Janette Rallison & CJ Hill Books

I haven’t looked at my blog in weeks. This has mostly been because I was in England for 17 days, then had my three out-of-state kids and two grandkids visiting for 3 1/2 weeks, and all last week I had my downstairs floor torn up and tiled. (As I write this, my downstairs toilet and sink are sitting on my back patio, making me look like the white trash house in the neighborhood.) Also, I’ve been helping my sons with their books. Yes, both of my sons–neither of which liked to read growing up–have written books. My daughters who love to read and have actually considered writing books–they haven’t written anything for you.

James’s book already has a publisher, (They contacted him with the idea of writing a book–which never happens to authors.) and will be out in April 2018. It will probably sell more than all of my books combined, but whatever. No one is more proud of his success as a youtuber than I am.

Anyway, you’ll be glad to hear that throughout the renovations, I’ve been busy working on Slayers 4.

It’s now about 500 pages long and I still have a few scenes to add. Plus I haven’t decided whether to leave one of the characters dead or unkill him. I’ve written the ending two different ways–one for Team Jesse and one for Team Dirk. Yes, I am trying to make everyone happy… and I have to say, it’s sort of weird. Like, my brain doesn’t know which ending is the truth. This is probably why more authors don’t use this technique.

My romantic comedy novella A Perfect Fit is done–yay–and will be out in September.

I also am waiting from my Disney editor to get back to me on several projects, and hoping I can finish the Slayers series before putting anything else on my plate.

And I’m avoiding talking to my agent about that WWII romance that I’ve been researching for the last year. It doesn’t need to be written right now…

So that’s the update. Someone create more time and send me some!

Need a beach read? These will be perfect!

How I Met Your Brother

The best day of his life, the worst day of hers.

Back in college, Marco Dawson never thought of Belle as anything more than a friend. If she had crossed his mind on his wedding day, it was probably only to wonder why she hadn’t shown up to be a bridesmaid. After all, his new wife was her old roommate. Seven years have passed since then, and Belle just found out that Marco is divorced and vacationing with his family in an elegant Cancun resort. She’s not about to let the right man get away twice. She heads to the resort where she plans to casually bump into Marco and ignite some romantic flames.

But Belle hadn’t planned on one thing: Flynn Dawson, Marco’s handsome, charming, and determined twin brother. He thinks Marco and his ex-wife can make amends and he’s not about to let Belle stand in the way.

Part Sabrina, part While You Were Sleeping, romantic comedy readers will eat this book up!

Click to buy How I Met Your Brother for .99

Masquerade

A little white lie never hurt anyone.

When Clarissa takes a much needed job under slightly false pretenses, she doesn’t think it will be such a big deal. She may have told her movie-star boss that she was married but that shouldn’t matter. After all, she doesn’t want anything to do with men for a long, long time.
It’s hard for a woman to keep up the masquerade when her boss is as handsome as Slade Jacobson and the job takes her to Hawaii with him. In between handling his whirlwind four-year-old daughter and dealing with a whole cast of Hollywood personalities, Clarissa has to keep a tight hold on her heart.
Masquerade is romantic comedy at its best–clean and funny with lots of heart.

Click here to buy Masquerade for.99

A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush

From the day Elsie’s big brother brought his friend Kye McBride over to their house, Elsie adored him. When she was eight, she secretly blew kisses to him. When she was twelve, she sat on the stairs, unnoticed, and watched him escort another girl to prom. When she was a senior in high school, she walked into math class and found out he was her new math teacher.

With that much emotion fueling her, things were bound to go wrong. And they did. After Elsie let him know how she felt and made a fool of herself, she spent the last two weeks of school avoiding him. In fact, she turned avoiding-Kye-at-all-costs into her life-long philosophy.

Now three years have passed and Elsie has come home for her brother’s wedding. She’s got to face Kye—hopefully without getting crushed again.

Publishers Weekly has called Janette’s romantic comedies “Hilarious.”

Click to get the novella Longtime Crush for free

It’s a Mall World After All

A fun romp of a read that’s sure to please.”–Booklist

“Witty and hilarious.” –TeensReadToo.com

If they gave out diplomas for what you learn at the mall, Charlotte could graduate with honors. Ever since she got a job as a perfume spritzer, she’s become an expert on all things shopping related―oh, and she’s getting really good at spying on her classmates who hang out there. What she hasn’t mastered is the art of convincing her best friend Brianna to dump her boyfriend Bryant. After Charlotte caught him flirting with a mysterious, blond-haired stick figure, she knows he’s up to no good. Worse still, now Brianna is taking his side. Charlotte must prove who is right, once and for all, and that means catching Bryant in the act. This is where her mall roaming skills will come in handy. Perfume anyone?

