Jenn's release BOOKED is out today!

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JENN McKINLAY: One of the things I love most about the self-publishing gig is the input I get on the cover. An author friend of mine (Lori Wilde) who put out her extensive backlist in e-book form after she got the rights back to her books, connected me  with my cover artist Lyndsey at Llewellen Designs. 

Lyndsey designed the cover of each novella, which you can see sitting on the bookshelf on the cover of BOOKED, which the omnibus of all three of last years novellas. 

The covers of ROYAL VALENTINE, THE ATTRACTION DISTRACTION, and IT HAPPENED ONE CHRISTMAS EVE are all the finished products of our collaboration, which went something like this. I sent Lyndsey my idea for a cover, which was usually a mock up pulled from various bits and bobs on the Internet such as:

And she returned this:

How great is that? She just makes everything so much better. In fact, her covers are so perfect, that the audio publisher who bought the rights to the novellas bought her covers, too!

What I love most about working with Lyndsey is that she can execute whatever I imagine and she is open to all of my input, which I so appreciate. For example, the book our gent is holding on the cover of BOOKED is a color reversed version of the original (look closely). When I asked Lyndsey in the design stage if this was possible, she jumped on it and made it happen. So fun!

Not for nothing, but authors rarely get so much direct contact with the art department. 

Clearly, I am a firm believer in hiring a professional to do what you need to have done, which is why I also employed a professional editor to go through each novella a couple of times to make certain they were as tight as could be. The fabulous Traci Hall, recommended by another author friend (Jennifer Ashely) was amazing. There was not one line that went unscrutinized, which is exactly what you want in an editor.

All of this is to say, the writing community is one of the most generous and gracious spaces out there, and I could not have pulled this off without the help and support of a lot of writer friends.

So, tell me, Reds and Readers, what positive interactions have you had within the writing community? Has any author made a huge difference in your life on a personal level? If so, how?

About the book:

From New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay comes the Museum of Literature RomCom Omnibus.
For the first time all three novellas are in one volume.

Royal Valentine

The Attraction Distraction

It Happened One Christmas Eve

Come join the fun with a secret identity and a trip to England, a second chance romance while in search of an ancient literary artifact in Greece, and a holiday caper starting with a hijacked sleigh! As the intrepid librarians and archivists of the Museum of Literature travel the world for the love of books, curating their own happily ever afters along the way. What more could any romcom adoring book lover want?

Buy Links: 

Audio: https://tinyurl.com/2s3kcuu2 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/2s3wxr6n 

Books-A-Million: https://tinyurl.com/mvpw2y9p 

Bookshop.Org: https://tinyurl.com/yc5mzdxm 

BN: https://tinyurl.com/45zr5uhb 

Kobo: https://tinyurl.com/w86s88aw 

Apple: https://tinyurl.com/38w45s9c 

Other (Books2Read): https://books2read.com/u/4AjEnp  

It Happened One Christmas Eve! by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: Two days, people! Two days until the e-novella IT HAPPENED ONE CHRISTMAS EVE is available. That would be on Dec 6th!!! Just in time to get you in the mood for the holidays or to help you hide from them with some laughs on the side. 

 

BUY LINKS (because I don't like promoting at just one place):

Audio: https://tinyurl.com/mvvyhmhb 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/5e3v9fp2 

BN: https://tinyurl.com/2p8a9sc9 

Kobo: https://tinyurl.com/55r7hfns 

Apple: https://tinyurl.com/rshr4282 

Other: https://books2read.com/u/mY6woP

So, where did the idea for this novella come from? Honestly, I had Covid (boo, hiss) last January and I didn't have the energy to do anything other than watch old romcoms. 

I used Rotten Tomatoes list of the top 100 to guide me. Well, the number 1 is It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. I'd seen it a million years ago and decided it was time to revisit it. There are outdated stereotypes that were problematic for me among other things but that's another blog post. Suffice to say, I loved the forced proximity of the heroine and the hero and decided I wanted to write my own holiday modern version of a madcap romantic escapade. So I did.

