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State Of The Trout: “Now listen to this!”

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Happy Post-Easter Monday, everyone! It’s a glorious time when that smug atheist guy you only follow on Facebook because they’re a friend of a friend and there would be awkwardness if you unfollowed them now stop posting Easter memes about how gullible and duped Christians are, and go back to just posting regular memes about how gullible and duped Christians are. Spring is truly in the air, my friends.

Even though I’m not a Christian, I had a great Easter this year. My great-grandparents are both gone now (my great-grandmother having died very recently at the age of ninety-eight), and my family decided to have one last holiday at their house before we have to sell it. We had an Easter egg hunt in the woods for the kids, had a big family picture taken in front of the house (with two empty chairs in the front for grandma and grandpa), and sat around watching old home movies. It could have been a sad time, but it was really fun and joyous instead. My great-grandfather once pointed to a photo of our entire, huge family and said, “My marriage license cost me two dollars, and I got my money’s worth!” so I think they would have been very proud to host their family one last time.

With that personal sappiness out of the way, onto the news! And there’s a lot of it today,  so I’m breaking it into sections.

News About Jenny’s Books

Bride Of The Wolf is available in audio! If you’re an audio reader, you can now pick up this historical paranormal romance, narrated beautifully by Tatiana Sokolov.

First Time is coming to audio! Tantor Media will release both version of First Time on May 31! I’ve heard both narrators, and they’re awesome. Also, in a hilarious coincidence, Ian will be narrated by a guy named Anthony Ferguson. Ah, serendipity. Keep an eye out at Amazon and Audible for those titles.

Speaking of First Time, after continued requests (and formatting issues with the previous volumes), both books of First Time are available in a single paperback now. It’s pricey and big, but it’s available.

But Jenny, what about Second ChanceWell, friends, you’ll be getting a cover reveal and release date news very soon. Stay tuned.

News About Where You Can Meet Jenny In 2016

Atlanta, April 9th I’ll be at the Sheraton Atlanta, at the multi-author signing for The Novel Experience Event. Doors for the signing open at 11 a.m. for the general public, and they close at 4:30 p.m. Come by and say hi!

Chicago, May 21st Okay, kind of a fudge here, it’s not Chicago proper, but Schaumburg. Still, for the number of authors who are going to be there, it’s worth leaving the city. Come see me between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Both of these events are still accepting registration for the entire conference, so if you’re interested in hearing me talk (I’m on a few panels and doing a reading at The Novel Experience Event and a workshop at Chicago Spring Fling) and have a weekend and some cash to spare, I recommend both of these highly.

News Of Interest To Trout Nation:

Our friends at the Peace Corps are collecting funds again. Last year, I posted about the Peace Corps’s “Bro Camp” in the Philippines. The camp aims to teach boys the importance of gender equality, and how to foster healthy, equal relationships. Or, as the volunteer who contacted me put it, to teach boys “not to be Christian Grey.” If this is something you’d be into donating to, you can get more information here.

My Reading Challenge Progress!

I totally cheated and shoehorned an entire series into the challenge:

A Dystopian Novel: The Selection, by Kiera Cass
A Book And Its Prequel: The Elite and The One, by Kiera Cass
A Book You Can Finish In A Day: The Queen, by Kiera Cass

When I started reading this series, I was skeptical. On the one hand, it was incredibly well-written and grabbed me right away. On the other hand, I had so many people whose opinion I trusted who absolutely hated it. The phrase “anti-feminist trash” was used by one of them. And it definitely could have been, considering the entire plot revolves around a The Hunger Games-esque competition for the hand of a prince and the chance for one girl to claw her way up through an unfair caste system. But while I cringed at the characterization of some of the girls (the ubiquitous slut who makes the heroine’s life hell, the ambiguously Asian girl there for family honor), I was pleasantly surprised by how sensitively Cass portrayed the idea of a group of girls competing for one guy without relying on a plot device wherein all the other girls were bitches. In fact, the girls who seem like the biggest threats are the ones I ended up liking the most.

