Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

What I am Reading

Being a Full-Time-ish Writer One Month On

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My nightstand reading pile.

Hello all. Boy time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it? A little over a month ago I stepped away from my job in the corporate world to devote my time writing full time AND to assist my kids with their elearning. As the school year for my grade school aged children began, it was apparent that something was going to give, and I made the choice to step away. That being said, I recognized that there was an opportunity to fully lean into putting my efforts towards writing full time. My husband who is also an author, fully supported and encouraged this course of action.

So one month in, I have a lot to show for this past month. I self-published my first book! This was a huge deal for me. It’s the first time I’ve ever done this and boy is there a learning curve here. I was lucky enough to know how to use Adobe to layout my print edition, and cover design. I also had to learn Amazon’s KDP for the ebook. Page numbers, author accounts, and royalty structures, there was and still is so much to learn. BUT… It’s been fun so far. I am grateful to have had the time to dedicate towards, instead of having to sneak it in after work or on lunch breaks.

I’ve also continued to query for another completed novel that I wrote a few years back. My dream is still to go the traditional publishing route. I sent out my first round of queries in early September, and I am surprised to say I’ve heard back from most agents, granted it was a pass, but that’s okay. I will say the more I query, the thicker my skin gets, and that is a good thing. I queried last year for a different novel, and almost hit the 100 query letters sent mark. So querying continues and I’ll keep you all updated on any developments. I just keep reminding myself it only takes one yes, to change your life. Keep going!

All of this being said, while all of these endeavors are relevant to writing, they’re not actually writing. So I am happy to report that I’ve started writing a new project. I’m about 20K words in, and while it’s still a romance, it’s different than anything I’ve ever written before. Set about a hundred years in the future, in a new America, how will Willow find safety and love? So far the writing is going very well. That is in part to my husband who has shoved my computer, headphones, and coffee at me each morning to write in the seclusion of my bedroom while he readies our children for their day of elearning. When the school bell rings, I stop writing and am plugged into their needs.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to write here and there during the day, between math lessons, and snacks, but overall it’s not a productive time for writing. So I’ve learned to use this time for other writing endeavors, such as marketing Quarantine Stories, learn KDP, or read. I’m reading an excellent book right now, Conjure Women by Afia Atakora. This story is so enveloping that it completely sweeps me away. I try to sneak in a chapter here and there, but I find that when I pick this book up, I am unable to put it down.

In addition to all of these things, I am also settling in at home, which historically has always been the death nail for being able to be home full time for me. I have found that clearing closets, gardening and learning how to quilt have been great cures for writer’s block. I am enjoying this time to be home with my family, and being able to be truly “plugged-in” to family life. When I think back to this time last year, working full time, finishing grad school and still writing, I wonder how I managed, but somehow I did. This thought spurs me on to continue writing, and pushing myself. If I could do it then when life was busier, I can surely do it now, and do it better.

What I Read this Month: April 2020

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One would think during quarantine that I would have a lot of time to read, but that hasn’t been the case. Work had kept me very busy, I am in the last month of my master’s degree, and I have two kids homeschooling right now. I have been lucky enough to steal some time away here and there to read. I read three books over the past month, well two-and-a-half.

Love and Other Words: by Christina Lauren

I found this book at The Ripped Bodice out in California back in early March. The concept sounded interesting to me. The story takes place in present day and looking back at Macy’s childhood. She develops a truly special friendship with a neighbor named Elliot, and they bond over books. The book chronicles their awkward teen years, and eventually their falling out. Macy doesn’t run into Elliot until many years later.

I picked this book up, intrigued by the plot. Normally, I like very dramatic romance, with high-stakes. Rom-coms are not my thing. As I started this book I thought it might be a little “light” for me. The story unfolded slowly but I kept reading. WOW this book did not disappoint! I don’t want to give anything away, but the end of this book is something I will remember for the rest of my life. Towards the end of the book, I could not put it down. This was an incredible book and I highly recommend it!