Here's the story: Claire Macintosh is about to get engaged to a man she doesn't love at the holiday gala she is hosting as director of the Museum of Literature. Her mother, Hildy Macintosh, has made it clear that if the museum is to continue to receive the enormous donations from the family trust that Hildy has approved all these years then Claire will marry the man Hildy has chosen for her and start to produce some grandbabies. At forty and single, Claire feels she has no choice. But when the horse and carriage arrive at the gala with the driver dressed as Santa to deliver Claire's engagement ring, she just can't go through with it. She hijacks the horse and carriage with Santa still on board and escapes!

Reporter Sam Carpenter thought he was being so clever convincing his friend to let him step in as Santa so he could get up close and personal to the subject of his upcoming magazine expose. He is completely unprepared for the events that unfold and finds himself dashing through Central Park with a runaway would be fiancé. Now the only way to save his story is to broker a deal with Claire Macintosh. In exchange for his help in getting her to her cottage in Maine by Christmas Eve, she'll grant him an exclusive interview. As their journey takes a series of unexpected twists, turns, and misadventures, both Claire and Sam realize that there's more than their careers on the line. And it's going to take a Christmas miracle to find their happily ever after.

Woo hoo!!!

This is the third and final romcom novella of my series set in a fictional place in NYC called the Museum of Literature. It has been an absolute hoot to write these and I am really enjoying the shorter format (100p/30K wds). FUN!

Now, how about you Reds and Readers? Are you a fan of the old madcap romcom movie? Or do you prefer the angsty dramatic love stories? 

The Attraction Distraction releases TODAY! by Jenn McKinlay

 

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Jenn McKinlay: I'm very excited to have the second e-novella in the Museum of Literature series out today ($2.99). These have been such fun stories to write because I can do whatever I want with them.

Here's the thing about writing long running series like the Cupcake Bakery, Library Lovers, and London Hat Shop mysteries, every now and then I get a bit of series fatigue. Sometimes I feel as if I've just turned in a cupcake mystery and then another one is coming out. The worlds are established and the characters are familiar friends and there is a lot of comfort in that. It's truly like visiting old friends every time I write another one, but I can't exactly whisk the bakers or the milliners or the crafternooners off for a holiday on a Greek island in the Aegean sea, now can I? Well, I could but it would be weird. 

Enter the e-novellas. The first one Royal Valentine was a nod to my love of all things Jane Austen with a trip to Bath and a visit to the Jane Austen Centre there. So fun! And The Attraction Distraction came from my life long love of Greek myths and my worship of Madeline Miller's books The Song of Achilles and Circe (HIGHLY recommend)! After reading her books, I just desperately wanted to go to Greece and revisit the Trojan War, Achilles, Helen, and all of that Homeric tale telling. So I did.

Because the novellas are based on a fictional Museum of Literature, I get to dive deeper into different parts of literature that I love. It's such a treat to be able to revisit the books I love and make them a stepping off place for some grand adventures because I don't know about you, but after two years of being stuck in my own zip code, I want some adventure!

While I know that some readers love a good cry with their rom-coms--

 the old laugh, cry, laugh again thing-- I much prefer putting my characters in jeopardy. Give me a life or death thrill ride over crying in your Ben & Jerry's every time! This is why Romancing the Stone and now The Lost City are two of my favorite romcom films. I want travel, adventure, laughs, and a brush with death - is that asking too much?

How about you, Reds and Readers? Do you like your romcom with a side of sad 😩 or a side of yikes 😲? No judgment! LOL. 

Available wherever ebooks and audio books are sold!

From the New York Times bestselling author of Royal Valentine, a second novella in the Museum of Literature romcom series, in which the only thing standing between a single-minded Classics scholar and the literary discovery of a lifetime is her heart.

There is nothing Sarah Novak loves more than a literary adventure. When the director of the Museum of Literature sends Sarah to an uninhabited island in the Aegean Sea to look for a rare artifact from Ancient Greece, Sarah, an expert on the Classics, is all in.

One problem. Nine other scholars are also on the hunt for the artifact, one of whom is Irishman Liam Maguire, Sarah's ex and the man she beat out for the curator position at the museum seven years ago. Liam wants to form an alliance, but Sarah refuses. He broke her heart once before; she's not giving him the chance to do it again.

When a series of mysterious "accidents" befall the scholars one by one, Sarah is forced to rethink her position on her sworn enemy, particularly when Liam saves her life. She agrees to team up with the swoony Irishman, knowing full well that finding the treasure will likely cost her heart.

