This is part 1 of Jaycee’s interview. Part 2 is here.
Excerpt of Jaycee’s Christian Contemporary Romance, Whatever Comes Our Way
Ashlyn’s Yoga Mat Bag knitting pattern, as featured in Jaycee’s Christian Contemporary Romance, Braver With You
Jaycees’ Bio:
Jaycee Weaver lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her awesome husband, three daughters, two crazy Shih Tzus, and a dwarf rabbit. When she’s not writing, she’s busy balancing the mom-wife life. Jaycee loves to read books in multiple genres, drink too much coffee (honestly, when are they going to make the coffee IV a real thing?!), sing, take landscape and floral photos, sew, cook, bake, and craft nearly anything. She considers herself a recovering perfectionist and sometimes hot mess. She does her best to live her faith in action, being open, honest, and real; letting God be Lord over the good, the bad, and the ugly even when it’s hard.
Camy here: Jaycee is one of the twelve authors participating with me in the Christian Contemporary Romance anthology, Save the Date, which releases September 15!
Also, Jaycee’s boxed set of her Christian Contemporary Romance series, Everyday Love: the Complete Series (All four titles + bonus material), releases this week. We’ll be talking a bit about book 2 in the series, Whatever Comes Our Way (I’ll be posting the excerpt on Wednesday this week) and about Jaycee’s writing life.
And now, here’s me and Jaycee!
I have a few favorite scenes in this book, but one of my favorites is when Jaydon and Gina make their first real connection. They've met in a few scenes to this point, but the girl who doesn't do church runs into the youth pastor at a local pizza place. She agrees to sit at a table with him and a couple of his youth group kids, one of whom is a girl Gina immediately feels a connection with...which is concerning because of her own past. But I love the scene because it's where the plot really starts forming, along with Gina and Jaydon's excellent banter, plus an unexpected first kiss!
I love it when first kisses are surprises. :)
If your heroine were a type of cake, what would she be and why?
I'm going to say a seven layer salted caramel cake. Gina is complicated and sweet, but a little salty. So that totally fits her. Ha ha!
She sounds like someone I’d like!
If your hero were stranded on a desert island with a screaming baby, what would he do first?
Jaydon is a giant teddy bear. I have no doubts he'd handle a screaming baby the same way he'd handle a freaking out Gina—with compassion, a soothing voice, his big arms, and a dash of humor. And then he'd tear down a tree and build the kid a rocking chair or something.
He sounds totally AWESOME!
What do you hope your readers will take away from the book?
My hope is for readers to take away the confidence that God understands their deepest hurts and heartaches, and is always there to walk through the fires—whatever comes their way.
Such a good message, especially in the current times.
What is your most memorable moment as a writer?
So many moments are memorable, but I will always treasure the day my first book went "live" on Amazon. Seeing my name and my book listed there in the search results was a dream come true!
I can totally relate! It’s a completely amazing feeling.
Do you have a special verse specifically to inspire your writing?
Each book tends to have a theme verse of its own, but not always. I love how I'll be writing something and suddenly a scripture will come to mind (or two or ten LOL) that perfectly captures the heart of the story.
(That totally happens to me when I’m writing, too—a verse will suddenly come to mind for a passage I’m writing.)
But if I had to choose a specific verse for my writing, it would be Proverbs 16:9, "We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps." That's my heart!
Finish this line: Writing a novel is ...
like taking little pieces of your soul and turning them into an emotional stew that you simultaneously hope everyone and no one reads.
LOL! That is SUCH a good way of putting it!
Your Everyday Love boxed set is coming this week. Tell us about the series.
The Everyday Love series is made up of four novels that can be read standalone. All four are set in Albuquerque, as most of my books are, and follow different main characters connected by friendship or family in some way. What Could Be, the first in the series, was the first book I ever wrote. Whatever Happens Next the fourth, is my very favorite of all the books I've written so far (which at the moment stands at 14!). I'm really excited about the boxed set because readers can not only enjoy the four books all at once, but I've included sneak peeks at other books in which the EDL characters make a notable appearance with notes regarding when those books fit within the series timeline. This is something I'll likely have to update, because I have a feeling we'll see more of them as time goes on in future books.
Camy here: Jaycee will be back next week with part 2 of the interview. In the meantime, pre-order her boxed set, Everyday Love: the Complete Series (All four titles + bonus material), which releases on March 9th!
On Wednesday, look forward to an excerpt from Whatever Comes Our Way (Everyday Love Book 2).
In the weeks following, I’ll post the second part of the interview AND a knitting pattern for the yoga bag that Jaycee’s heroine Ashlyn uses in her novella, Braver with You, which is in the Save the Date anthology!
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