Journal Jots – Blog

 “Sweet thunderation—deliver me from pretty men!”

— Cassady McClare, Dare to Dream, by Julie Lessman,

Book 1 of The Cousins McClare

And sweet thunderation, what a week! I’m closing in on a 100 pages of book 1 of The Cousins McClare, and I gotta tell you that I am LOVING this book so far!! Which is SUCH a relief because after being joined at the hip with the O’Connors for FIVE YEARS (from the point of writing to now), I’ll be honest—I was worried.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I trust that God will guide and direct me like He always has before, but it has been such a struggle falling in love with this family because let’s face it—they are not the O’Connors!

“Oh man, Keith,” I whined to my husband on the porch swing out on our deck where we chat and pray for a half hour every morning, “It’s SO hard to get the reader warm and fuzzy in a cold San Francisco mansion with servants and Nob Hill socialites. Especially when there is no happily married couple like Marcy and Patrick O’Connor to fill the house with a warm glow.”

Heavy sigh. “I mean, let’s face it,” I continue to moan, “the setting is cold. You have sea-damp San Francisco, upper-crust rich people, a lonely matriarch, a rogue brother-in-law who is still in love with her, and servants who wait on them. YIKES!! Not a whole lot of cozy, hearth-fire warmth going on there!”

“Well,” he says, taking a sip of our hazelnut coffee (which his cousin Mike calls “sissy coffee”), “maybe you could give them a pet.”

“Gosh, I don’t know, babe. I thought about that, but a dog just doesn’t seem right in a mansion, you know? Besides I already used golden retrievers with the O’Connors.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” he says, squinting into our wooded backyard. Well, how about giving them a parrot, you know, like you had growing up?”

I turned and stared at him with mouth agape. The man is a bloomin’ genius!

BINGO! Suddenly I had a vision of the parrot we had growing up, and everything clicked into place. You see, my dad was a widower and a little eccentric (uh, do you see a pattern here??), so he kept this parrot named Pancho in a large cage on a table next to his chair. Now, my dad was not weird or anything (he was an eye surgeon, so you can’t be too weird with that, right?), but every night at 7:00 PM, he had to have two ice-cream brown cows (on a stick), and it was our job (my sisters’ and mine) to make sure they were on his other end table at precisely 7:00 PM. If we were late, you don’t want to know what happened, trust me!

Anyway, it was my job to clean the family room and Pancho’s cage, so while I would be sweeping the dirt under the rug (yes, I really did that, but you will be happy to know, I don’t do it any longer), I’d teach Pancho songs to sing. For instance, I taught him how to sing the first bars of “What’s it all about, Pancho?” to the tune of “What’s It All About, Alfie?” and then I taught him “I love Pancho in the springtime” to the tune of “I Love Paris in the Springtime.” Now, mind you, it was not just enough for Pancho to sing these songs, which he did quite well, I might add, enunciating pretty clearly. Oh no, this bird had to dance side-to-side on the bar in his cage at the same time, his orange and black eyes getting bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller while he’d sing and dance. Soooo cute! Another trick I would do is to shake a bag of potato chips, and that little guy would follow me around the room, either stomping or flying—it didn’t matter. There was simply no question about it—I thought this bird was flat-out adorable!

Uh … until my dad yelled at me one night for only giving him ONE brown cow ice cream bar. Only I’d given him two, but sweet thunderation … one came up missing!! Yeah, you guessed it. There sat Pancho in his cage on the bar like a green-feathered angel, a half-eaten brown cow in his claw while those pin-wheel eyes just flashed and glowed. Gosh, what a hoot that bird was … “was” being the operative word.

You see, my dad liked to walk around the house with Pancho on his shoulder sometimes and this one day he forgot and went outside and, of course, Pancho flew away. My dad was SO broken-hearted that he got my sisters and I out of bed very early that morning (which was when it happened) and made us go outside and look for him. I’m guessing I was about fifteen or so, and I used to sleep with big curlers in my hair, which I kept in place with a pair of leopard underwear (I know, don’t ask!). Across the street from our house was a wooded hill that had a very old cemetery, and Daddy told me to go look up there. So, in my robe, curlers and leopard underwear, I took a bag of potato chips and went into the woods singing “What’s it all about, Pancho?” but alas, the bird had flown the coop … or in this case, the shoulder, never to be found again. Suffice it to say that the next pet was a black lab … a little harder to lose, thank God!

