For today's Mevember Giveaway, an oldie but a goodie... the first book of the second series in the Groupieverse, FIERCE.
FIERCE features my first size-20+ heroine, Jordi Hemphill, an aspiring singer who dumps her small Iowa town to chase her dreams of becoming a big star. Needlessly to say, circa 2013, this is not a smooth road for someone who flouts the conventional pop star mold.
To show you how ahead of the curve this book was, it was BEFORE anyone
even thought about putting Ashley Graham in a music video.
Thankfully for Jordi, she arrives in Tinsel Town around the same time as our Groupie gang develops a talent show just for people like Jordi - those who may be talented AF but are traditionally overlooked because they don't fit a certain aesthetic.
Jordi's journey is further complicated by some abusive relationships in her life, including her mother and her opportunistic boyfriend, who decides to take his relationship with her public around the time she lands a TV show.
It's not an easy read, especially since it's not an easy journey for anyone... much less anyone who identifies as an outlier. But because of its rocky road, we needed the sweetest of all my Cinnamon Roll heroes... the one and only Jace Riga.
I'm still in love with Jace, my perfectly imperfect hero. The most romantic, the most loyal... the most kind. A hero in every sense of the word.
Physically, you can't miss him. He's an amputee who still likes to live on the edge, riding motorcycles, getting tattoos and chasing every dream he believes he can catch. He's also got these intense green eyes that see right through to the heart of you.
Nice guy or douche?
Jace is the best of the best, and not just because he was a soldier who lost his leg on the battlefield. He's a hero of the heart. He believes in faithfulness. He's got honor. When he says something, you can take it right to the fucking bank. The things he went through could have hardened him, but instead they made him wiser, more centered, than he already was. Like all my best guys, he doesn't see women as a collection of parts that have to be arranged in a certain way to earn his interest. He looks deeper than the superficial. On Everything. He values the whole picture. On everyone. He's the closest to perfect I could ever hope to get.
Favorite moment with him?
There are so many, but one that stands out is when he takes off his artificial leg. It's such a poignant moment where he's the most vulnerable he could possibly be. He's about to show his biggest "imperfection" to someone he genuinely cares about, someone who is so insecure that she doesn't feel like she can ever deserve him because she's not perfect. In bearing his soul, he hopes to convince her to do likewise. It's a moment of absolute trust. Sex, sh'mex, it's one of the most intimate scenes I've written.
That night I didn’t give anyone else a chance to keep Jace company during his midnight swim. I was at the pool by eleven-thirty, where I sat with my feet dangling in the water as I waited.
Jace seemed startled to find me there as he walked over to one of the lounge chairs. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said offhand as he dumped his towel onto the chair.
“I’ve wanted to come down for a while,” I admitted. “Every midnight for two weeks,” I added softly.
The look in his eyes was intense as he sat on the chair. “Why didn’t you?”
“They told me this was your time. I didn’t want to impose.”
He chuckled. “I thought they were just uncomfortable.”
I shook my head. “They love you, Jace. They never wanted you to feel embarrassed.”
“I’m not,” he stated simply. His eyes never left my face as he proceeded to remove his artificial leg. I watched as he removed the prosthetic, and the supporting garments underneath, such as the sheath and the socks. When he stood, he didn’t waver. He hopped easily over to the edge and dove into the deep end.
I watched as he swam over to me, only breaking surface to pull himself up in front of me. “Come in with me,” he suggested softly.
I shook my head. “I don’t have a swimsuit.”
His hands ran up my bare legs to the edges of my shorts. “So?” Our eyes met and locked. He couldn’t really be asking what I thought he was asking. Before I had any chance at all to argue, he grabbed my arms and pulled me into the water.
“Jace!” I squealed as I toppled into the cold pool.
He wore a self-satisfied smirk. “Refreshing, isn’t it?”
Playfully I splashed him, and then swam away before he could retaliate. He was quick on my heels. He lifted me up and dunked me again.
“Of course you know,” I retorted, “this means war.”
I swam after him and then lifted him up to dunk him. We chased each other, splashed each other and played together for long, blissful, uninterrupted minutes. When we finally had to catch our breath, we swam lazily over to the shallow end by the steps. He propped himself up on one arm.
