Joshilyn Jackson Returns to the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit

First, a couple of little notes. I didn't mean to imply the other day that buying my books at the Chain Which Must Not Be Named was a bad thing. Quite the contrary -- if enough people buy books there, to the point they sell out and then have to reorder, it's possible that they might see The Error of their Ways and be reformed. They made the decision to cut their order based on the number of the previous book they sold, so it was a business decision caused by people not buying the books there (or not enough to justify them having a lot of copies in stock). So it's sort of a catch-22 -- if you don't buy books there, you validate their decision, but if you do buy books there, you're economically supporting them. It's enough to make me tear out my hair. I think I might actually renew my membership to get the 10 percent discount, and then use it to buy copies of my own books for when I'm expected to have them on hand to sell at cons or events where there isn't an on-site bookseller. The membership would more than pay for itself in that alone, the discount makes up for sales tax so I can sell at cover price without losing money, and it funnels non-bookstore sales through a bookstore's ordering system because it seems like the chain numbers are the ones they really care about. Win, win, win!

Speaking of cons, I'm off to SoonerCon tomorrow. Theoretically, the hotel has free wireless Internet, so I may post if I have anything interesting to say over the weekend. I'm on the Firefly panel Friday evening, and then they've got me signed up for a "coffee klatch" meet-up with fans Saturday morning, so I hope someone actually shows up to meet with me. Otherwise, I'll feel sad and pathetic and then crash Rachel Caine's table.

Summer finally seems to have arrived, as I had to break down and turn on the AC this morning. I much prefer fans and open windows, but it just got too hot and muggy for that, and the heat and mugginess could explain why my brain was so foggy yesterday. (Yeah, duh, but I can be stubborn about such things. If I refuse to acknowledge that summer weather has arrived, then it hasn't arrived. I still have the electric blanket out, just in case.)

And that actually makes for a nice transition to this week's Girlfriends Cyber Circuit entry, Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson, which is now out in paperback. I read this book in hardcover last year, and it definitely captures that sultry feeling of the South. Joshilyn won the Georgia Author of the Year for this book, and it was a #1 BookSense pick (the second year in a row she's had that honor).



There's always been bad blood between the Fretts and the Crabtrees. After all, the Fretts practically own the tiny town of Between, Georgia, while the Crabtrees only rent space in its jail cells.

Stacia Frett is a deaf artist with a genetic condition that is causing her to slowly go blind. She's lost the love of her life, and when her vision goes, she'll lose her career as well. She's asking God why He keeps her breathing in and out, until the night fifteen year old Hazel Crabtree shows up on her doorstep brandishing a stomach swollen with a pregnancy she'd hidden for nine months. Stacia thinks Hazel's unwanted baby might be God's answer, and so the Fretts decide to steal it...

Thirty years later, Nonny Frett is a successful interpreter living in Athens, Georgia. She understands the meanings of "rock" and "hard place" better than any woman ever born. She's got two mothers, "one deaf-blind and the other four baby steps from flat crazy." She's got two men; Her husband is easing out the back door and her best friend is laying siege to her heart in her front yard. She has a job that holds her in the city, and she's addicted to a little girl who's stuck deep in the country. And she has two families; The Fretts, who stole her and raised her right, and the Crabtrees, who lost her and can't forget that they've been done wrong.

Joshilyn is busy being a glamorous author, having just returned from the big book expo in New York and on her way to San Francisco to research a new book, so I didn't harass her to answer interview questions. I do know that her next book is called The Girl Who Stopped Swimming and it sounds deliciously Southern Gothic. If you want the kind of insight into the author's mind you get from the interviews, just read her blog, Faster than Kudzu. It will make you want to read her books. Or, it might make you want to move to Georgia so you can hang out with her and become best friends (though that may just be me).

If you want to order the book, Here's the Amazon link . (I'll be a brat and not post a link to the Chain Which Must Not Be Named.)