What I did not care for in this series was the indecisiveness of the heroine. In the grand tradition of YA love triangles, the heroine kept one dude on the back burner–despite the fact that the circumstances of the plot made this super dangerous–while pursuing another guy. Plus, the back burner guy was such a douchebag, I couldn’t see for even a second why the heroine would want to be involved with him at all.

While some parts of the series were frustrating, I really enjoyed it, and while I could see where some of the criticisms were coming from, I think this is one of the few series where those issues did get better as the books went on.

A Graphic Novel: Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson. I really enjoyed this one. I loved the way the story blended science fiction, fantasy, and superhero mythos together. It was also kind of deceptive: when I started it, I thought, “okay, this is cute. Title character is annoyingly precocious, could do without that, but still interesting.” By the time I got to the end, that opinion was totally reversed. I mean, it was still cute in places, but the story was remarkably dark beneath the cute, and presented ages-old moral dilemmas in a totally unexpected way. I would recommend this for everybody, but especially for adult fans of Adventure Time.

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to cram into this post!

Troutcation Hiatus

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This week, and probably next week, I’ll be on hiatus. Why, you ask? Well, the good people at Apple Vacations wanted Mr. Jen and I to check out their service and the Secrets St. James resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We’ll spend three nights there and report back about Apple Vacations and Secrets St. James and various vacation-type whoo and rahs, in a series of compensated, but objective, posts.

In other words, this is quite a bit like that time I reviewed sunglasses for this blog because it meant I got to keep the sunglasses. And like the time I agreed to wear clothes and jewelry exclusively from ModCloth for the Steve Harvey Show and then I got to keep the entire wardrobe they sent me. I’ll take the free stuff, but I’ll always be honest with you about the product (in the case of the ModCloth thing, I told you the god’s honest truth by looking amazing in their clothes).

Since I have to get many ducks in several rows before I leave, both personally and professionally, and since I will probably be too sunburned to move by the time I get back, I’ll be taking a little break. Expect lots of pictures, and hopefully some great stories about snorkeling.

So, I will return, and when I do, we’ll all be ready for a new Apolonia recap, another chapter of my Patreon serial, and two #LegionXIII posts to make up for the ones I’ll miss.

Have a great couple of weeks, you wacky kids ‘ya.

 

State of The Trout: Forums and Free Reading

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I know I said not to expect much from the blog this week, but I’ve got just a few little things I want to go over, and one big thing:

I will not be seeing 50 Shades of Grey this weekend. I will be seeing it on Tuesday. I’m just announcing this to cut back on the social media questions re: if I’m going to see it or not. I have no desire to see this movie in a theatre packed with actual fans of the books.

I’ve update the appearances page. Click on “Meet Me!” in the menu to see where I’m going to be. If I’m in your area, stop by!

Did you know I wrote a free erotic romance that will cleanse your palate after 50 Shades of GreyIf you’re just now joining us here in Trout Nation due to the rise in demand for 50 Shades of Grey snark, you might be unaware that I wrote a BDSM-themed erotic romance series. The first book, The Boss, is available for free on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Speaking of free reads, chapter 12 of The Afflicted is up on Wattpad. You can read it here. Again, if you’re new, you can try out my writing for free. The Afflicted is a New Adult horror serial.

There’s a new forum for ranting and discussion. I’m actually shocked that I didn’t think of this sooner, but I’ve had a handful of people ask for this and when I thought about it, it made sense to me. This is kind of a little community, and we like to talk about things. We like to talk about things so much, the comments section of some posts get a little hard to follow. So, I made a forum. You can get there by clicking that bolded link, or by the “forum” option in the menu bar.

The boards listed came from the suggestions people asked for when they brought the idea up, then a general board for whatever the fuck you wanna gab about. If you think there’s a board that should be added, let me know and I’ll throw it in there if it doesn’t fit as a thread under one of the existing boards. The cool thing about this is, if a conversation thread is getting too long in the comments, you can opt to move it to a place where it’s readable.

