Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Shirley Jump | I Do…Again
Uncategorized / April 10, 2008

When I wrote SWEETHEART LOST AND FOUND, the first in a six-book Wedding Planners series–a series about friends who are wedding planners, that I wrote with real-life author friends–I had no idea what great fun I’d have, or how many memories the series would open up. For one, writing with friends is a blast. The other authors are all terrific women, and amazingly talented writers. Brainstorming was more like brain exploding–we all fed off each other and created some of our best work yet, IMHO. The ideas flew faster than our fingers could hit the keyboards. Then the best part was reading all the finished stories and seeing how our vision became real love stories. But more than that, writing a series about wedding planners made me revisit my own wedding 18 years ago (next month, actually). All those memories of flowers and bridesmaids (oh, those ugly green dresses…sorry gals!), veils and gowns, came rushing back, filling me with a sense of romance and nostalgia. I forgot the stress of planning the wedding, the last few days of ‘oh my goodness, what am I thinking’ and the first few years of ‘oh my goodness, what was I thinking,’ LOL. I…

Shirley Jump | The Ugly Duckling and Victoria’s Secret Models–Really Something to Talk About
Romance / December 4, 2007

The Ugly Duckling. Poor little guy, ostracized by the ducks because they thought he was ugly, not knowing he’d grow up to be a beautiful, self-assured swan. Those ducks made fun of him, ignored him, brought him to tears. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. His offense to reindeer kind? A nose that lit up, something they saw as a liability–and ended up being Santa’s saving grace. Victoria’s Secret models. Who’d have thunk they’d have something in common with the Ugly Duckling and Rudolph? Well, it turns out they do. In a recent story on Fox News, these ideals of female perfection talked about how they were teased for being too thin, too plain, too whatever. It seems when it comes to others, none of us is ever perfect enough. We’ve all experienced that middle school torture, those kids who made seventh grade hell (or freshman year, or whatever). I went through it; my own kids have gone through it. And now, in Really Something, my latest release from Zebra, my heroine, Allie Dean, goes through it, and thinks she is the only person in Tempest, Indiana, to be tortured for being different. But what Allie doesn’t realize is that we’re all…