The Heart's Journey Home
by Nikki
Jackson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE: Young Adult
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
It’s summer vacation, and all seventeen-year-old Tori Logan wants to do
is hang out with her two best friends, practice her mixed martial arts and go
to FBI spy camp. Summer means freedom (mostly from adults) and Tori plans to
fill every spare moment of her last summer before graduating from High School
with all the fun things she and her best pals can come up with.
Tori,
whose mom died of breast cancer when she was young, has always relied on her
own strength to get by - especially because her Archeologist father tends to
leave her behind with his live-in girlfriend while he gallivants around the
world on digs. Thankfully, Tori can take
care of herself. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants to do with her
life. Her Lakota Sioux grandfather, a former Navy SEAL, trained Tori in
self-defense from a young age. Now, as a teenager, Tori excels at mixed martial
arts and the use of various weapons. During
the summer she will be attending an FBI sponsored Summer Camp which she hopes
will lead to her dream job – becoming an FBI serial killer profiler.
With her
two best friends at her side, Tori believes she can handle anything. And with
summer vacation stretching before them, the trio plans to find plenty of
adventure.
But while
Tori is determined to be independent, life has other plans for this fierce
young woman, and they include coming to grips with some hard - and surprising -
truths about both her past and her future.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
I could really use a belt. Fin thought as he jumped
from the porch, bounding over the five steps.
Running down the graveled drive at break-neck speed he cursed the fact
he was wearing tennis shoes - that along with the baggy, beltless pants was
hemming up his stride.
The
sound of shrieks and a male voice yelling at him in a foreign language didn’t
help the matter. Fin tripped over his
own size 12 feet, rolled and got up running.
After gathering his wits about him he heard a muffled roar zoom past him
followed by a streak of green. He was
unsure of what it was but he was too scared to try to figure it out – he was
running now – minus the jeans and a tennis shoe.
Fin
all but dove into his Camaro thankful he’d left the keys in the ignition and
not in his pants pocket. He turned the
key and sped down the drive, kicking dirt and gravel in his wake. In his rear-view mirror he could see the
crazy man chasing him with the longest, sharpest sword he’d ever seen.
Making
it to the end of the drive, Fin did a complete donut, spun the vehicle around
in the right direction and then tore off down the street. Tori had grabbed his errant shoe and AJ leaned
down to scoop up the jeans, then the two of them tore down the drive after Fin.
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:
1.
What’s the best and worst part of
being an author?
For me the best
part of being an author is the writing.
Everything about the ‘process’ is engaging. I love the birth of the idea for the
book. I’m a visual writer so I see the
whole book in my head first. Before I’ve
written a word I literally see it there from beginning to end. I love the research I do for the book,
finding out stuff and learning new things.
Research acts as a sort of muse for me keeping me in the head-space of
the book. As I do the research the
characters and setting comes to life, sort of like a painter who outlines his
work first then adds color. Once I feel
I’ve researched enough I start writing.
I write every day, I have to. At
this point the book is begging to be written.
I’ve found that
the worst part of being an author is finishing the book. This might sound strange but when I wrote the
last word of the last sentence on the last page I smiled and jumped for
joy. The Heart’s Journey Home was a
nearly three year trek from beginning to end.
There were times I didn’t even see an end in sight, then there I
was. I emailed the finished manuscript
to my editor, grabbed a cup of coffee and turned on the TV. By the time the program ended I was missing
my characters. About three days later I
took pen and paper in hand and started working on book two of the series – A
Layover in Doppelganger-ville. I
couldn’t go a whole week without sharing the same space with Tori, AJ and
Kalea. I actually missed them.
2.
Which Book of yours is your favorite? Why,
The Heart’s Journey Home is a series, likely four books. California Blend Summer Vacation is the first
book of the series and the only one that’s currently published. I’m working on the second book and truth be
told I’m having a great time. I don’t
want to put any spoilers out there so I’ll just say the main character Tori
continues the journey of life she’s on in an out-of-the-way place. It creates for her a unique situation that
challenges her to live within rules and boundaries which are words that aren’t easily
a part of her vocabulary. I’m a good
ways into this book and I have to say that this book is my favorite. Why? Because it puts Tori in an extreme situation
that she’s not readily getting out of and her old behavior isn’t going to work
here. So there’s a lot she has to work
on and work out along the way. I love
characters being challenged and they themselves not knowing how they’re going
to get through something or survive. It
puts the reader and the character on the same journey – what’s going to happen
next? How is this going to end?
3.
What are your favorite authors in the genre that you write?
I don’t really have a favorite author, I just read what I like. The book’s cover has to catch me and the
blurb on the back of the book has to really pull me in or I’m likely to leave
it on the shelf. Any book has a good
three minutes to engage me so the writer is going to have to be spot-on. I look at the cover first and I’m either
going to stop or not. I pick the book up
and read the back. If it passes that
test I’ll read the prologue or in absence of a prologue I’ll read the first two
pages of the first chapter. I’ve
literally put a book down because I couldn’t get past the prologue or the first
two pages – swearing already, quasi-sexual behavior or the characters are
engaged in something else I consider questionable. I’m not putting down these books or the
authors that pen them I’m simply saying I’m a reader with my own specific
tastes. Most recently I’ve read or
viewed the following movies – Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, Ender’s Game,
The Hunger Games. I’ll get in a loop so
I’ll see the movie or read the same book again and again. I love stories that have strong female
characters – strong but a little flawed, where there’s room for growth and I as
the reader get to see that along the path of the story.
4.
Which or your characters is most like you?
If you asked my siblings they would say the main character Tori and I’d
have to agree. I took some real
good-natured teasing from my sisters after they read the book. I practiced martial arts as a teen (ended
with a 2nd degree red belt in Tang Soo Do), I love mixed martial
arts, if I had life to do over I would be a profiler for the FBI, and I love
watching the rigorous training the Navy SEALs go through. Tori is a person of color, stubborn, hates
to admit when she’s wrong, and my sisters could probably go on and on. I guess you could say that Tori is my book
avatar, and I love it. We writers
creates worlds we wish we could live in and then we do – through our
characters. The fun part of writing a book
is that we ask the reader to come along for the ride.
AUTHOR Bio and
Links:
Ever
since she was young, Nikki Jackson has loved reading and the way that books
allow you to journey on wonderful adventures without ever leaving the comfort
of home. She decided at a young age that she wanted to become a writer to
enable others to experience the magic of books—and The Heart’s Journey Home is
the result.
In
addition to writing, Nikki Jackson is a contract worker for General Motors. She
and her husband currently live in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Links
The
Heart’s Journey Home Blog is currently under construction and will be online
soon.
Twitter
- https://twitter.com/journey4home
Nikki Jackson will be
awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during
the tour. Use the link below to enter.
Thanks for hosting a stop on my book tour, looking forward to spending the day with you!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the post, thanks for sharing it, this sounds like a great read.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the post.
ReplyDeleteGreat post - thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you all for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteWow, sounds great. Thanks for sharing this book.
ReplyDeleteThanks Hope Dreams for hosting such a nice stop on my book tour. it was great!
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