Click here to get Mall World for free

Lake, Donna Weaver, Jen, Wendy, Jessica Spo,Ashley, Sarah Daley, Lindsay Neville,Geordon VanTassle

I will start trying to contact you all tomorrow, or if you see this first, you can email me at jrallisonfans at yahoo.com and send me your email address so I can give you your code.

Another Whitney Awards has come and gone and I know you’re all wondering if I managed to retain my title of: Author with the Most Books Nominated Who Has Never Actually Won a Whitney.

Yes, yes I have.

On the plus side, I’ve got some awesome Loser Cheesecake photos to share.  I love that Julie Wright is wiping her tears with Dan Wells’s tie.

Here are Heather Moore, Dan Wells, and I. All of us were nominated for three Whitneys this year and none of us won. But on the plus side: three desserts. So yeah…there’s always that.

Fitting or not, I feel that my most lasting legacy to the writing world will be the annual Loser Cheesecake photos.

This tradition was born the second year of the Whitney Awards when Julie Wright and I began a photo shoot depicting the effects of losing a Whitney. Mostly, the effects involve eating large amounts of chocolate.

We quickly dragged James Dashner and Jessica Day George into the photo shoot.

I admit that this picture makes me laugh every time I see it.

This year, Tamara Heiner came up to me after the awards and told me she thought I was very gracious and handled losing well. I should have told her that practice makes perfect but I’m not nearly as witty as my characters. Maybe I’ll use that line in a book someday, though.

On the bright side, I did win the James Dashner Shrine that they give away at conference. This consists of a paper James Dashner mask, a framed picture of him and Jeff Savage, and plastic cup and notebook with his movie title misspelled. I proudly posted the picture on Facebook and had about twenty people congratulated me as though it was an actual accomplishment. In actuality, James pulled my name out of a bowl. Still, I’ll take my congratulations where I can.

I have a WWII romance in the writing queue. After finishing Slayers 4, an Echo Ridge romance novella, and an upcoming project that I haven’t seen the contract for so I won’t announce yet, I will finish it. And because I know it’s there I’ve been watching WWII documentaries and reading books set in WWII for about a year. Here are some things that will happen to you if you study the subject as well.

1. You will be hungry. Seriously. I don’t think you can learn about Leningrad or rationing without getting hungry–or looking at your pantry and wondering how long you’d last if war broke our. Or stockpiling food because of the aforementioned question.
2. You sources won’t always be clear. I watched one documentary yesterday that said Britain had 40 million people living there during the war. One today said 50 million. Ten million is quite a difference when it comes to a place the size of Idaho. Germany and England have different dates for how long they think the Battle of Britain lasted. How can I be accurate when my sources (in this case both documentaries put out by the government during the war) contradicts itself?
3. You will be dumbfounded. I can’t wrap my mind around the magnitude of this war or the depths to which humanity will sink. I understand madmen exist. It’s so much harder to understand that nations will follow them. And it wasn’t just Hitler. The atrocities from Japan were just as bad. And Stalin was in some ways worst because he committed atrocities against his own people. (And Russia was helping Germany up until the day Germany betrayed Russia and attacked them. I haven’t learned much about Italy but I’m assuming it wasn’t much better. ) How could that many people be so brutal?
4. For every one question you find an answer for, it will raise two other questions. I finally decided on a bomber for my German character and in doing so learned that they didn’t just take off from Germany and France. They also had air bases in Norway and Belgium. Now I’ve got to figure out which base his squadron  came from on the day of the attack in Chapter one. At the rate I’m going, I will never finish researching.
5. You will see death. It’s odd to look at the footage of crashing planes or dead soldiers and realize this isn’t Hollywood’s fakery. It’s real death. I’ve seen the moments before someone died captured on film. Over and over again. I’ve seen countless dead bodies that used to be someone’s son, brother, father, husband. These people had plans, goals, and personalities before war came and cut them all short. And it’s horrible to see and know that it’s real. Yet at the same time, I think every person alive should learn about WW2. It’s not just history, it’s the ultimate cautionary tale.