Jenny B. Jones - The Queen of making Kim and Kayla laugh

All right, readers. After 500 years and 50 bazillion emails from you all... (well, okay, I exaggerated a little.) It looks like we finally get to post this amazing interview with Jenny B. Jones. Believe me, if you haven't read her books - go buy them now! Just Between You and Me was the first book I ever read of Jenny's and I couldn't put it down. Seriously. And she made me laugh. A lot. Since then, I've read all her books. And as I type this, I'm seriously-on-the-edge-of-my-seat-oh-so-patiently waiting for Save the Date to arrive. It's killing me people. And my mailman. I may not make it. The mailman may just have me committed before then.

Can you tell I'm a fan?

Read and see for yourself. I proudly present to you:
Jenny B. Jones
K&KW:
How old are you? Seriously. You are so stinkin’ cute, barely look over eighteen, and make the rest of us adults feel like we’ve passed the century mark. Just sayin’.

JBJ:
Wow. Why thank you. We should talk more often! Maybe it’s just the power of really good lighting and some PhotoShop. I think I look every bit my 30 plus years and then some.

K&KW:
Tell us a little more about your obsession with Ben and Jerry. When did it start? Do you own stock? New York Super Fudge Chunk is Kim’s personal fav and Cookie Dough is Kayla’s. How about you?

JBJ:
The weird thing is I never was a big ice cream fan until adulthood. And it’s a fairly recent obsession. I keep hoping if I mention Ben and Jerry’s enough, they’ll offer me a job as a taste tester. That’s the true motivation behind the books. My deep, dark secret and the reason I write. But so far Ben and Jerry keep ignoring me. My favorite for a few years was the chocolate fudge brownie (or something like that—it doesn’t have a cool name), but now it’s strawberry cheesecake. I love it. I’m supposed to avoid gluten, so I don’t get that one anymore. It’s a sad, sad thing. They make a flourless chocolate cake ltd edition flavor that tastes just like the chocolate fudge brownie flavor though. It’s awesome. I’ll have to try the NY Super Fudge Chunk. And as much as I love cookie, I’ve NEVER understood why I don’t like cookie dough ice cream, but I don’t. (I hope we can still be friends, Kayla.)

K&KW:
Every one of your books has made me laugh. A lot. In fact, I always make sure I use the little girls’ room before I pick up one of your books… . Anyway, are you always this funny? Or do you have a secret, dark side where you plot out evil plans?

JBJ:
Thank you so much. It’s my joy to make someone else laugh. I don’t really consider myself funny. I like to laugh. I like to make other people laugh. I see comedy in just about everything, but I don’t know that it makes me funny. And we all have a dark side. Mine involves midnight flights in a bat costume and Gotham City, but I can’t discuss it.

K&KW:
I have to say, it was ingenious to plop a NYC teen into rural Oklahoma with pigs and cows and shag carpet. So, where did your inspiration come from?

JBJ:
The inspiration for A Charmed Life series came from a few different things. I was teaching in a junior high at the time, and I was shocked to see seventh graders CONSUMING books that I thought were a little bit much for them, like the Gossip Girls. I decided to read one for myself, and the content shocked me. And I’m kinda hard to shock. But clearly there was some allure there for our teen girls, and I didn’t think it was solely the rated R stuff. Also about this time, one of my favorite shows went off the air, Veronica Mars, a series about a high school super sleuth. I remember talking to another YA writer and saying, “I have this idea for a series—a Gossip Girl type who solves mysteries and gets dropped into a small, rural town.” And the author was like, “That’s nuts. No thanks.” I didn’t write mysteries, so I didn’t think I could do it. But the idea wouldn’t go away, so I decided to go for it. And to mix it up even more, I added a little WWE to it as well. Spandex and body slams go with everything!

K&KW:
On a serious note, will you give us your testimony?

JBJ:
I have such a boring testimony. I was raised in church, but we were Sunday Christians. I was one of those obnoxious kids who went forward at every children’s church invitation. We have no idea which one stuck. Ha. My family fell apart a bit, and church kind of became an after-thought. Then when I was a teenager, I started going and sitting with my grandma. (It was a small church. She and I were basically the youth group.) And at 21 I got convicted that I needed to get baptized and make a public statement to seal the deal, so I did. I talked to the pastor privately, let him know I was not a fan of being front and center for anything, and he assured me we’d do the baptism as low-key as possible. In fact, he suggested I come to the first service, where fewer people attended. So I did. And it was like a random, record-breaking day for attendance. And that’s it! So when I work with elementary kids at church, I tend to be kind to the repeat offenders during invitation time. : )

K&KW:
What new projects do you have coming up?

JBJ:
Save the Date is a women’s romantic comedy, and it hits the shelves February first. It’s a book about Alex Sinclair, a former NFL star and Lucy, a woman who runs a home for girls who’ve graduated from the foster care system. Alex is a man who has it all–except the votes he needs to win his bid for Congress. Despite their mutual dislike, Alex makes Lucy a proposition: pose as his fiancee in return for the money she desperately needs to keep her girls home afloat. As Lucy is forced into South Carolina high society, she discovers the very people she wanted to stay away from are the ones who know secrets about her past. Bound to a man who isn’t quite what he seems, Lucy will find her heart on the line as she helps Alex in his campaign, knowing when it’s over she will have to walk away. But when God asks Alex and Lucy to scrap their playbook and follow his rules, will they finally say, “I do”? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!

K&KW:
And where, oh where, can we find the amazing Jenny B. Jones online?

JBJ:
I’m all over the place! I’m at jennybjones.com, where I also blog three times a week. And of course, I’m on Facebook and Twitter. You can find those links on my site and blog as well. I spend too much time online, so it’s an easy place to find me! Thanks so much for letting me stop by! I can’t wait to read the new book by Kim and Kayla. It’s gonna be awesome.


Thanks, Jenny, YOU are awesome.
Now all the rest of you get out there and read Jenny's books. I dare you not to laugh.