Well … now The Cousins McClare have a parrot, a very mischievous parrot who says things she shouldn’t (insults, not swear words) and her name is … Miss Behave! I am having SO much fun with Miss B. in this book, plus I’ve added a precocious five-year-old sister (you gotta have a kid, right?) and a crusty, old housekeeper who is sort of an Irish Ma Kettle (Google her if you’re too young). Throw in a spunky heroine who is a Texas cowgirl oil-heiress-gone-broke that would just as soon hog-tie a pretty boy as look at him and a to-die-for hero (is there any other kind in a Julie Lessman novel???) looking to marry well, and trust me—I’m having a total blast with this book!

 So … to wrap up my Journal Jot today, I thought it appropriate to give you a sneak peek at my first “romantic” encounter between the heroine Cassie McClare and the hero, Jamie MacKenna, to show you just why I’m having so much fun. I hope reading it will be fun for you too!

Let’s set up the scene. Jamie is the man who accidentally mowed her down at the train station in the very first scene of the book, so Cassie has given him the cold shoulder all night when she meets him again during a dinner given by her cousins. Wanting to escape his unwanted attention, she goes to her uncle’s billiard room to play pool by herself, where Jamie seeks her out.

Lost in her game, she was oblivious when he quietly entered the room and closed the door, watching as she methodically chalked her stick after every play before circling the table with all the ease of a saloon pool-hall hustler. His jaw dropped when she executed a three-ball shot he’d only seen one other time in a bar down on the wharf. A low whistle escaped before he could stop it. “Remind me not to play you for money.”

She whirled around, almost losing her balance, knuckles white on the cue and her face leeching past pale. “You could have knocked,” she rasped, the shimmering bodice of her seafoam-green dress quivering with every heave of her breath.

“And miss that mesmerizing display of skill and prowess?” he said, respect lacing his tone. He slipped his hands in his pockets and strolled in, his gait as casual as his smile. “The likes of which I’ve never seen in a man, much less a female?” He perched on the edge of the table. “Not on your life, Miss McClare. Where’d you learn to play like that, anyway?” he asked, his fascination with this unconventional woman growing by the moment.

“Uncle Logan,” she said with a heft of her chin, his compliment dusting her cheeks with a pretty shade of rose that actually accentuated her freckles.

Jamie shook his head with a fold of arms. “Oh, no you didn’t. I’ve played with Logan many a game, and I have never seen a shot like that out of him or Devin.”

The blush deepened. “He says I’m a natural,” she said defensively, almost sounding like an apology.

He studied her through a squint, in total agreement with Logan that she was, indeed, a natural. Heart-shaped face, luminous green eyes a man could drown in and hair the color of summer wheat, her creamy skin glowing with just enough freckles to give her that clean, wholesome air of the outdoors. A sliver of gold hair trailed her shoulder midway to her bodice, a shimmering stray from the pretty upsweep that framed her head like a halo. The silky curl trailed the curve of her breast, and he had a sudden urge to see her hair down, spilling as free as he suspected Cassie McClare liked to be, untethered by convention or fashion.

He rose and sauntered over to retrieve a cue from a casing on the wall, then casually twirled it in his hands, his eyes connecting with hers. He smiled that little-boy smile that had gotten him farther than any law degree. “He says the same about me, you know—in billiards, boxing and the law.”

She folded her arms and cocked her head, her smile as flat as the effect of his, apparently. “And women?”

He grinned, his eyes never straying from hers as he chalked his cue. “Sometimes. You up for a game?”

“With you?” She arched a brow. “No, thank you, Mr. MacKenna—I don’t play games with men like you.”

Ouch. She was obviously a woman who was honest and forthright, what you see is what you get, and God help him, what he saw, he definitely wanted. But … she didn’t want him. Yet. He softened his approach. “Come on, Cassie, one game of billiards isn’t going to kill you, and then you’ll have the chance to give me the thrashing I so obviously deserve.”

She hung her head and huffed out a sigh, finally meeting his gaze with a candid one of her own. “Mr. MacKenna—”

“Jamie—please.”