My Dark Vanessa: by Kate Elizabeth Russell

My sister first told me about this book and said that she could not put it down. She had pre-ordered it and when it arrived, she had read the entire book within 24 hours of receiving it. She raved about how good it was, so when she came to quarantine with my family and I, she brought it with her for me to read. The subject of the story sounded spicy, and very naughty, aka the perfect quarantine read. The book is told in first person by Vanessa, a girl who falls in love or is seduced by her high school English teacher, depending on who’s point of view you are looking at.

This story is recalled through Vanessa’s eyes as an adult. So I must be completely honest, I did not finish this book. I got just about half way through this book. I found the sexual encounters deeply disturbing to the point that I could not keep reading. As the reader I think I was just as confused as young Vanessa, not able to make out if it was love, lust, perversion, or all of the above. I figure if I couldn’t figure out what it was as a woman in her mid-thrities then, no way could this character, and so it felt like abuse to me.

What Doesn’t Kill Her: by Christina Dodd

I also bought this book from the Ripped Bodice in California in the same trip where I bought Love and Other Words. I have always thought the premise of amnesia, waking to a relationship with a spouse you don’t recognize always makes for an interesting read. I have read a couple of books done this way. I have yet to read one that I really loved. I started reading this book on my train commute when I was traveling back and forth pre quarantine.

The main character in this book is one tough woman, and that was very cool. She wakes up to a BIG surprise and is settling into life with that sececret. Through a strange turn of events she ends up on an adventure to deliver an artifact. It turns out that the artifact is very expensive and others want to steal it. There is a lot of action in this book and I found myself really wanting to know what happened to Kellen, the main character. The romance aspect of this book really lacked for my tastes. Through out the book, there is this romance building and then when the moment arrives…. meh. I was mad and I felt let down. The characters in the book are complex and there could’ve been so much more there.

Tell me in the comments, what did you read this month. Have you read one of the reviewed books? Tell me what you thought of it.

Book Review Time

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I love to read but it feels like a guilty pleasure when I actually get to do it with Grad School wrapping up. I had the pleasure of reading two extraordinary books recently, as well as re-reading my first book as a result of #KissPitch and being the worst beta reader ever for my dear sister who has written the most amazing collection of travel stories. It may not seem like a lot but it actually is a lot of reading. So, check out what this romance author has been reading.

 

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

I received this book as a birthday present from my husband. He saw the British press had not stopped raving about it since its release, and thought it would interest me. He was not wrong. Three Women is a work of non-fiction. Taddeo follows three American women and their journies with sexuality, a woman who has an affair, to another woman who is in an open marriage, to the teenager who has a sexual relationship with her high school teacher. As a romance author, what induces love, sexuality and lust is always of interest to me. I picked up this book as a character study but soon realized I would be selling it desperately short to approach it that way.

From the first page, with its gripping honesty, I could not pully myself away. The stories are heartbreaking and TRUE. Each story is unique and thought-provoking but the one story that particularly resonated with me was the story of Lena, a married mother, who had an affair with a high school fling. Her first sexual experience is heartbreaking, and she marries a man who doesn’t seem interested in physical affection. Despite her best efforts, to entice her husband, he is simply unwilling- even repulsed by the idea. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had his own traumatic sexual backstory. (I am not saying that those who are asexual have trauma).

Lena talks about craving a man’s touch, and she finds it in the arms of a high school boyfriend, who is married as well. I found myself rooting for them, even though they were both married. It is heartbreaking and beautiful to see Lena’s struggle.

With so much amazing work out there to read and our non-stop news cycle, it seems that not much sticks with us for very long, but this book will stick with me forever. The brutal, beautiful, heartbreaking honesty in which these women tell their stories is incredible. I literally could not put this book down!