“That’s so much more fun when there’s someone else here,” he said with a crooked smile.
I nodded. Even though I wasn’t planning on getting in the pool, it had been way more fun than I imagined.
“There’s still one problem, though,” he said as he studied me thoughtfully.
My breath caught. “What’s that?”
“You’ve seen what I normally don’t show the world. I think it’s only fair that you show me something, too.” His eyes traveled across my face and down to the wet shirt clinging to me like a second skin.
“You’ve seen it all,” I tried to argue as I crossed my arms in front of myself.
“No, I haven’t,” he insisted as he pulled my arms to my side. “But I’d like to,” he added as his eyes engulfed me, searching for all there was to see. “Show me, Jordi. Don’t be afraid.”
There were tears in my eyes as I searched his for any hint of insincerity. “Jace…”
His eyes darkened as he lowered his head towards mine. His lips playfully toyed with mine until I couldn’t help but respond. He deepened the kiss almost immediately as my lips finally parted. I groaned as I slipped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.
His hands ran up my back and into my hair. He lifted me easily as he swung me over his lap. I braced myself on the cement behind him. I could feel him strain for my body. “Show me, Jordi,” he said again.
“Someone will see,” I protested but he shook his head.
“No one comes down here, remember? Not once, in all these weeks. We’re all alone,” he promised. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for months. Don’t make me wait anymore,” he begged as his hands slid up my arms.
My voice was small, like a squeak. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “That’s why I am asking it. Show me,” he commanded again.
What do you love about him?
Gestures above.
What do you hate about him?
I can't hate on Jake. I simply can't. He has my heart. I guess the only thing I can hate is that he isn't real.
If you went on a date, where would you go?
Hopefully a boat on a lake on a movie lot, where he'll sing to me.
Who inspired him?
He must be a remnant of a past life or something. He was already in there somewhere.
Who might play him in a movie?
Okay, so... don't laugh but my physical prototype for Jace was a young John Stamos.
But since John is a *tad* older than the Jace character, I had to go find another dark-haired, green-eyed guy. I think he will do nicely...
Do you have a special song that reminds you of him?
Oh yeah. This is their song, one they perform on stage together. She's on stage, singing, yearning for her hero, and then somewhere you can hear the rumble of thunder as a motorcycle circles her. Finally at the big moment at the end, he bursts through a flaming ring to skid to a stop beside her.
Swoon.
Any "Easter Eggs" planted with this book boyfriend?
I can't even talk about it. This was a very personal story, and affects me in much the same way Kate's storyline on This is Us does. It's a kick in the gut. I literally tossed the computer away from me at one point because it just hurt too much to wear this particular skin. Her fears are the same. Her insecurities are the same. Sadly, several of her biggest enemies are the same. Jordi's trainer tells her at one point, "You're a joke and you always will be." Once upon a time that was said to me, verbatim.
Jordi and I share a lot in common, but she's a lot braver than I was.
Where can we find him?
You get to know Jace in FIERCE, where he stars alongside a whole cast of people usually discarded by society. The saga continues in UNSTOPPABLE and concludes in EPIC. But the story isn't done. Like Graham and Vanni before him, he showed up in a number of titles, listed below:
Today is a special day. Not only is it Jordi's birthday, but it is the anniversary of the day I wed my love, Steven, in 2001.
I would tell you about my love, but truth is, you've already met him in various ways throughout many of my stories. Any time any of my Book Boyfriends have made you laugh, have supported their heroines, making them believe that they could be anything they wanted to be, who deserved to be loved and romanced and valued despite what they were taught to believe by society at large, you've seen Steven peeking from behind the facade. Fun... romance... unconditional love and unyielding support? This is his fingerprint on my life. He's literally made so many of my dreams come true.
Since Steven is my idea of a HEA, he has influenced and inspired so many stories, so many characters and so many experiences that I have written in dozens of books since we met. If I get stuck on an idea, I turn to Steven, thrusting pages of raw material under his nose to get his input. Because of him, I'm not sure I would have written THE GROUPIE SAGA as truthfully as I did. When he got to the end of book one, he told me what I already knew (which is why I was stuck there, toiling over the ending.) He told me I could not end it the way I had planned because it would cheapen the characters and fall flat, and he was absolutely, positively, 100-percent right. I knew that I was breaking a few rules when I completed the novel, but - much to my surprise - this was the series that first "landed" me my first real writing success.