“Jamie, then …” she began slowly, as if attempting to soften the blow of what she was about to say. Sympathy radiated from those remarkable green eyes that reminded him so much of a pure mountain stream—unspoiled, refreshing … and icy enough to tingle the skin. Long sooty lashes flickered as if begging him to understand. “Look, no offense, but you just broke my heart.”

He blinked. “Pardon me?”

“Oh, not you exactly,” she said, dismissing his train of thought with a wave of her hand, “but a man just like you—you know, handsome, smart, the kind that melts a woman with a smile?”

A ridge popped at the bridge of his nose. “Uh, thank you—I think?”

She looked up at him then, head tilted in much the same way a mother might soothe a child, expression soft and tone, parental. “I’m sure you’re a very nice person, Mr. MacKenna, and we may even forge a friendship before the summer is through, but you need to understand something right now if that friendship is ever going to see the light of day.” She fisted his hand, patting it as if he were five years old, and in all of his twenty-six years, never had a woman given him a more patronizing smile. “You have zero chance …” She held up a hand, index finger and thumb circled to create an “O,” then enunciated slowly as if he were one of the livestock back on her ranch. “Zee-ro chance of ever turning my head because I have no interest in you or any man right now, especially a pretty boy.” She gave him a patient smile edged with just enough pity to get on his nerves. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I see no point in hemming and hawing around a pesky hornet when I can just stomp on it before it stings.”

His jaw effectively sagged. “Hornet?” He’d been called a lot of things, but somehow, out of the pursed lips of this Texas beauty, this sounded like the worst, stinging his pride more than that blasted hornet. A nerve pulsed in his cheek as he carefully replaced his cue in the rack, her words barbing more than he liked. He turned, his smile cool. “Is that so? And what makes you think I have any interest in turning your head?”

She folded her arms again and hiked one beautifully shaped brow, her no-nonsense look daring him to deny it.

And, oh, how he wanted to. His jaw began to grind. But he couldn’t because it would be bald-faced lie, and they both knew it. He exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose, finally blasting out a sigh. “Okay, you’re right, Miss McClare—I was trying to turn your head, but I’m not stupid—I can see you obviously have no interest in me whatsoever.”

“None,” she confirmed, brows arched high in agreement.

He nodded, head bowed as he kneaded the back of his neck, peering up with a lidded gaze. “Which means, of course, that you have no attraction to me whatsoever …”

“Oh, heaven forbid.” Her body shivered in revulsion. “Not in a million years …”

He cocked his head, mouth slack and a trace of hurt in his tone. “Nothing—not even a glimmer?”

She shook her head, face scrunched as if she tasted something bad. “Absolutely not.”

He exhaled loudly. “All righty, then,” he said with a stiff smile, his pride effectively trampled. Rubbing his temple, he supposed there was only one thing left to do. He extended his palm with a conciliatory smile. “Well … I’m glad we got that settled and out of the way, then. So … friends?”

She stared at his hand as if it were a rattler about to strike, then shifted her gaze to his eyes, her lids narrowing the slightest bit. She absently scraped the edge of her lip before slowly placing her hand into his.

His hand closed around hers and he smiled. Ah … sweet vindication.

In a sharp catch of her breath, he jerked her to him so hard, the cue in her hand literally spiraled across the plush burgundy carpet. Thudding against his chest, she emitted a soft, little grunt, and her outraged protest was lost in his mouth, the sweet taste of her lips shocking him even more than he’d shocked her. She tried to squirm away and he cupped her neck with a firm hold, deepening the kiss until the fight faded away and her ragged breathing became one with his. Her scent intoxicated him—a hint of lilacs and soap and the barest trace of peppermint, and he stifled a groan while he explored the shape of her mouth, the silk of her skin, the soft flesh of her ear. Her pulse throbbed beneath his lips and he returned to kiss her with renewed urgency, relief flooding when her faint moan grazed warm against his skin. He gentled his mouth against hers, softly nuzzling before finally pulling away, satisfaction inching into his smile when she swayed on her feet, eyes in a glaze. “Nope, not in a million years,” he said with a tug of his coat. He planted a quick kiss to her nose and made his way to the door, delivering a grin over his shoulder. “You have a deal, Cassie McClare—friends it is.”