 

American Queen by Sierra Simone

 

While out in Los Angeles last month I made sure to stop in The Ripped Bodice in Studio City, California, a romance bookstore. While I was there the cashier highly recommend this book to me, making sure to inform me that this one is more erotica than romance. I like a good steamy read every now and then so I purchased it. The premise of this work of fiction, follows Greer, the privileged granddaughter of a former Vice President, her love interest Maxen Colchester and his best friend, and current VP Embry Moore. I’ve never read a book by Simone so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The opening two paragraphs of this book are a master class on how to start a book. I was hooked from the start!

I started reading this one on the flight home from L.A., a red-eye flight, where the two travellers on either side of me slept. I am not ashamed that I read romance and erotica, but let me tell you, this one made me blush! At one point during the flight, I had to put the book down, it was that steamy- my eyes had third-degree burns! From start to finish the sex scenes in this book, leave NOTHING to the imagination. It left me, who is not prudish at all, slightly uncomfortable.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!     

Greer falls for Ash or Maxen and they begin a sub/ dom relationship. I have read several books with this sort of sexual play and my normal reaction is like, “eh, okay.” The relationship in this book bothered me more than most of the other books in the genre that I have read. Greer is sexually inexperienced and is suddenly eager to please Ash at his beck and call. I just don’t get it. I am not passing judgement on sexual interests in any way! The whole sub/ dom thing is so not my jam. At one point Ash whips Greer with a belt and she talks about how it hurts so good. All I could think to myself was, “if someone hits me with a belt, I am going to grab it from them and hit them with it!” Yes, I know I am missing the point here. I just find myself asking, where is the line between violence and sexuality?

Then, we find out that Greer looses her virginity to Embry, who is Ash’s best friend after Ash breaks her heart one night. The whole scene where she loses her virginity is hot- unrealistic, but hot. So now we have a perfect love triangle between Ash, Greer and Embry. I really wondered where Simone was going with it. Later on in the book, Greer finds out that Ash and Embry have a sexual relationship too! Woah, everyone is sleeping with each other! Greer finds this out in the most awkward way too. The book culminates on Ash and Greer’s wedding night, where they invite Embry in to essentially be a thruple.

A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with a therapist about different types of relationships. At the time this therapist was treating a woman who was in a relationship with two men. Together, the two men and she had made a thruple or a couple of three. The therapist told me about some of the research they had done on the topic and the one thing that came up time and again- it never works out in the long run. All I could think to myself was that their relationship will never work! Sure it might be hot, and convenient for now, but down the road, things are going to get messy.

The last scene in the book, the wedding night, I found more thought-provoking than sexy. Greer asks her new husband and his best friend, Embry to sleep together in front of her before they turn their attentions to her. The culmination of this wedding night ends with the two men making a Greer sandwich. This made me wonder, would anyone want a wedding night like this? Am I a square? I don’t know. Again, I am not judging as long as all involved parties are consenting adults.

I think for me as a romance writer, the set up was there for a sexy, heartfelt love story between Ash and Greer, but somewhere it jumped the rails. There is so much with this book, incest, threesomes, sub-dom, gay sex, you name it. If you rated hotness on a scale, this book would be nuclear, but I would argue at the expense of what could have been a great love story.

My Top Beach Reads for the Summer

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Summer is here and that means it is the season for a good steamy romp through the pages of a romance book or two. I love to read at the beach and by the pool, in fact, given the choice, I would rather a good book than a magazine any day. This isn’t a  top ten list, because several of the books listed here are series almost 60! Every summer I find myself looking for a good book to put in my beach bag. Nothing is worse than getting to your desired sunny destination, to pull out the book you brought and the story is lousy. So in the spirit of romance public service here is my top ten list of best steamy beach reads:

The KGI Novels by Maya Banks (13 books)

This series is pure fun! I love a good adventure in my romance novels and a bit of sex. This series follows the Kelly brothers who are retired military. They set up a paramilitary group for hire, and go on all sorts of worthy adventures, meeting the loves of their lives along the way. I literally read all of the available books in the series last August. There are like 10 of these books and I could not put them down. I can honestly say, the Kelly brothers are swoon-worthy, and that is normally not my type.