Honestly, I don't even know if I'd have the career I have without him, since he has been one of my biggest cheerleaders, and often financier, of this crazy, wacky dream I have to become a best-selling writer, award-winning screenwriter.
I dream big, what can I say?
Truth is, Steven is kind of the reason I dream big. I mean, I always dreamed big, but I was always afraid to share those dreams with just anyone, because I was afraid of hearing what I always heard. "Who are YOU to do anything so special?" Well, love kind of shows you how big you can dream because it shows you how truly special you are to the right people. I knew Steven was "the right people," almost from the moment we met. He's got all the nice guy stuff going on, but he's also brave enough to tell me the truth, whether I want to hear it or not. Not a lot of people do that, and the last thing I needed was yet someone else patting me on my head and pacifying me just to shut me up. Not Steven... he's always - always - endeavored to make me better, mostly because he's always believed I could do all the amazing things I wanted to do.
This is not just some biased opinion, by the way. Since he's been a voracious reader all of his life, I knew I could share my meager little stories with him from their infancy, and he could give me the critical feedback I needed to grow. When he told me I was talented enough to make this whole crazy thing work, I knew I could believe him. I started writing more, branching out to the even scarier, wackier dream of screenwriting, and pursuing opportunities I wouldn't have had the ovarian fortitude to chase without his encouraging voice in my ear, telling me I've got the goods and I can totally make it happen. He never once tried to talk me down to planet Earth, suggesting that I needed a Plan B if this didn't work. In fact, he's the one who says, repeatedly, that the best is yet to come.
This kind of has been the theme of our whole marriage.
I won't say that things have been perfect. We've had our share of hard times and pitfalls. Several notable years - which were always odd-numbered for some reason - we flew by the seat of our pants, juggling chainsaws, flaming swords, piranhas and scorpions in order to get from one day to the next. The road has been way rockier than it has ever been smooth. But thanks to my honey, my eternal Peter Pan, I've always had someone to pick me up when I fell. (And vice versa.)
We are the perfect fit. Where I'm high-strung and emotional, he's laid back and rational. We both share the same playful sense of humor, which keeps our spirits light no matter what shit storm we might be enduring at the time. And granted, there have been times of great frustration on both of our parts, but they have never shaken our core commitment to each other. We both know how lucky we are to have found each other. We'd rather be together and struggling than apart and "safe." At the end of the day, there's no one I'd rather come home to. There's nothing anyone else could ever offer me that would improve on what I have now. It's a million-dollar match without the million dollars. (But we're working on that. Take note, Universe. #powerofattraction #nameitandclaimit)
So this might explain why I became a little peeved in the early 2000s that women who looked like me in romance novels were *not* the ones walking away with Top Prize. *I* fell in love with, and caught, a Prince Charming, despite the fact I'm dismissed as "less than ideal." (I'm wording it nicer than it's ever felt, by the way.) So if *I* can do that, why was I not seeing that in the books I read? My story is just as true and just as valid as anything I'd ever read, so why was I reading about the Fat Girl who couldn't find herself a sweetie the way I had?
Especially the sweetest sweetie of the bunch, who makes me feel sexy and beautiful and valued with every kiss, every touch and every smile.
It really gave me a bad taste in my mouth regarding all those traditional romances I read growing up, the ones I thought I wanted to write. It took Steven to see that I didn't have to write about the perfect girl who didn't know she was beautiful, who was fawned over by the handsome, perfect man, who somehow deserved her happily ever after more than the normal girls, the average girls, the atypical girls, the alternative girls... the invisible girls.
