Author Archive for Jill Shalvis – Page 2
Yes, I realize he’s adorable, but trust me, his momma? Not so much. She’s seven hundred and fifty pounds of grumpiness who had a party in our trash box yesterday, literally tearing off the door (which you can see under the can) to get to our yummy garbage for her babies.
And yeah, we had to clean it all up! There are apparently no trash fairies …
Categories : Jill Shalvis
Once upon a time, I wrote a Brava. There was a hot sexy naked guy in the shower, and a sweet but slightly befuddled woman using a pink vibrator as a flashlight . . . oh and a dead body. It came out in Trade and looked like this, so that my kids thought I’d written a puzzle book:
Then along came Aussie Rules. There was a chip-on-her-shoulder heroine and a big, bad Aussie, and despite their worlds being at odds, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It also came out in Trade and my kids thought I’d written a fun cartoon:
I got a few letters after these two books were released, readers expressing surprise at how hot the books were compared to the relatively tame covers. I’m thinking maybe my editor got letters too, because next out was SMART AND SEXY (4/07) and it looked like this:
This one actually just went back to press, so yay! Here’s it’s sequel, STRONG AND SEXY, out in December of this year:
I doubt I’m going to get letters saying these covers aren’t hot enough, lol. And then, I got a GREAT call. GET A CLUE is going to be reissued in mass market, with a new cover! YAY! A few months later I received that new cover.
Uh, holy nipple, Batman! This one is definitely not a puzzle book or a fun cartoon, and might be tough to explain the kids, lol, but I’m sure I’m not going to be getting any mail suggesting that THIS cover isn’t hot enough.
Comments (15)
Categories : Jill Shalvis
I’m in tv season mourning. All my shows are gone, off the air for months, and while there are some really great summer series (Rescue Me anyone?) for the most part my evenings are now free.
So I’m gobbling up books. Because as much as I love tv, I love books more; romances, mysteries, suspense, hell I’ll read a cereal box, I don’t care, I love it all. As I have mentioned here before, my TBR pile is shockingly high, topples over daily, and just last night, smacked my poor dog with a falling tower of paperbacks. I actually have two TBR piles. The first and biggest, is the Someday Pile. You know, for when I find myself stranded in the Bahamas with no laundry and no dishes and nothing to do but read and say thank you to the cute cabana boy for the delicious feast he’s prepared for me … sorry, I digress. Pile number two is smaller and is the imminent reading pile, the absolute NEXT reads on my list, which actually for me often includes a piece of paper with the books that I want that aren’t out yet, like Janet’s Lean Mean Thirteen and HARRY POTTER! My God, I’m pathetically eager for that one.
Unfortunately at the moment, my immediate next reads are me. I have copy edits and galleys due. Not a problem except I’ve already read these books, lol. I like NEW stuff! Hence the towering TBR pile … yeah, I still have hope about that Bahamas trip . . .
Anyway, here’s the question of the day. If you had an imminent list like I do, of books that are coming that you can’t wait for, what’s on it? I’ll be drawing a few names from the comments to be in the running for a free brava of your choice from my backlist.
Update:
Winners are Shuck Ying and Kris! Email me from my website with your book choice and addy.
Comments (35)
Categories : General, Jill Shalvis
Sometimes a story idea comes to me like a gift, all wrapped up in a nice little package with a pretty bow. And sometimes I have to pull it out of a hat without the benefit of magic, and usually without the benefit of Novocain. SMART AND SEXY was a gift book. It came to me complete with full characters and a plot that practically wrote itself. From the first scene of Bailey sneaking on board Noah’s private plane and then forcing him to fly her where she needed to go in order to save her life, I knew the truth. This book was going to be a blast to write. No pulling out fingernails to get my pages done. No bribing myself with cookies to sit in the chair and write.
Well, I still ate cookies.
But my point is that this book flew out of me. Noah, so put together on the outside. Great career, hot looks, amazing friends. And yet so tortured on the inside, because of an accident he can’t get out of his head.
Bailey. So screwed up on the outside. Bad guys after her. No home, no money, thanks to her thieving dead husband. And yet, so capable on the inside. Capable enough to bring a good man to his knees in the face of love. Who’d have thought it?
Anyway, the book is on the shelves now, and also available at Amazon and Barnesandnoble, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. I’ll draw names from the comments today, winners get a free book of their choice from my backlist.
UPDATE:
Winners drawn randomly are Cherie and Kim H. Go to my website and email me from there with your snailmail addy and a few book choices from my backlist!!
Comments (56)
Categories : General, Jill Shalvis
I’ve been working on taxes for what seems like forever now. Probably it would go faster if I didn’t keep turning on the tv (House, you rocked this week!), or playing Monopoly with a kid here and there, or going skiing (four feet of fresh powder here in Tahoe, can’t help myself) …
Probably it would be less painful if I HADN’T JUST TOSSED EVERY SINGLE RECEIPT AND PAID BILL INTO A BOX ALL YEAR.