***

Remember … ONLY THREE DAYS left till A Heart Revealed is available on CBD.com and only nineteen days everywhere else, including Amazon.com!! I don’t know how it happened, but there are two reviews posted CBD.com, so you may want to check ‘em out!

Have a great weekend!

Hugs,

Julie

 

“If you love me, keep my commands.”

— John 14:15

The cutest thing happened a few days ago. You see, I sent out my summer newsletter this week, which is ALWAYS a major pain for my artist husband who designs it because he says I am worse than any client he has, which given my SUPER anal personality, is no great surprise, right? In fact, I did a Seeker blog talking about this once appropriately entitled “Stupid In Love” (http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2011/02/stupid-in-love-bookcritique-giveaway.html) because when I asked my husband why he puts up with my high-maintenance personality, this was his response: “I don’t know,” he says, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “I guess I’m just stupid in love.” To quote just a paragraph from that Seeker blog I wrote, here’s a glimpse at what the newsletter process looks like in our household:

“Wow, babe, it’s absolutely perfect!” I say, excitement bubbling in my voice. “Uh, except for a few tiny things … Would you mind tilting those pictures a little bit more? Oh, and the excerpt from A Heart Revealed needs to be indented, and yeah, all book titles italicized. Not sure I’m crazy about that font—can we change it? And those dingbats gotta go—maybe little squiggles instead? Ooops … forgot some pictures of my reader friends, and for the love of Photoshop—my double chin in that picture just has to go!”

YIKES … talk about dingbats!! And that was only the first go-round. However, you will be happy to know that my husband is currently in therapy.

Like Marcy and Patrick O’Connor, whose marriage I modeled after my husband’s and mine (only I am WAY more high-maintenance than Marcy!), God has blessed Keith and me with a really wonderful marriage. Of course, let me emphasize here that it did NOT get there overnight, but entailed YEARS of prayer and obedience to God to make it the incredible blessing it is today. Anyway, after Keith finished my newsletter, I was so grateful that I threw my arms around him and kissed him and what happened next was nothing short of magical. All at once, I heard this incredibly beautiful music. Not bells ringing, exactly, but the most serene and lovely harp music I’d ever heard. Now I know Keith and I have one of the best marriages I’ve ever seen, but this was the very first time I ever heard music when I kissed him, and I just figured we had crossed some beautiful threshold of true romance where even our kisses were heavenly. “Oh my goodness,” I cry, pulling back to stare at him wide-eyed, “did you hear that? What a kiss!” He laughed and reached for his phone, turning off the timer for the sprinkler outside, for which his chosen ring tone was harp music. “Gosh, babe,” I say, feeling just a wee bit disappointed, “and here I thought we were making beautiful music together!”

But the truth is when you really love someone, you give of yourself for them and it IS beautiful music! I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know why it’s that way for me. Keith sacrifices and gives of himself to me over and over because he loves me. I sacrifice and give myself to him over and over because I love him. For instance, even though I am the type of person who is habitually five to ten minutes late, I make being on time for Keith a top priority because I know how important it is to him. So I try REALLY hard to sacrifice my bad habit to make him happy because it’s one of the many ways I can show him I love him.

When I was in my twenties and a brand-new Christian, I was so gaga over God that I would literally tear up whenever I thought of Him and His goodness to me. Yes, I’m a pretty emotional gal, but anyone who has given their heart to Christ feels that incredible rush of love and gratitude for God at some point in their life when they realize just how much He loves them. So it was a TOTAL shock to me when I got into my mid-forties and menopause reared it’s ugly head. Suddenly, despite emotions running amuck, I no longer had this wellspring of deep loving feelings for God.

“God! How can this be?” I remember asking Him with no little frustration. “I’m in the time of my life when my emotions are at their highest peak, wreaking havoc and spilling over at the drop of the hat, and yet I feel nothing for You!” I was heartsick because if ever there was a time that I needed to “feel” God’s strength, His support, it was during menopause. So I cried and I begged and I pleaded for Him to give me feelings of love for Him like I once had before because I didn’t feel like I loved Him anymore. And you know what? The God Who is the Lover of our Souls taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned as a Christian. It’s the sum and total of our Scripture above: “If you love me, keep my commands.”