Make Me By Beth Kerry:

To say I loved this book is an understatement! This is another book I could not put down. While I did not read it on the beach or by the pool I read the entire book (it’s a full-length novel) on a flight home from London. I could not put it down. The story focuses Jacob Lattimer, dreamy, rich heartthrob and Harper McFaddan, who has just been affected by a life-changing tragedy. While the two characters fall in love, there is so much more to this story than it presents at first. This is a master class in dramatic romance storytelling.

 

The Red: by Tiffany Reisz

This book is red hot! I would classify this as purely erotica. Please don’t let that dissuade you from picking up this gem and giving it a try. It is so easy to get swept up in this steamy tale. In order to save her beloved art gallery, The Red, gallery owner, Mona Lisa, makes a deal with a very handsome stranger to be his for a year. The handsome stranger will pay her in priceless art, this boosting the reputation and clientele of her gallery. Flat, out this book, made me blush, but the story between Mona and the handsome stranger is a pure joy to read. I could not put this book down. The ending is one of the best I have ever read! This is a must for a steamy summer read.

 

The Rose by Tiffany Reisz:

I just picked this one up and it is a pseudo-sequel to The Red. Lia the very privileged daughter of British aristocracy, is an avid collector and student of Greek mythical history, is given a beautiful present to celebrate her graduation, a rose kylix, or ancient wine goblet. This goblet holds mystical powers, and love interest August Bowman teaches Lia how to use the goblet. This book is a four-alarm, hot read. August Boman is beyond the sexiest male love interest I have ever read. You will be grateful for a breeze offshore when reading this one, to cool you down.

The GhostWalker Series by Christine Feehan (14 books so far)

These books are the definition of the great beach read. Normally paranormal romance is not my thing, but  I found myself able to suspend my disbelief and in many cases, Feehan does a great job using these superpowers to enhance the relationship and connection between the two characters. This series follows super soldier through worthy adventures, saving the world one adventure at a time. These books hold a special place in my heart as Street Game was the first romance book I ever read. They are a lot of fun and make the perfect beach read.

 

The Breathless Trilogy by Maya Banks (3 Books)

These steamy romances tell the story of three powerful hotel group owners. Each book has its own story with characters from the other books. They were fun to read and great beach reading. I read two of them on the beach in Nevis last November. They are pure fun. The three main characters Ash, Gabe and Jace are polished businessmen from New York, and much more my style for a romantic interest. So, so, good!

 

The Steele Brothers by Helen Hardt (9 books so far)

This series has the pedal to the floor from the get-go! The Steele brothers are a ranching family with a dark and very disturbing past. (Trigger Warning) While young boys, one of the brothers is kidnapped and assaulted. This horrifying incident affects the lives of everyone in their lives today. Hardt takes an incredibly painful and emotional topic and weaves it through the modern relationships of the brothers. The story is really well done, and a suspenseful read. I have made it to book five of this series. My only issue with these books is the writing is not the strongest at times, but the story is great! I have only made it to book five. If you set out to read this one, just know you will have to continue reading to know how the overarching story ends, it weaves through all of the books.

 

The Idea of You: by Robinne Lee

I picked it up because the concept intrigued me, a mom falls for a member of a boy band that her twelve-year-old daughter is in love with. So far it has been a fun read. Lee does a great job painting Solene’s world, a French-American divorcee, living in L.A., owning an art gallery and raising her daughter. The love interest Hayes Campbell, dreamy boyband member and almost twenty years Solene’s junior, is sexy. I love the tension between the two characters Lee does a great job of not letting the reader know who is really in charge, is it Solene the older, wiser person in the relationship or is it Hayes, with his ability to know just what to say? As I said, I haven’t quite finished this one, but it is so good so far!