Hi, my name is Jill and I have no organizational skills. None.
This drives my husband insane to the point where he won’t help me with the taxes until I get myself in order. Hate to disappoint, but it ain’t ever gonna happen.
So. For two days running I have been sitting on the floor with this big box in front of me, making piles. Piles of gas receipts. Piles of doctors bills. Piles of subscriptions paid (hey, honey, your Penthouse is expiring). I have piles of restaurants checks and traveling receipts (Mr. IRS, is Disneyland a write-off?) and piles of crap that I have no idea what to do with. And each little pile is turning into this staggering high, precariously stacked mountain, just waiting … yep … for a kid to come barreling into the room at the speed of light yelling “mom, she’s after me” and jump into the center of it.
Scattering papers from here to Kingdom Come.
I vowed not to cry if that happened. (If? Who am I kidding, it was BOUND to happen!)
Hey, do you think the IRS will accept a sanity plea as an excuse for being late?
Anyone else having as much fun as I am?
Comments (13)
Categories : General, Jill Shalvis
If you read my daily blog, you know it’s been one of those weeks. A sick kid, a broken washing machine, and a blank screen, and no junk food in the house anywhere (because I’ve consumed it all, damn it). There were some positive events. I’ve received some really great advanced reviews for my upcoming Brava SMART AND SEXY.
If you want my undying gratitude, feel free to preorder! As enticement, I’ll give you a little excerpt. And as always, I’ll draw a few names from the commenters for a free book from my Brava backlist. Happy, happy weekend!
Excerpt:
As the sun sank below the mountain line, he touched down and taxied them in, while Bailey sat still, white-knuckled, white-faced.
Finally he turned off the engine.
She didn’t move.
He stood, then crouched at her side. “We’ve landed.”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him until he slid his hand along her jaw and tilted her head down toward him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hair falling over his hand, her skin creamy soft beneath his fingers.
Sorry for coming along, he wondered, or for running out on him, which she’d most likely do while he arranged for the plane’s tie-down and complete re-check of the landing gear.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your night,” she said. “I didn’t know it was your plane I was boarding.”
“Whose plane did you mean to board?”
“It was going to Mammoth, that’s all that mattered.”
Their faces were level. He was close enough to see that her baby blues were outlined in a ring of midnight blue, and that she had a light smattering of freckles high across her perfect nose. Close enough to see the pulse beating faster than a hummingbird’s at her throat. Without conscious thought, he stroked a thumb over that beat.
Her gaze caught his, and held.
Their mouths were nothing but a whisper apart. He knew it was crazy, but he wanted to close the gap, wanted to put his mouth on hers as he’d so pathetically fantasized about on more than one dark, sweaty, sleepless night. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that she didn’t want anything but her freedom.
But her gaze lowered to his mouth, too, and her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.
He nearly moaned. Instead, his hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into her silky hair, which was now teasing his forearm.
She said his name again, just a whisper of a sound this time, and her eyes fluttered closed, which sent a ridiculous surge of lust coursing through him.
She wanted him back.
This was crazy, crazy, and yet he leaned in.
So did she.
He’d never be sure which of them closed that last inch between them but it didn’t matter because suddenly her mouth was soft and warm on his. He had one last blinding thought before he went under — one kiss would never be enough, not with her, his walking/talking/breathing wet-dream.
Then she let out this breathless little sound, and her tongue was so hot and sweet he could have sustained himself on that alone. She slid her fingers up over the back of his head to keep him where he was.
As if he’d move.
Fat chance.
Comments (34)
Categories : General, Jill Shalvis
UPDATE:
Winners are: Mary Durnan, Marie, Linda, JT, and Zara. Email me with your addy and a few book choices!
Original Post:
Reading has always been my security blankie. Whether I’m down and out, or happy and content, reading is the first hobby I turn to when I have a spare moment. I read everything, from my favorite – romances – to cereal boxes. I’m not picky.
But this week I’ve been sick, and I had the most frustrating thing happen. Nothing worked for me. I couldn’t sink into a single thing that I tried, not any of the books I had stacked to be read, not the magazines, nothing.
Hell, even IN TOUCH failed me.
People, I’ve had a crisis of reading, and it isn’t pretty. I’m devastated. But I think you can help me. If you could just tell me a great book to try. And it has to be great. Something that made you laugh or cry, I don’t care, but at the end, you have to have sighed with deep, and I mean deep, satisfaction. I’ll even bribe you. On Sunday, I’ll draw three names for a free book from my backlist.
Now go.
p.s. if you can’t think of a book, I’ll take a movie. Or a television show. I’m currently sobbing my way through the end of Grey’s Anatomy season two on DVD.