“Julie,” He said to me, as clearly as if it were an audible voice. “Do you obey me?” “Yes, God,” I remember saying with tears in my eyes, “I really do try to obey You, You know that.” “Then you love Me,” He said to my spirit.

I gotta tell you right now that if ever fireworks went off in my brain and neon signs were flashing and tears filling my eyes at the revelation of my soul, THIS was the moment! Because what I saw in my brain was the simple equation for love as far as God is concerned. He does not measure our love for Him by our feelings nor our tears nor our elogquent words or prayers. Pure and simple, there is only one way true way to show God we love Him, and this is the equation that flashed in my brain that fateful day.

LOVE = OBEDIENCE.

OBEDIENCE = BLESSINGS

As a super emotional woman, this concept from the throne of God changed my life that day. No, I don’t have to “feel” love for God to show Him I love Him. I simply have to OBEY him, and to His heart, that translates into love. Which in turn, releases His love to us in endless blessings.

Case in point. One time I remember stubbing my bare toe on the steel leg of the bed, and since I have incredibly sensitive feet, it hurt like the devil. With a cry of pain, I grabbed my toe and fell down, curse words rising to my tongue, ready to spew. It was during a time of my life when I was radically obedient to God or tried to be, so instead of curse words, I forced other words out of my mouth, screaming, “Praise God, praise God, praise God …” over and over as loud as I could and before I was through, I was laughing on the bed with tears in my eyes. Why? Because obedience to God releases blessings in our lives. It helps us to be so “stupid in love” with our Savior that everything we face, even something as stupid as stubbing a toe, can become an expression of love to Him by our obedience. And the domino effect is then an outpouring of joy and blessing from the God who said in John 10:10:

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

And so, I wish you and yours life “to the full” and may you be “stupid in love” with the God Who is even more so over each and every one of us.

Before I sign off, I want to congratulate the following winners of my RSS feed signup contest and the MaryLu Tyndall free download contest. Please note that I am well aware that the RSS feed is not working but am hoping to get it fixed soon and will have another signup contest next month. So for now, congrats to the following winners. I will be in touch!

WINNERS OF RSS FEED (wins choice of top CBA book):

Joy Tamsin David

Angi Griffis

Danyelle Hunnicutt

Victoria Keen

Michelle Tuller

WINNER OF MARYLU TYNDALL DOWNLOAD (wins signed copy of MaryLu’s 3^rd book in the series):

Megan

Hugs,

Julie

P.S. I’m giving away a signed copy of A Heart Revealed (with sneak-peek excerpts!) on my Seeker blog this Wednesday, August 10^th, which is entitled “EDIT” Doesn’t Have To Be a Four-Letter Word!” Hope to see you there — here’s the link:

Then please check my website calendar at http://www.julielessman.com/julies-calendar/ because I have a number of blog giveaways coming up. In the past I have given away at least 50 signed books in blog giveaways before the release of my next one, but due to time constraints, I will only be doing ten blog interview/giveaways this year, so don’t miss out, okay?

Hugs and happy weekend!

Julie

You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

— Bo Diddley

Horse feathers! As much as I respectfully disagree with Mr. Diddley, I just have to say the man knows “diddley” squat about publishing! Not only can you judge a book by its cover, but according to a statistic quoted in Publisher’s Weekly, 12% of people who buy books do so because of the cover. Now 12% may not sound like a lot, but when you figure that 3.13 billion books are sold every year, that’s a LOT of pulp, people!!

First impressions are important, whether valid or not, and the first glimpse of a cover is a first impression to a potential reader. Which is why my covers are so very important to me and why my prayer partners and I have prayed about every single one well in advance.

So while I was cleaning out my files a few weeks ago, I came across the portfolio shot of the model who posed for Collin McGuire on the cover of A Passion Most Pure, and I thought it might be fun for you to hear some of the background on each of my covers because as high maintenance as I can be, each book cover has been a real trip.

