Life ain't always about me....

Life ain't always about me, y'all, so today, I decided to celebrate an exciting event for a sister writer. Below you'll find her blog which I totally stole. She's releasing her latest book and doing an amazing give away. You'll find a link to the contest here: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/48229cee2/
Her books are pretty amazing so give them a try!
Here's a preview of the prizes!

Jadie Jones Rambles

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

RELEASE WEEK GIVEAWAY - $50 Amazon gift card and more up for grabs!

Windswept is HERE y'all! And with it comes a category 5 giveaway. Don't you just love a good storm?

Up for grabs:
* $50 Amazon gift card
* Custom leather Kindle cover inspired by Wildwood and hand detailed by Rockstar Custom Leather
* Custom leather bronc halter hand detailed by Rockstar Custom Leather
* Signed paperback of Wildwood, book #1, with bonus swag
* Signed paperback of Windswept, book #2, with bonus swag

How do you enter? Why, spread the word about Windswept, of course! Use the Rafflecopter form below to submit your entries. The giveaway opens Tuesday, May 22nd, and ends Saturday, May 26th at the stroke of midnight. Winners will be selected at random by Rafflecopter within 48 hours of closing.

Windswept is on sale NOW for just $1.99 on Amazon for Kindle. If you haven't read Wildwood yet, you're in luck, because it's also on sale for just $2.99.

Check out an excerpt from Windswept:

“Our enemies are close," Maris whispers, her gaze shifting from me to Jayce and back again. "Too close. If we all join hands, I will be able to seal our sounds inside so we can speak freely.”

“How do I know you’re not an enemy, too?”

“You don’t.” She flexes her fingers, but waits for me to decide to make contact.

“For Pete’s sake, Tanzy. This isn’t The Bachelorette Candidates’ special edition. You’re not getting married. You’re just casting a damn spell.” Jayce grabs my arm with one hand and Maris’s arm with the other, and joins us together. “There. Hashtag let’s-do-this-already,” she says, clamping her palms in ours to complete the circle.

Maris suppresses a smile and closes her eyes. I deny a shudder of nervousness and force out a long, slow exhale.

“Air and water join us here, use our light, and make a sphere. Seven colors round and round, shield our circle, hide our sounds,” Maris commands. She repeats the incantation two more times. The air warms and thickens. A growing charge pulses through my arms like an electric current.

Maris falls silent. Everything does. The mist continues to drizzle, blanketing the muddy earth and barren trees, but the steady hiss has vanished. Even though we sit within a few steps from the creek, I can’t hear it. With a start, I realize it must work both ways. No sounds in. No sounds out.

“We are safe to speak, but it won’t last long.” Maris slips her hand from mine. Her charcoal skin is pale in places where I’d unwittingly tightened my grip. Will I ever learn how to use the horse’s strength deliberately?

I rub my clammy, filthy hands together, trying to make them warm enough to stop shaking. They’re sweaty with nervousness, and the rust-colored film on my hands rolls into beads. It’s not gritty like the dirt I clung to when I climbed out of the ravine at Wildwood. It’s smooth, and presses flat into tiny flakes wherever I push down.

This is not earth.

This is dried blood.

David Andrews’s blood, caked in the webbing between my fingers and crusted beneath my nails.

The sound of his last, sputtering breath echoes in my brain. I let out a cry and wipe my fingers violently against my dress. Copper streaks the wrinkled white linen within seconds. The color leaves my hands, but there’s no relief from its weight, its smell.

 “What’s wrong?” Jayce’s voice is an octave too high. “Is that blood?” She sniffs at the air. Her pupils dilate as she arrives at her own conclusion.

I can’t summon the focus to answer—can’t stop trying to make my hands clean. From the expression on Maris’s face, she’s seeing the memory of me strangling Vanessa’s husband. The image of life leaving his eyes. The nightmare I can’t wake from.

Her gaze trains on Asher’s mark, and she brings an open palm to the brand. Heat crawls across my chest, but I’m frozen in place. My arms don’t heed the mental command to bat her hand away. Two of the circles turn black, shimmering like the coming night, and then fade back into the appearance of an old scar.

 “When did this happen?” She regards me with new distance, studying my face like I’m a complete stranger.

“Vanessa tricked me into believing her husband was attacking her. She told me he would kill her. She set me up. She made me believe . . . I thought he was Asher.” The confession tumbles from me, heavy and slipping.

“You’ve killed someone?” Jayce asks, her throat constricting around the words.