This is just something I’m trying out, if it doesn’t work, hey, we gave it a shot, twelve people who thought this was a good idea! I’ll check in now and again to see how it’s going.

 

Well, it’s back to the grind for me. Thanks to everyone who’s been linking people to my recaps and books!

State of The Trout: The Ex, Pre-Order Snafu, and First Time

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Hello, everyone! The first thing I want to tell you guys is that I’m aware of the issue with the pre-order of The Ex from Barnes & Noble. I’ve contacted Smashwords, and I’m hoping we’ll have this issue resolved as soon as possible. Thank you all for your patience; I know it suuuuucks to be waiting for something and have it delayed. In the meantime, if anyone has ordered from another outlet and had this problem, please let me know in the comments.

Now, in case you missed it, OMG THE EX IS OUT FLAAAAAAAIL!

the ex

Amazon • Smashwords

If you prefer to buy from B&N, I’ll update everyone when the problem gets worked out!

New project in the works

Okay, I’m really, really excited to talk to you about First Time, the new book with characters from the Sophie Scaife series that I announced at the back of The Ex.

Okay, remember when I was rolling my eyes about the idea of E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer et. al. rewriting their stories from the hero’s POV? A lot of us agreed that authors who do that are generally doing it to capitalize on their most lucrative projects; many of the rewritten-from-the-male-POV books have only released or been announced after their counterpart was a staggering success. And there’s nothing wrong with making money, or giving readers what they want.

For a while, I blew off the notion of these books, thinking they were just kind of a lazy cash grab. But then I started thinking about it, and they seem very hard to write. Months after you wrote the original story, you’re jumping back into the world, trying to get every scene between the two main characters exactly the same, but from a different angle. Fuck that, that is not lazy, and you will not catch me doing that kind of work.

So, I’m going to do it, but write the two books at the same time so I don’t have to go back and look shit up.

First Time will be the first book (obviously) in the By The Numbers series. I expect it to be a four book series, comprised of eight books. Because for each title in the series, there will be one volume from the hero’s point of view, and the other from the heroine’s point of view. Both will tell the complete story, so if you choose to read only one of the books, you’ll still get the entire thing and you’ll know what’s going on. You’d even know what was going on jumping from one POV for the first story the opposite POV from the second story. You can read both, or pick the voice you like, it doesn’t matter.

Now, if you haven’t read The Ex (and I’m impressed at how many of you have), the next bit is about the new project. Learning more about it will give you a (minor) spoiler for The Ex, so click the “read more” link with care. After the jump, I’ll share more information about First Time.

State of The Trout: Books out the wazoo

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Remember back in July when I was in that New Adult anthology, If Ever I Would Leave You? My story, A Choice Fit For A Queen, is re-releasing as a $0.99 stand-alone novella, Choosing You.

choosing you cover small

For perpetual overachiever Madison Lane, a summer studying Arthurian mythology in the Welsh countryside with professor Thomas Evans is a dream come true, and the adventure of a lifetime.

Of course, the enormous crush Madison developed on the professor after a semester of his lectures at U of M has absolutely nothing to do with her desire to learn more about the enduring legend of Camelot. At least, that’s what she’s telling her parents.

When Madison meets local hottie Rhys Crewe, sparks fly, throwing her plans for a wild fling with Professor Evans completely out of whack—as do her unexpectedly complicated feelings for Thomas. With tales of Arthur and Lancelot haunting her every waking moment, Madison has to make the most difficult choice of her life.

Amazon

So, if you read A Choice Fit For A Queen, the only new thing here is the cover and the title. If you haven’t read A Choice Fit For A Queen, then yay, new book! And if you’re curious about my writing but you’re not into billionaires, then this is a good $0.99 cent way to sample. You can get it on Amazon today, with Smashwords and Barnes & Noble to follow. And if you’re into anthologies, you can still purchase If Ever I Would Leave You for $2.99. Check out the “Read Jenny’s Books” page for more info and buy links.