Royal Valentine is out today!

BUY NOW!

Jenn McKinlay: Well, this is thrilling! My first novella is out today. It's an ebook romcom set on Museum Mile in New York City in a fictional Museum of Literature. It features a Jane Austen exhibit and a surprise trip to Bath all set around Valentine's Day -- what's not to love? 

     I talked a little bit about how this novella came to be on my last What We're Writing post, you can read the explanation and snippet here: https://www.jungleredwriters.com/2021/11/what-were-writing-spite-by-jenn-mckinlay.html but the short version is that I wrote this ebook out of spite because while the audio book publisher who was looking for original content loved the ideas, they didn't love my existing audio book sales numbers. Huh. Well, I decided I would write the novellas anyway and see what happened. 

     What unexpectedly occurred was that I discovered I really liked having what I have come to think of as a research and development arm in my writing life. The novellas give me a chance to try out new plot lines, points of view, tropes, and other assorted writing mechanics that a publisher might not be on board with in the proposal stage. It is frightening, exhilarating, and challenging, and I love it. In fact, I have an idea that was germinated in this very book that I think might develop into my best series to date which never would have happened if I hadn't decided to play around with novella writing. So, I guess rejection really can pay some dividends.

     Speaking of dividends, I have an update. The audio rights for the novellas (there will be three this year) went to AUCTION! Four audio publishers were in the fray and by the end of it, we had an amazing deal! Needless to say, I am THRILLED since the whole point of writing these novellas (aside from being obsessed with the ideas) was to prove that first publisher wrong. Yeah, I know they couldn't care less but it was important to me. 

    So, here are some thank yous for the people who helped facilitate my bullheadedness. First, to author Jennifer Ashley for sharing her amazing copyeditor and fellow mystery author Traci Hall with me. Traci certainly put the manuscript under a microscope for which I am ever grateful. Additional thanks to author Lori Wilde, who recommended Llewellen Designs for the cover art. They crushed it! And lastly, my agent Christina Hogrebe and her team, particularly Hannah Rody-Wright, at JRA, for gamely taking on the selling of the audio rights. Let me tell you, I feel pretty darn lucky to have so much talent at my disposal.

Royal Valentine should be available wherever ebooks are sold, but Kindle might be the lone holdout on making it accessible. Amazon being Amazon, they like to keep self-pubbed authors exclusive but this was never about money for me so I decided to distribute it wide. Be sure to check out the alternative vendors like Nook, Kobo, etc., and HAPPY READING!

Here's a longer description of the novella for those who are interested: 

Molly Graham doesn't believe in love at first sight or fairy tales. She's been burned too many times before. When her best friend, Brianna Cho, challenges her to aim high and go for men who are out of her league, Molly can't imagine a worse way to spend Valentine's Day. When she stumbles across a very handsome British professor, Albert George, seeking refuge in her office during the Museum of Literature's Valentine's Day gala for the opening of their Austen exhibit, Molly can't help but be drawn to the fellow introverted academic. Together they ghost out of the event and embark upon a month long love affair. Molly is rethinking her stance on happily ever afters and plans to tell Al how she feels, but he disappears. Afraid something bad has happened, Molly searches for him only to discover there is no Albert George affiliated with the university. She's been played for a fool!

Molly is devastated. As registrar for the Museum of Literature, she is tasked with a trip to England to return the Jane Austen exhibition materials on loan from the Whitmore Estate in Bath. It's the only thing she has to look forward to and even this dream trip is a struggle. When she and Brianna arrive at Whitmore Manor, they are introduced to Earl Whitmore and his grandson Lord Insley, or as Molly knows him Albert George. She is shocked and dismayed to discover she has fallen in love with a viscount in line to be an earl. James Albert George Insley Whitmore, called Jamie by his friends and family, arranged for Molly to bring the materials back. He had to leave her unexpectedly, but he hasn't been able to forget her and he wants to win her back. Molly isn't having it. She refuses to be taken in twice. Jamie will have to channel his inner Fitzwilliam Darcy to prove to her that love conquers all and win her heart for good. 

Now what about you, Reds and Readers, have you ever surprised yourself by trying something new? What was it? And how did it go?