Tuesday, October 13, 2009

It's My Profound Pleasure...

to introduce you to my lovely and talented critique partner and friend, Jenness Walker!

See, told ya she was lovely!
Jenness and I have been friends for oh, about four years now. We met in the strangest of places. If you know us, you'll guess pretty easily, but I'll go ahead and tell you - it was through an online forum. Yep, we were both going to be attending the American Christian Fiction Writers conference for the first time, we were on the boards talking about our writing and how to pitch (neither one of us knew how and we were terrified) and we started shooting pitches back and forth. Next thing we knew, we were meeting up in Dallas. We became critique partners shortly after the conference, and the rest, as they say, is history. She still can't get rid of me.
We both became agented authors in the same year. We used to dream about publication together. Now I'm happy to say, I'm the only one who's still dreaming. Jenness has realized her dream with her debut novel, Double Take, published through Love Inspired Suspense.

I had the pleasure of critiquing this novel in all its various stages, and I have to say the finished product is pretty darn good. I won't give a review here, because I'm biased, but here's the blurb, and when you're done reading, go on Amazon and order Double Take! You won't regret it!
Cole Leighton can barely believe his eyes. A woman on his bus has just been abducted—in an exact reflection of a scene from the bestselling novel he's reading. Someone is bringing the book to life…and isn't above forcing an innocent woman to follow the story to its tragic end. Using the novel as his playbook, Cole catches up with the beautiful victim—but rescuing Kenzie Jacobs doesn't keep her safe for long. The killer is writing his own ending, and none of the twists and turns lead to happily ever after.

Jenness Walker fell in love with books before she could even read them. Growing up, she read while she walked in line, ate lunch, played the clarinet, showered and brushed her teeth. Unfortunately she still hasn’t figured out how to clean the house with a book in hand. Blessed with a vivid imagination—sometimes too vivid—Jenness loves to create her own stories as well. Her writing journey has spanned over twenty years so far, from the contest she lost in first grade to the creative writing correspondence course she took through high school and the first novel she penned in college. Now Jenness lives in Florida with her beloved Web site–designer husband and almost-equally-beloved laptop.

10 comments:

Diane said...

The book sounds great. Good luck on all future books too! :O)

Tamika: said...

God has such a wonderful way of bringing exactly what we need.

Keep working and dreaming BIG!

Happy writing...

Aimee said...

The book is really good! I bought it this week and read it the same night. Yep, the whole thing. =)

Laura Frantz said...

Jenness,
I was really blessed when you spoke at ACFW in Denver. Many moments of that conference were a blur for this first-timer but you said such beautiful, heartfelt things that I've remembered them. So happy to see your book here! It looks so intriguing:) Bless you in all you do!

Wanda Lee said...

I have something for you my dear, over at my, "THE PLUMED PEN", BLOG..,

Kindly accept my gift and come by to recieve it please..,

Keep up the wonderful writing and work; (now I must invite my dear mama, who is also a gifted Christian writer, as one who perhaps follows these delightful blogs of yours..,

Blessings and hugs from Silken Purse

Heather Sunseri said...

The book sounds great!

Isn't it amazing how God brings people together for a purpose? Great story on how you two met and have been friends ever since.

Jemi Fraser said...

Sounds like a fabulous book! It's interesting how cyber friends can become real life friends as well, isn't it? The writing community is really an amazing place and group of people!

Yaya' s Home said...

I'm finding that you can really develop some great friendships online. I'm glad you were able to meet in person.
Judging by the way you write on your blog, I'd say you're not far from getting published, yourself. Good luck to both of you. ~ Yaya

http://yayashome.blogspot.com

Eileen Astels Watson said...

Jenness, I looked for your book earlier this month. I thought it was an LI, now that I know it's an LIS, I'll head back to Walmart to grab it. They usually don't come out for a week or two later than the LI's anyway.

Thanks, Cathy, for featuring Jenness. You are truly blessed to have such a courageous, lovely critique partner. She had many of us in tears at this year's conference, me included!

Dawn Simon said...

Jenness and her book sound great! How nice that you two found each other. Keep working toward that dream! :)