Other news: The final touches are still being added to The Ex. While I would have loved to have had a pre-order set up by now, at the moment I’m just trying to get it as perfect as I can get it before uploading. Delivering a quality book to you is always more important to me than first day sales.

Kickstart the book that will show the world what it’s like to be an overweight woman: Photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero takes pictures of herself walking around and just doing normal things in public. The catch? She’s overweight. Her photos show how people look at her when she’s not looking at them–and how people react to “imperfection” when nobody is watching. She’s currently crowdfunding a book of her photos, and you know I’m a sucker for independent projects, so I wanted to share it with all of you so you can have the opportunity to help her out, if you want.

State of The Trout: I went to IKEA!

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Hey everybody! Just a quick update to let you know what’s happening around these parts!

  • Next week, The Boss series will be going on a blog tour! This is going to give you a chance to enter to win some really great prizes, including signed paperbacks and Sophie’s lipstick vibrator (some shipping restrictions apply).
  • The cover for If Ever I Would Leave You gets revealed next week, as well! And there’s another giveaway! OMG YOU CAN WIN SO MUCH STUFF IF THAT IS YOUR THING!

I went to IKEA! I have long been wanting a specific desk from them, but the shipping was like, prohibitively expensive (it would have cost more than the desk!). So when we were on our way to Chicago North’s Spring Fling conference this weekend, my awesome friends Andrea Dickinson, Bronwyn Green, and Patricia Kiyono braved IKEA with me (on a Sunday, which is apparently the worst day to go? There were people lining up outside before the store even opened!) and I got my freaking desk!

photo 1
Bronwyn Green and I try to figure out if we’ve got all the right parts
photo 2
Me, Bronwyn, and Patricia posing for a photo right after Andrea said, “I’m taking a picture of this, guys!”
photo 3
And then Patricia was like, “Now let me get a picture of you guys.” In hindsight, we could have probably just asked somebody else to take a photo of all of us.

IKEA is the scariest place on Earth. There is too much stuff and it’s all overwhelming and everybody knows exactly what they’re doing and they do not like that you’re there messing up their groove. It took us forever to find the restrooms because we kept seeing signs that said Bathroom and they meant stuff for the bathroom and not the bathrooms where you could do a potty. I had no idea how any of the IKEA process worked and it was all terrifying. But I got my desk, and hopefully I’ll have it set up soon. There is a lot of office reorganizing that needs to take place before that can happen. But I’ll take pictures when it’s done.

As for the conference? It was awesome. I got to meet some of my tweeps that I’ve never seen in person, I made some new friends, got to have a super good chat with my editor at Entangled, Liz Pelletier, and there was a Starbucks in the lobby that was open until 5pm. There was a fancy dinner with a shitty comedian, so here is a picture of me avoiding his “Am I right, ladies?!” jokes in the bathroom:

IMG_20140426_210844439

 

The first day of the conference, I found this in the lobby:

IMG_20140425_103931327 (1)
This is gonna be a good day. I can feel it.

There was a silent auction for a literacy charity, so Bronywn Green and I decided to do a basked together. The theme was “Naughty and Nice.” I bet you can’t guess which side was mine:

IMG_20140425_092601837 (2)

I went to a bunch of workshops, including one on reviews by Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and one by Liz Pelletier on the traditional publishing process. And at the book signing I got my Kindle cover autographed by Mary Balogh, Courtney Milan, Lauren Dane, and Carrie Lofty, and in the lobby Kristan Higgins complimented my hair! All in all, it was a good conference, and I’m glad I went.

So, what’s on the agenda for the next week in Trout Nation? You can expect Merlin Club on Friday and another After recap between then and now. I’m also working on the next Buffy recap, but you know those are a little longer and take more time in between, just like I know that you’re patient.