Comments (56)
Categories : General, Jill Shalvis
UPDATE:
Winners are Sunshine, Joyce, and Sydney Dawn. Please email me with your snailmail and a few books choices.
Original Post:
As I’ve been joking about on my own blog, my brain is overloaded. Seriously, my To Do list is longer than my Christmas Wish List (I’m looking at a pile of laundry that is rivaling Mt. Everest as I type this) and what am I doing? Reading. I can’t help myself, it’s a sickness. I love to read, it feeds my soul much in the way that soft, gooey chocolate chips cookies do. On my reading pile is a set of my own page proofs. For those of you not familiar with this term, page proofs are the last time an author sees her book before it goes to print. This when I should catch all those pesky last minute things, like whoops, my heroine’s hair isn’t blonde and yikes, my hero says the F word just a few too many times and I really don’t want to get any letters on that. (Yes, I once really once got a letter regarding bad words. The disgruntled reader had circled — in red in case I was blind — all the swear words and sent them back to me.)
So I thought I’d share the chore. Below is an excerpt from my upcoming Brava SMART AND SEXY, enjoy on me. But if you find any mistakes, speak up now or forever hold your peace.
Oh, and I’ll be drawing two names from all of you who comment, for a book of your choice from my backlist.
Excerpt:
Another shot ricocheted past his nose and Bailey screamed loud enough to blister his ears. Hell. Wrapping an arm around her hips, he yanked, sliding her down into the protection of his body. Ignoring the fact that she fit against him as if she’d been made for the spot, he took a look over his shoulder. Eight feet to the balcony of the fifth floor. Or was it the fourth?
Wincing, because this was going to hurt like hell, he held onto his bundle of woman and leapt.
Bailey screamed again but Noah was too busy hitting the deck, then having the air sucker punched out of his lungs when she landed square on top of him to tell her to shut up again.
Honest to God, she was the noisiest woman he’d ever been shot at with.
Oh, wait. She was the only woman he’d ever been shot at with. One more whizzing bullet and his heart nearly lurched to a complete stop, starting up again on a staccato beat when Bailey covered her own mouth with her hand to keep in the next scream.
Good girl, he wanted to say. But with a groan, he rolled over in the snow, finding one hand full of soft breast. Christ. Yanking it back, he went up to his knees, keeping her tucked in front of him as he hit the ground running toward the balcony door, not an easy feat with the few inches of slippery snow. Pulling her up, he sandwiched her against the wall. “Wait here,” he said in her ear. “Don’t move, don’t breathe, and for God’s sake, don’t scream.”
“But—“
He put a hand over her mouth. “Bailey, goddamnit, for once, just do it, no discussion.”
Comments (51)
Categories : Jill Shalvis
I’ve been a reader since I could hold a book. I’ve been a romance reader since I discovered the racy romances in the library while in middle school. I’d stay up late at night reading them with a flashlight. Talk about a great escape. Cut to twenty years later . . . The other day my youngest daughter came home from middle school, put her hands on her hips and gave me a long look. “Smart And Sexy?” she demanded. “Really?”
Well, huh. Smart And Sexy is the 4/07 title of my upcoming Brava, and I hadn’t mentioned it to her because unlike me at that age, she does not spend hours in the library reading racy romances. “Where did you hear that?”
“On your blog, mom. You have the cover there. In computer class, my friends all had it up on their screen.”
The cover is . . . hot. Definitely suggestive. It’s of a woman climbing onto a man’s lap. Oh. Oh. “And you were embarrassed.”
“Why can’t you write history books, or something really dull? Instead everyone always wants to go look at your covers. It’s . . .” She searched for the right word. “Ewwww.”
“I see.” And I did. In fact, I’ve been struggling with this for some time. As a mother of three daughters, all becoming teenagers, is it irresponsible of me to be writing such hot and sexy books? At first, given my daughter’s horror, I decided yes. I decided hey, I also write funny. I write mystery. I could do those things instead and leave out all the sex. I even wrote up a proposal for a funny mystery series about a rather quirky pastry chef whose shop has a ghost haunting it. This ghost is an old woman who runs a geriatric P.I. firm from the great beyond, much to her very alive grandson’s chagrin. And guess what happened. The steady, non-ghost believing grandson was hot and sexy and alpha, and had this insane attraction to the pastry chef, even as she drove him crazy on a daily basis. And they wanted to have sex. A lot of it. Damn it. Picture me tossing the proposal over my shoulder and plopping my head down on my desk as I gave in.
I can’t seem to help myself. I love love. I love romance. I love making characters fall in love, and yeah, I like making their stories spicy while I’m at it. I don’t know what that says about me, but there it is. I’m in this for the long haul.
But if my daughter has her vote, my covers and titles wouldn’t embarrass her in computer class … So I guess my question is, as a reader or author, have any of you had a moment’s discomfort over your reading/writing habits?
Comments (28)
Categories : Jill Shalvis
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