Because A Passion Most Pure was my debut model, I had no idea what to expect with the cover process NOR any common sense to know that I was a newbie who needed to keep her mouth shut. Fortunately for me, the artist I work with at my publishing company is one of the sweetest human beings on the planet, and she was kind enough (and patient enough) to work with me to get a cover I would happy with. As an author, initially I send my publisher my character descriptions and personality traits, along with pics of movie stars or models I think they resemble. My publisher actually does two different shoots—the first of the female model, then later another shoot with the male model, which they strip into the first pics for the final cover. So unfortunately for the model who played Faith O’Connor, she never got to meet the male model who played Collin McGuire, which in my opinion is a real shame, as you can see from the portfolio shot of the model who played Collin. Hubba hubba!

Initially, the artist sent me pix of Faith with her hair long and a pretty, lacy top that was a bit off-shoulder and showed a lot of her back and neck. “Oh, no,” said to my artist, “Faith’s hair looks like a prairie romance, and this is 1916 Boston we’re talking about here, so can we put her hair up?” Yes, we could and did, much to my relief. “Can you make the hair a little redder and the eyes a little greener?” I asked. No problem. Then they gave Faith a high-neck dress, which I thought worked a lot better—more chaste and proper for a modest young Bostonian. And FYI, in the pics with Faith, keep in mind they used some guy on the set to stand in for Collin for placement purposes only. So far, so good, right?

And then the tears began. The artist sent me a pic of Collin with a namby-pamby, almost weak smile and I started to cry, telling my husband he looked like a wimp. “Do you have any other shots from the shoot?” I asked the artist. “Only one other,” she said, “but Collin looks mad in it, and nobody thought it would work.” “Can I see it?” I asked, hope springing in my chest. And the rest is history. I took one look at the smoldering, moody face of Collin McGuire, the man who was angry because he couldn’t have the woman he wanted, and I knew we’d struck pay dirt.

On book 2, A Passion Redeemed, it was a real wild ride!! I showed you the pic of the cover model for my hero a while back, and I am repeating it here for comparison. You can imagine my shock when I received the first cover in which he had slicked-down hair and looked like an English dandy. More waterworks, of course, and I begged my artist to “play” with the cover for me, giving stubborn hero more of an iron jaw and an angrier look in the eyes (all my heroes tend to be angry for some reason … maybe because they have to deal with me!). “The hair has got to go,” I said, so I searched on the Internet for 30 minutes for just the right head of hair—blond rumpled curls instead of slicked down, and my artist agreed the changes worked. Did I mention before what a saint my publisher artist is??? Here is a before and after to show you what we did.

Suddenly I zeroed in on Charity and noticed that the very buxom, drop-dead gorgeous vixen named Charity O’Connor was not as buxom as I’d hoped and even less than her sister, Faith, who was supposedly unendowed. So, as a final change to the cover, my artist graciously endowed Charity with a bit more charm as you can clearly see in the before and after.

I had given my poor artist so much grief on the first two books, that I made up my mind that I would take the cover for A Passion Denied any way they gave it to me, no complaints. And so, despite my utter shock at the model who looked NOTHING like the Lizzie in my mind, I kept my mouth shut and prayed. And guess what? Right before the cover was finalized, my publisher intervened on her own and said this first model didn’t fit the character image, so she ordered a second shoot and VOILA — L izzie was born, and I never had to say a word!

So no one can te ll me covers aren’t important, because they are, and I cannot thank my publisher enough for working with me like they do and bending over backwards to address my concerns. I have since found out that most authors do not have the luxury of so much input on their covers, and so I am doubly grateful.

Because  you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you sure in the heck can judge a CDQ by her reaction to it, and let me tell you—it ain’t pretty.

A HEART REVEALED is out in 17 DAYS!!!! If you would like a chance to win a signed copy, please come see  me at “Come Meet Ausjenny” blog at  http://ausjenny.blogspot.com/2011/07/getting-to-know-you-thursdays-with_28.html

where I have an interview up and will be giving away a signed copy of winner’s choice of any of my books.

Then please check my website calendar at http://www.julielessman.com/julies-calendar/

Because I have a number of blog giveaways coming up. In the past I have given away at least 50 signed books in blog giveaways before the release of my next one, but due to time constraints, I will only be doing ten blog interview/giveaways this year, so don’t miss out, okay?

Have a great weekend, and next week I’ll announce the winners of my RSS feed and MaryLu Tyndall free download contest that ends July 31^st. For details, simply scroll down to the end of my Friday, July 22 Journal Jot and may the best women win!

Hugs,

Julie