Everybody have a great Monday, join us for Merlin Club tonight at 8pm EST if you can on the hashtag #MerlinClub, and I’ll see you later in the week!

State of The Trout: What I’m working on now, where I’ll be, and Wednesday Blogging

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Hey everybody! As you might have noticed from yesterday’s unusually optimistic post, I’m back! I’ve crawled out from under my overwhelming two release months in a row and the resultant stress-induced depression, I’ve taken a week off and now I’m ready to jump back into writing with both feet! The next Buffy recap will be here on Thursday, and then it’s Merlin Club on Friday and sweet baby potatoes and celery, it’s almost like I’m actually blogging again!

What am I working on? I’m glad I presumed that you would ask!

  • Playing Him, a New Adult novella
  • The Abysm of Time, the second book in my Wondrous Strange series.

OBLIGATORY BOOK ON SALE PLUG

such sweet sorrowAmazon • Barnes & Noble

I’ll be going places, too! I’ll be at the Chicago Spring Fling Book Signing  (Hoffman Estates, IL • April 26, 2014 • 9 – 10:30am). There are going to be a lot of great authors at this one, including my girl Bronwyn Green, so if you’re in the area, come check it out!

Next up, in an attempt to get back to more regular blogging, I’m joining a bunch of really fabulous authors in a wednesday blog ring. Every week, we’ll be posting on the same topic. This week is “A Day in The Life,” and I thought it would be a great way to introduce another new feature, Trout Nation TV! I’ll be posting videos on an irregular basis, to keep things low maintenance.

Here’s the inaugural episode of Trout Nation TV, and my first wednesday blogging entry:

Check out what these writers do every day:

State of The Trout: I’m not dead. Also, a puppy.

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Hey everybody! I’ll be at the Montgomery County Book Festival this weekend, giving the opening keynote address, so right now I’m speaking very confidently to myself in the mirror and timing myself on a stopwatch.  If you’re near Conroe, TX, come over and see me!

In other news, I know I haven’t updated the 50 Shades recaps in a long time, but I thank you for your continued patience. I’ve gotten some emails asking when I’m going to be updating, but please remember, the blog is kind of a sideline to my whole author gig, and I’m in the middle of two back-to-back release months. I’ve also got a couple of deadlines coming up, I hate disappointing you or making you wait, but I have to meet those in order to pay my bills and stay mentally healthy. I go away every now and then, but you know I always come back with a full tank.

In other other news, I got a puppy!

We’ve had her for a few weeks, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned her on the blog yet. There she is snuggling a stuffed hamster. Her name is Coraline, and she’s a pit bull.

In other other other news. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet or not, but my first New Adult title, Playing Him, a novella, will be featured in the anthology College Bound. The theme of the antho is characters exploring kink with their newfound adult freedom. Release date is still TBA, but I’ll keep you updated with all the details.

Okay, I’m off to Texas. Merlin Club will update as scheduled, because those things are easy as hell to post.

State of The Trout: Shakespeare YA serendipity, Coffee People update, and general nonsense

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such sweet sorrow

Never was there a tale of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo…

But true love never dies. Though they’re parted by the veil between the world of mortals and the land of the dead, Romeo believes he can restore Juliet to life, but he’ll have to travel to the underworld with a thoroughly infuriating guide.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, may not have inherited his father’s crown, but the murdered king left his son a much more important responsibility—a portal to the Afterjord, where the souls of the dead reside. When the determined Romeo asks for help traversing the treacherous Afterjord, Hamlet sees an opportunity for adventure and the chance to avenge his father’s death.

In an underworld filled with leviathan monsters, ghoulish shades, fire giants, and fierce Valkyrie warriors, Hamlet and Romeo must battle their way through jealousy, despair, and their darkest fears to rescue the fair damsel. Yet finding Juliet is only the beginning, and the Afterjord doesn’t surrender souls without a price…

Amazon • Barnes & Noble