“She has taken two lives. Two of these rings belong to her now,” Maris says. Her fingers curl. She stares past me. I risk a glimpse of Jayce, whose face falls from brazen to defeat within a single second.

“Tell me about the first,” Maris orders, her mouth forming a grim line.

“An Unseen attacked Vanessa in the woods. I got between them. He picked me up by my throat and I . . . exploded,” I whisper. “I didn’t want to kill him, but he kept coming.” The memory plays in front of my open eyes. “If I hadn’t killed him he would’ve killed me.”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s useless.” Jayce shakes her head and mutters under her breath.

“I’m not useless.” My fingernails dig into my palms.

“Yes. You are,” Jayce growls.

“Enough,” Maris says. “This is Hope’s fault. She chose to keep Tanzy in the dark, and this is the price. Tanzy, you can’t kill anyone else, Seen or Unseen, for any reason.”

“A third kill, and you belong to Asher,” Jayce adds, focusing her icy glare on my face.

All the air is sucked from my lungs. I was under the impression the three circles had everything to do with Spera. How could I have missed this? A mental path quickly links the two lives I took, and arrives at one common denominator: Vanessa. She’s masterminded every move I’ve made since waking with the horse’s Vires blood coursing through my veins. She must know what will happen if I take a third life.
It’s an insurance policy, I realize. If I won’t use the Vires strength for Asher, I can’t use it at all.

*  *  *

Click here for the Amazon listing for Wildwood
Click here for the Amazon listing for Windswept

Want another taste test? Check out snippets, features, reviews, and more on my Instagram page.

Thank you so much for celebrating Windswept's release week with me! If you win the gift card, what will you splurge on? Comment below!

Tanzy's journey continues in Windswept, Book #2 in the Hightower Trilogy.

An Unseen World believes Tanzy Hightower is the key in an ancient prophecy meant to deliver the only new birth in all of time. They have waited a thousand years for her soul to return to life in human form. Some of them will stop at nothing to fulfill the prophecy, and others have sworn an oath to end Tanzy’s existence, permanently.

Tanzy’s body is compromised. Her veins are now home to the blood of a savage, wild horse, and its instincts are becoming impossible to control. Her world is also divided. She is determined to rescue Lucas, an Unseen creature who has loved her since her first life, and to find her treasured Harbor and the other stolen horses, which are bound for a catastrophic end in a world she can’t access on her own. Yet the only allies she has left insist she seeks refuge in a remote safe house on the Outer Banks.

While her fellow candidates beg her to stay in hiding, new enemies work to draw her out, making it clear Lucas and the horses are hers for the taking. But Tanzy knows all to well that when your loved ones are used as bait, finding them is only the beginning.

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About Me

Jadie Jones

Author. Equine professional. Southern gal. Especially fond of family, sunlight, and cookie dough. Learn more on my website: www.jadiejones.com

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Life

True to form, it’s been awhile since I last posted so this entry will just provide a little bit of an update about what I’ve been up to since January and the Great Camper Kidnapping Caper of 2017 (which also ran into 2018).

Brief summary of that… Camping World did not step up to fix the issues, actually ended up causing more damage, which they refused to repair UNLESS my parents signed a document saying they would be legally responsible for anything I wrote about their company. I had no idea I was that important or that they thought my blog reached copious amounts of readers but I did appreciate the ego boost, so thanks for that, Camping World! Needless to say, my parents didn’t sign, the repairs weren’t made, and Camping World is not the reason I haven’t blogged since then (in fact, fuck you, Camping World and fuck your face).

Life is the reason I haven’t written to you guys in a while. Since shortly after my last post things have just skyrocketed in terms of life for me. Some good, some not so good, but in short, I’ve just been busy living and being present. Wedding season started early for me this year, which has been sort of a juggling act because unlike in the years before where weddings were structured, weekend events, I have had a plethora of people who are asking to be married mid-week, mid-day in spur-of-the-moment ceremonies. I can’t complain because I love what I do and I’ve appreciated each couple that has found their way to me. 

My daughter, son-in-law, and grandson also moved out earlier this year and that was a little bitter sweet. While we managed to coexist living in the same house for over two years, no house is big enough for two families and they needed their own space in order to start their own family dynamic. I can’t tell you how proud I am of both of them, though adjusting to them (and most importantly, the baby) not being here has been a bit of a struggle. 
I love my kid. She can be a pain in the ass (she gets that from me) but she is literally one of my best friends and while most in-laws can be less than crazy about the people their children marry, her husband is also one of my best friends, so it’s been a little bit lonely here without their company and conversation. But as much as I miss them, I miss my grandson the most. They moved an hour and a half away which made it all the harder, but it’s been worth it to see them all growing and thriving in their new environment (this makes it sound like a wildlife documentary that is narrated by a slightly gruff British, low-toned voice… “See the young wife nesting in her new habitat while the husband goes out foraging in order to provide for her and their young…”) doing what a new family needs to do and establishing their own place in the world. Did I mention how proud I am of them? 