As a protest to this, I penned my first Rubenesque Romance, LOVE PLUS ONE, in 2007, where I wrote the kind of story that I wanted to read. It was more sweet than sexy, because that's the gentle introduction into the world of romance that I wanted to make. I knew I'd have to ease readers into these waters. You may not know this, but there are readers who will bypass a book with a larger heroine because they think they would hate to read about sex scenes with larger, imperfect bodies. Sadly, many readers avoid books about atypical heroines because "it's not the fantasy," and that is why so many read romance in the first place. But see, that's the great thing about fantasy. The world is big enough for all of them, even *my* fantasy - which was falling in love and being loved in return, to be deserving of that love because she is so much more than a paper doll prototype, a true flesh-and-blood woman who wants only to be desired and chosen by the perfect man.
Way back in 1997, I landed my first agent, who shopped around an early draft of my book PICTURE POSTCARDS. Several publishers came back with the same criticism: the heroine is *too* perfect. Back then I was writing stories like I read, where authors like Danielle Steel dominated my TBR list. I bought into the hype of the standard fantasy forced down our gullet from Cinderella to Barbie to any number of popular heroines in mainstream fiction and movies: that women have to be beautiful to be loved. So I imagined what life would have been like had I been born one of the fortunate few. The reason that book failed to land an audience was because that is not my story to tell, so it wasn't authentic and fell flat. I don't know what it's like to be the beautiful girl who doesn't know she's beautiful, who lands the rich, handsome guy because of pure physical attraction. I'm the quirky, funny DUFF, whose qualities are hidden a little more under the surface. I know what it's like to fall ass backwards into love, where I question each and every suitor because I am never entirely convinced they could ever want someone like me, someone normal, someone average, someone atypical or alternative...
Someone invisible.
Enter Shannon McKenna and LOVE PLUS ONE. Shannon knows all about being invisible. As a size-12 awkward geek with an insanely perfect sister, she was used to being delegated back to the shadows, where she could write and daydream about a HEA, but never for once thought she'd find one of her very own. This is where Jake Dalton stepped in, her best friend, her biggest supporter - her Prince Charming in Waiting. Jake is patterned almost exclusively after my honey. Here are some key snippets where you'll see Steven waving from behind the words.
***
Jake infuriated her sometimes. He was so level-headed. If A happened, do B. No sweat. Well, dammit, she thought to herself. Sometimes there was some sweat.
***
“You look great,” he said. He always said that. She could be in curlers and a green mud mask and he’d say that, except he’d amend, “for an alien.”
***
The limo came to a halt in front of an outdoor recreation center. Shannon got the nagging feeling Rex was up to something dirty.
When she saw the rock wall, she was certain of it.
Shannon wasn’t exactly the outdoorsy type, and there was that near pathological fear of heights thing. And she knew that Rex knew that because when Dixie had researched her show about phobias she grilled her entire staff out of curiosity, to see how common phobias were and how they affected daily life.
Despite that show, Shannon never really saw the need to tackle this particular fear. She had been very careful to cultivate an existence that didn’t move more than two feet off the ground. No high rises, no planes, no juggling act while balancing on a high wire. She even chose a ground floor apartment and worked in a one level studio.
She had convinced herself it wasn’t really a phobia. It was a choice. A choice she made again and again in her life, usually through white-knuckled, hyperventilating terror.
Jake had absolutely no idea, but she had a sneaky suspicion he was about to find out.
Conversely, Jake was stoked as he surveyed the wall. He loved physical activity that tested his limits, and this was right up his alley. He listened intently and nodded with enthusiasm as their guide gave them the rundown. Shannon plastered a smile on her face, but inside she seriously fought coming unglued. She glanced up at the wall that had to be at least forty feet high, which was funny because that’s exactly forty feet higher than she wanted to go.
Before she could protest, she was trussed up in a harness and face to face with the Wall of Doom. Suddenly her arms felt like jelly and she just knew, without any doubt, that she was going to puke.
Jake had already crawled up on the wall. He glanced back at her. “Come on, Shan! I’ll race you.”
“Let’s not and just say we did,” she muttered. She tried to will herself to move but it just wasn’t happening.
“Chicken!” he called down. It was a friendly dig meant to get her up on the wall, but it didn’t work. She’d much rather be a live chicken than a scrambled egg.
The guide came over. “Everything okay?”
No, she wanted to say. Everything is not okay. Instead she made a joke, which was the Shannon way. “How strong are these things?” she asked and motioned to the harness.
