BESTSELLERS!! Woot, go Barb!!
Debut author
Caitlenn T. Ainnsley and I met in the buffet line at RWA National in 2001, and
struck up a conversation. Grins. This last January, Barb and I persuaded her
to join her fabulous comedic, contemporary brilliance to a light-paranormal
holiday anthology we’ve just published together.
So, Barbara,
Caitlenn and I are, collectively, The
Sultry Sisters. And we’re the proud
authors of a A JEWEL IN TIME. The anthology stories follow a magical, gold
and gem-studded glory of a brooch through the centuries, as it passes from
mother to daughter. The beautiful gem is
a master jeweler’s work, and it’s key to each young woman’s fate. The jewel is passed down in the
Douglas-Gascoigne-Lake family (whom we first meet in Barbara’s first book, ENTER THE BRETHREN), and it passes each
generation to the eldest daughter.
Here, in
brief, are the three storylines from A
JEWEL IN TIME:
Three incomparable women, one
incredible jewel...
Loving Lt. Douglas - It is the Age of Sail, and First Lieutenant Mark Douglas of the Royal
Navy has set his sights on a fiery society miss with a spirit to match his own.
What happens when Lady Amanda Gascoigne-Lake's father rejects the sailor's
suit, and an ancient brooch with mystical power portends doom?
Behind Enemy Lines - In WWII Europe, Lady Grace Corvedale flees Paris as the Germans approach,
but Hitler has learned her brooch may have mystical powers, and he vows to
possess it -at any cost. Lt Robert "Dix" Dixon, an unofficial attaché
to the British Embassy, is dispatched to rescue her, but can he outwit The Führer
to save Grace?
The Brit, the Brooch
and the Blizzard - When a series of tragic events leaves
Olivia DuBois stranded in Boston during a blizzard, a handsome Brit rides to
her rescue, and the California girl falls hard. Emerson Gascoigne-Lake
manifests the quintessential knight in shining armor, but does a family
heirloom foretell true love or destroy it?
Caitlenn,
author of the contemporary “The Brit,
the Brooch and the Blizzard” gave
fiction a rest for a few years as she worked on non-fiction until her friends –
Barb and I - made her write with us. I
guess that's that what besties are for.
They don't let you give up on your dream. In 2015 Caitlenn will be introducing an
amazingly fun, kind of crazy, heroine who'll be the star of her series The Conscious Gypsy Chronicles.
As for me, I
did the middle bit. I wrote the WWII
story, “Behind Enemy Lines” my first
historical. All of you who frequent The
Dish have seen me here recently promoting the first book in my Urban
Fantasy/Paranormal Romantic Suspense, THE
TENTACLE AFFAIRE, A Slip Traveler Novel.
I’ve also just put out a short Romantic Suspense novella called DEADLY DELIVERY.
So, Dishies, what do you think about
Best Friends?
Do you have a BFF? The kind who would bail you out of jail? (Or
better yet, one who’d be in the cell with you, saying, “DAMN, that was fun!”)
What’s the craziest situation you and
your BFF have gotten into? Did it
involve the police?
We'll give away one Kindle copy and one print copy of A JEWEL IN TIME.
We’d love to hear from you…Come say
hello on FaceBook, Twitter, or on our websites
www.BarbaraDevlin.com
www.Twitter.com/JeanneAdams