And then…

At the end of this past March, I lost my aunt Dawn, someone who because of the closeness in our ages was more sibling than my mother’s sister to me. Some of you know and are aware of how large my family is as well as how close knit we all are. 
Just to those not in the know, I grew up with 9 aunts and 3 uncles, though I wasn’t close to two of those uncles and one of those aunts. I had a fourth uncle but he died as a toddler long before I was born. I also have upwards of seventy first cousins and out of those seventy, around forty-five to fifty of us talk and communicate on a regular basis, as well as second cousins and so on. When I say we’re close, I mean it.
My aunts are just under my mother in my ranking scale of important women in my life. In fact, our specific squad of moms, aunts, nieces, and cousins are affectionately referred to by ourselves as well as others as the Blonde Bitch Club, or the “BBC,” for short. 
Dawn wasn’t just my aunt, or even just a family member to me. She was also a big sister and my friend. We were only 6 1/2 years apart which meant we played together, grew up together and for me and both of my brothers as children, it was like having another sibling. She was a bride’s maid in my wedding. Her daughter was bride’s maid my daughter’s wedding, etc.
As those of you who read these blogs know, I lost a brother in 1993 and it was a moment in my life I struggled for years to make peace with. Dawn’s death was as painful and was the second hardest loss of my life though now as an adult, I have the tools and am much more equipped at dealing with my feelings and emotions than I was at 17.
You can rationalize, even when it hurts, the death of your grandparents or even your parents after a certain point because you know people age and the body wears out and death is an eventuality in that regard. It still hurts to lose them and it’s tragic, but it’s not the acute gut-wrenching pain of losing someone who isn’t even fifty yet and who is just gone in the blink of an eye from an illness that snuck up when no one, including her was even looking. 
But I will say this, as much as it fucking sucked to say goodbye to her, I was so lucky to have spent those horrible moments with my gigantic, loud, emotional, loving, crazy family. Death is hard and most times unwanted, but it can also be a beautiful experience. Standing there at Dawn’s Celebration of Life memorial service among uncles, aunts, cousins, my parents and the rest of my family was a beautiful, sweet experience that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life even though I hated every second of the reason we had to be there. 
I’ve heard and seen for myself that death can sometimes divide a family, bringing anger, resentment and sometimes even greed to the surface but my family, time after time, has always proven our love for each other and that the bonds that we share with one another are so much stronger than just the proclaiming of a family tie. I’m grateful to have them. And Dawn’s husband, my “Uncle Kev,” is one of the strongest human beings I have ever encountered. He could have been angry and bitter. He could have retreated. But he didn’t and he hasn’t. I watched him forgive people that day that he had every right to be hate-filled towards. I watched him lift others out of their own guilt or pain in spite of what he was experiencing himself. Being able to hold a person who hurt you and give them forgiveness and peace makes Kevin a personal hero in my eyes because I know it wasn’t easy. I know the depth and strength it takes to do that because I’ve had to do it a few times myself. 

After Dawn’s passing, I came back to Georgia and threw myself into the finishing of Songs in the Key of Life, which included writing some song lyrics, something I haven’t done since my early adult years. This book has been a challenge and it’s almost done with the exception of some further tweaking and editing I’m hoping to complete in the next few weeks. Y’all know how much I hate this part of the process, so yes, I’ve been dragging my feet a bit.
I’m crossing my fingers that this one will be out at least by July 4th, but I ain’t lying when I say, it’s been a monster in trying to find a happy medium between the past these two characters share and the present when they find each other again. There have been more than a few times when I’ve thought I bit off way more than I can chew and have been tempted to just table it for the time being but I’m nothing if not stubborn so I haven’t quit on it yet. It took five years to write the first Bimini and while I’m definitely hoping that will not be the case with SitKoL, I’m willing to keep fine-tuning it until I feel I’m giving my readers the best work of fiction I’m capable of writing. It’s what I expect when I buy a book with my own hard-earned money, so I’ll accept no less for you. 

As always, you can follow me on:
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