He just smiled. He knew the type. He also knew if she gave it half a chance she’d have a great time and gain a new hobby.
With the patience of a saint he showed her again where to step and where to grab on. With his help she managed to make it off the ground. “Just concentrate on your next step,” the instructor told her. She looked no further than that.
It was slow going, especially with the way Jake was scaling the wall like some kind of superhero. But she didn’t feel she was doing too badly given the circumstances, and called back to the guide to say so.
That was when she realized the ground was about fifteen feet down. If she’d have stopped to think about it, it was really not that far away, just one little ol’ story really, but to her frantic mind she felt like she was on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Suddenly her heart thumped against her ribs and her limbs began to shake. She couldn’t breathe and it felt as though she might actually be having a heart attack.
She looked up, but that only gave her a mean case of vertigo. The world spun around her and all she could do was hold on.
She promptly closed her eyes and began to scream.
“Jake!”
Like a flash he propelled down to where she sprawled frozen against the wall. She was white as a ghost and shook so badly he worried she might be having a seizure of some sort. Tears poured down her face despite how tightly she clenched her eyes shut. “Shan?”
His soothing voice only made her cry harder. She shook her head. All she wanted was to get down, but she just didn’t have the guts. She may have only been fifteen feet off the ground, but it felt like she was on top of the Empire State Building.
He tried again. “What’s wrong?”
She barely opened an eye. “Heights.” It was all she could muster.
“You’re afraid of heights?” he asked, then glanced down at how far she’d come.
She nodded. “I want to get down.”
He touched her shoulder. “Okay.”
Only she didn’t move.
“Do you know how?” he asked finally.
She nodded again and cried even harder. Her hands gripped the wall so tightly her knuckles were white.
“Honey, you gotta let go,” he said softly.
She shook her head. She couldn’t even handle the thought. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” he soothed. “Look how far you came. Getting down will be a cinch. You’ll be on the ground before you know it.”
Intellectually she knew that, but it was another matter convincing her body. Her heart raced. She couldn’t breathe. She visibly shook as she clung to the wall. “I can’t let go.”
He placed his hand on hers. “Then hang on. To me.”
She looked into his face. He was her Jake. She knew he’d never let her down. Finally she allowed him to take her hand in his.
“Trust me?” he said. She nodded. Together they kicked away from the wall and propelled down to the ground in one jump.
***
In fact, one of the key moments in their journey was a spectacular date at the Hollywood Bowl, which, aside from the obvious embellishments, was lifted directly from my courtship with Steven, who took me to the Hollywood Bowl in one of our first dates in 1999 to see John Williams conduct the LA Philharmonic under the stars. (And yes, this means that the Star Wars theme is unofficially one of our 'songs.')
The other key scenes heavily *heavily* inspired by my romance with Steven were the ones in Vegas. Vegas is our town. We fell in love there. We got engaged there. We got married there and renewed our vows there. We both even got our first tattoos there. Any chance I have to go to Vegas in any of my books is an homage to my darling hubby.
Because of Steven, you all got Jake Dalton, Graham Baxter, Jace Riga and Jonah Riley. (In fact, it occurs to me just now that the hero I wrote in 1995, when I wrote PICTURE POSTCARDS, ultimately came true with Steven four years later, like I had ordered him straight out of a catalog. See? Law of attraction. Thank you, Universe!)
These book boyfriends are my "nice guys," the sweethearts of the pack. They don't often get the same kind of following as my bad boys, which I think is a shame. The nice guys are the ones who help you raise your children. The nice guys are the ones who offer unwavering support as you follow your dreams, who never make you question their love or commitment. They're the ones who love you during all those crappy moments where you can't love yourself, and God knows a few of my heroines had a hard time with that. To me, these are the qualities that define a romantic hero. Each and every word they uttered was inspired by my real life Prince Charming, and so I kinda love them more. Loving a bad boy is easy. Finding a good man is a miracle... and has been my fantasy since I was a hopelessly romantic pre-teen girl.
So happy 14th anniversary to my love, who made that dream come true. You are my love, my friend, my soul's perfect mate. You truly are the reason I believe in love. From this moment on... and for always.