 

The Drake Sisters Series by Christine Feehan (7 books)

These are another fun read from Feehan. I liked these books because they focus on a set of sisters with physic abilities (again not normally my thing). Each sister has a story and there are some swoon-worthy love stories in this series. I read the entire series last summer and tore through each book!

What I’ve Read this Month- February 2019

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If your writing you should be reading, period. I read my first romance novel a few years back and I have not been able to put them down. The first romance series I ever read was by author Christine Feehan. The series was about a group of physics who fall in love, not always in the best ways. I won’t lie\ sexy physics are not normally my thing, but I could not put them down. I read through the series in about six weeks. I share this because I think it is important to read in the genre you write in. I also think it is important to read lots of things, not listen to, but actually read. (I am not knocking audiobooks.) The important thing here is to read, just read.

I read a lot. I read for work, for school, and for pleasure. Here is a list of what I read this month for pleasure.

 

Where the Crawdads Sing: by Delia Owens

I love fiction, I read all kinds of fiction. This book came highly recommended to me. I decided to give it a try and I was so glad I did. The book is written with almost poetic-like prose, which normally would turn me off as a reader. I don’t have anything against poetry, I just don’t want to read a novel written in poetry. The story is of a young girl who is abandoned by her family. She is left in her family home to survive off of the Carolina coast. Reading the book, I could feel Owen’s love for her main character. There is a murder mystery and a romance that weaves through the story.

Like the Carolina coast, this story has a unique rhythm all it’s own. What amazes me, even more, is that this is Owen’s first published novel. Let me just say, wow! I would have thought Owen’s has been writing for years. This book is really well written and the story unfolds beautifully. A real treat.

 

The Idea of You: by Robinne Lee

In full disclosure, I have not completely finished reading this one yet. I am two-thirds of the way through. I picked it up because the concept intrigued me, a mom falls for a member of a boy band that her twelve-year-old daughter is in love with. So far it has been a fun read. Lee does a great job painting Solene’s world, a French-American divorcee, living in L.A., owning an art gallery and raising her daughter. The love interest Hayes Campbell, dreamy boyband member and almost twenty years Solene’s junior, is sexy. I love the tension between the two characters Lee does a great job of not letting the reader know who is really in charge, is it Solene the older, wiser person in the relationship or is it Hayes, with his ability to know just what to say? As I said, I haven’t quite finished this one, but it is so good so far!

Beta Read the 1st Draft of Jon Thomas’ Book.

My husband wrote a book! Actually, my husband has written several books. This one has been a labor of love and I could not be prouder of him. The icon above is from our website Anglotopia.

He is asked almost daily, why he loves Britain so much. He explains why and how he came to love that quirky, wonderful nation in this book. The book has taken him almost two years to write as he explains through travel experiences why he loves the U.K.

He has a good edit ahead of him, but I have no doubt that his book will be wildly successful!

Beta Read The Bridgekeeper: by Mathew Warren

This author was the first writer in my life. He has been writing since as long as I can remember. He went through a traumatic experience that threw off his writing mojo. This was the first project he has written since. I love the concept of not being able to rely on the narrator. I don’t want to share too much about it, because it is his and a work in progress. All I can say is that it is a powerful story that I could not put down. Way to flex that writing muscle little Matthew!

 

Toxic Game: by Christine Feehan

This arrived the other night and I could not wait! I preordered this newest book in Feehan’s Ghostwalker series last August. I had completely forgotten that I had ordered it at all so it was a great surprise when it arrived in the mail. I have not technically read it yet. I was all geared up to dig in and tear through it but honestly, I do that and I feel like I miss out. I am going to take my time and read this one. Feehan, in my opinion, is one of the best romance authors I have come across. Her ability to write the chemistry, awkwardness, affection, and love that her characters experience is a true study in the craft of romance writing.