New Book!!

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a new release, but I’m excited to announce that Run is finally available through Amazon!

This book is very special, and I’d like to take a few moments to tell you about it, and the person I wrote it with—Jenn Faulk.

Since becoming an author, I’ve had a very hard time enjoying books anymore. I find myself reading everything through a critic’s lens and not approving of most of what I find. Thank goodness for Kindle Unlimited, because now I can try a book and not lose money if I wind up not liking it!

I tried a book by Jenn Faulk about a year or so ago—it was called Best Day Ever. It surprised me for multiple reasons. First of all, it was advertised as Christian Fiction, but the main character was definitely not walking the walk, if you know what I mean. Jenn had me right there because I am so sick of Christian fiction books in which all the characters are perfect and never do anything wrong.

Another reason I was surprised is because I actually got very caught up in the story. Being a complete and total snob about writing now, I have a very low tolerance for mistakes. I encountered a formatting issue, but I was so into the story that I kept on reading . . . unheard of for me! (Jenn would later tell me, “I had no idea it was doing that!”)

Then I read another story or two of Jenn’s. They were just as good as the first. Christian books, but without squeaky clean characters. Real problems. Great, fantastic writing. Another neat thing about Jenn’s books is that they are all tied together, but each one stands alone. My favorite one so far has been Promises Kept, although I'm still pretty mad about something that happened in that one, but that's a story for another time . . .

Eventually I contacted Jenn and talked to her about working together. She waited a good long time before responding (I know she was checking me out online and making sure I wasn’t a psycho!). I guess she must have missed all the psycho warning signs, because she finally responded, and this past spring, we finally started working on a project together.

Jenn asked me what I had in mind, so I tossed out a couple of ideas and then ended with this: “Okay, this idea is really stupid and probably needs to be put off the table right now, but I’ll throw it out there anyway. Did you ever watch Blair Witch Project? My husband and I went and saw it in the theater when it came out years and years ago b/c we arrived late to the theater for the movie we had intended to see. But I digress! Anyway, the budget was super low. They let the three actors who were pretty much the only characters film the whole thing. They didn't really have a script. Their producers and directors would leave them little individual notes giving them tidbits of information to go on and everything was improv. They'd wake up in the morning and find that things had been done to their campsite and stuff like that. But anyway, the point is that they just kind of made everything up as they were going along. Soooooo, the idea was, what if we both wrote a book together - different parts of the same book. Switching back and forth between two POV's. We could just see where the story went . . . IDK.”

To which Jenn responded, “I kind of like the Blair Witch Project idea!” . . . and we were off!

The premise was that my character, Luke, is on death row—convicted of the brutal rapes and murders of his former girlfriend and her roommate. He sends a letter to Audrey—the sister of the roommate’s boyfriend—hoping she will help him find some evidence to set him free. (Warning: due to the nature of the crimes, you may be uncomfortable with some of the details discussed in this novel. If shows like CSI bother you, you probably will want to pass on this story!) 

I (Luke) sent the letter to Jenn (Audrey) who immediately sent me a letter in reply telling me to never contact her again. I (Leeann) messaged her (Jenn) and told her I didn’t know what to do because she’d told me to never write her again! She told me that Luke was on death row and didn’t have anything to lose by writing again, so I did. I mean HE did!

That wasn’t the first time Audrey didn’t respond the way Luke was certain she would. As a matter of fact, unless Leeann specifically told Jenn what Audrey needed to write, neither Luke nor Leeann ever seemed to know what to do with Audrey’s letters!

When you’re reading this book, keep in mind that Jenn had NO idea where things were going. She didn’t know the plot at all. Yet she kept writing away, bringing in characters and situations that were all new to me. Most of the time I was like, “What is she doing?!”

Jenn was equally baffled. She thought Luke was being a jerk (but it wasn’t Luke that was being a jerk, it was Audrey, really!) Despite being taken aback time and time again by one another, we plowed ahead. I heard an actor once talking about improv and how the most important thing was to go with whatever the other actor threw out there—no matter what—and so we tried to do that. Unless Jenn created a situation that simply wouldn’t work with the plot that was in my head, I worked with whatever she made up.

The result was—in my opinion—a rich and engaging novel, and it was the most fun I’ve had writing since I wrote the first three books in the Chop, Chop series nearly ten years ago. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as Jenn and I enjoyed writing it. I also hope that you’ll check out some of Jenn’s other writings and discover for yourself what a great author she is! (Her novel, Happily Ever After happens to be free right now—just saying!)

We wrote another book together this summer and will get that one out to you ASAP, plus I have two more in my head for us to collaborate on that are just bursting to get out. In the meantime, check out Run, and be sure to let us know what you think!