10.15.15 - I have a new book coming out! And here's the cover reveal . . .

Friends, Romans, Chickens, lend me your eyes.

Because I'm ridiculously excited to show you the cover of my first standalone novel, NO ONE KNOWS, coming your way March 22, 2016!

Isn't it gorgeous??

I can't wait until you guys read this one. It's been in the making for about six years now, and it's unlike anything I've ever written—but in a good way (according to my editor!). If you liked Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, I think this one will be up your alley.

Here's where you can pre-order NO ONE KNOWS and get it in your hot little hands on March 22!

Print

ebook

And here's a bit about what happens in NO ONE KNOWS!

In an obsessive mystery as thrilling as The Girl on the Train and The Husband’s Secret, New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison will make you question every twist in her page-turning novel—and wonder which of her vividly drawn characters you should trust.

The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?

In NO ONE KNOWS, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops . . . no one knows.

You'll hear more about this book in the coming days. But you should probably pre-order it. Because let's just say, hypothetically, you forget that you ordered this (I know this is impossible, but just run with me here). And then it shows up unexpectedly on your doorstop or tablet. And then you've just basically thrown yourself your own mini-surprise party. I mean, at the end of March, I can guarantee we're all going to need a mini-surprise party of sorts. Just saying.

I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for helping me continue the greatest job on the planet! 

xoxo

9.18.15 - Introducing my newest venture - THEWINEVIXEN.COM

For many, many years, every Friday on Murderati, I gave a wine recommendation at the bottom of my blog post. Wine of the Week, it was called, and I had a great time finding new wines, seeking out excellent vintages and vineyards, learning all I could about the wine industry. When I stopped my weekly blog, I also stopped the official wine recommendations. I’ve missed it. I love good wine, and love to find great wine buys.

I have always wanted to find a way to resurrect the Wine of the Week. But I wasn’t blogging regularly, and life got in the way, as it so often does. Other than the occasional declaration of Facebook, I've been largely wine silent for far too long.

In 2012, I was on a tour in Dahlonega, Georgia, and went into a wine shop after dinner. I saw the cutest wine plaque—Tip the Wine Vixen, it said. 

The Wine Vixen. Now that had a ring to it. 

An aside. When I was growing up, CB radios were a big thing. We were out in the country, in the woods, and you needed a reliable form of communication. So my dad would take us out on the roads and let us talk to the truckers on the CB so we could learn how to call for help if we needed it. BJ and the Bandit, and all that. I know, I know. 

The deal with the CB was, you had to have a handle. I floated between Baby Yellowjacket (my dad, the Yellowjacket, is a Georgia Tech Rambling Wreck) and Little Vixen (my mom was the Vixen, because she was a total fox.) 

So I come to the title of The Wine Vixen honestly—a love of wine, and a former play on my CB handle.

Back to Dahlonega. I tried to buy the plaque but was refused. So I ran home (actually, back to the hotel), snapped up the URL, then sat on it for several years until the right moment, which is now. 

In THE END GAME, you will find an oblique reference to thewinevixen.com. It was meant to be an inside joke, but the closer we got to release day, the more I realized it could be a great break through the 4th wall, a fun nod to all my loves.

My right hand, Assistant Amy, loved the idea. And since she’s such an amazing Amy, she set up the site—which is lovely, by the way—and when I saw how gorgeous it was, I knew the time had come to resurrect the wine of the week.

So welcome, friends, to The Wine Vixen. Stop by, bookmark us, and follow along with our recommendations on Twitter and Facebook. I’m red, Amy is white, and we’ll split the rosés between us. There will be a mix of old and new wines, some travelogues, recipes and pairings, and some sillies, just for fun. 

Cheers—or, as my family puts it, Ching Ching!

6.29.15 - On Learning From Your Mistakes

Like all writers, I suspect, I need mental space to be happy. I need time with just my laptop and my own stories. I also need time with my "other" voices, the ones who don't exist in my series novels, who clamour to be heard, to come alive on the page. So I schedule writing retreats. Sometimes I stay home, sometimes I go away. I take a break from all my obligations and I let the other voices come out to play. Sometimes these vignettes become short stories. Sometimes they turn in to novels. Sometimes it's not worth pursuing and it goes into the treatments file. One never knows.

Last Tuesday, I set off for one of these retreats. I have very little time left to myself this summer, between traveling and editing the new standalone and starting a new book with Catherine, and I've had this small pocket of uninterrupted writing time planned for a while. 

So you can imagine my dismay when I arrived at the airport (this was a going away retreat) and realized that I'd left my laptop at home. I'd been working earlier in the day, and I plugged it in so it would get a full charge before I got on the plane (because I wasn't finished with my words for the day and was looking forward to the 90 minute flight to write) and I left it on my chair in the living room. Open. Plugged in. Decidedly NOT with me. 

I won't bore you with the self-flagellation that followed. I was upset and frustrated and embarrassed. I am normally tethered to my laptop. It is an extension of me, and leaving for 5 days planning to write sans my greatest tool wasn't the smartest move I could have made. Though as one of my dear friends reminded me, a dose of humility is always good for the soul.

I don't know that the humility helped, but it was a nice reminder.

When I posted this status update on Facebook (what is it with our need to publicly shame ourselves?) I had glib comments, of course I did, which I deserved. Ha ha, there's this crazy thing called pen and paper, etc., But for what I'd been planning to do, which was blow up a book by moving chapters around, pen and paper wouldn't cut it. I needed Scrivener, I needed Dropbox, I needed a reliable wifi connection, I needed my f-ing schedule that I'd planned out.

Deep breaths.

This is why I have Dropbox. I can access my files anywhere. Assuming I have wifi, that is.

Of course, access to wifi on this little island isn't the easiest thing. Though I had a desktop computer to work on, the wireless was turned off for the summer. Hello, touch and go mobile hotspot. 

The first day was awful. I jury-rigged some wifi, burned 90% of the data downloading my Dropbox (finally got smart and realized they have a selective download) then Scrivener needed an update. Which updated 90% then crashed the computer. Had to start over. Five hours later, I finally had everything I needed and managed to get to work. I moved my chapters around, then started writing new stuff. 

Day two was better. I continued moving things around. Wrote 1000 words, then went for a walk. I was still upset with myself, but I'd at least found a way to do what I needed. 

I did work. I didn't accomplish 1/5 of what I'd intended, because I like nothing less than sitting at a desk to write when there is a perfectly good porch swing and a sea breeze to enjoy, but I worked. And in the empty spaces, the places I couldn't take my laptop with me, I recharged my batteries. Walked 3.5 miles a day. Read 4 of 5 endorsement books due. Used my phone to communicate until it just became too much of a bother and I ditched it for some sangria. Ok, maybe a little too much sangria. 

So all's well that ends well, right? 

Sort of. 

I realized a couple of things while I was gone. 

Planning is my “thing.” I love it. I love knowing what I’m doing, day-by-day. As a tool, my calendar takes a very close second place to my laptop. I am an extensive planner. I have to be; with all the projects I have going on, making schedules and planning my time is the only way I meet my deadlines. The only way. I'm not being precious here. I have organizational OCD. Planning gives me a sense of control I’m otherwise missing. 

Which led me to this:

• I am way too dependent on my tools, but I'm not sure what I do about that. I'm a writer who works best on a laptop and likes to plan months/years in advance.
   
• Dropbox is like manna from heaven, but I can't ever leave the house on a trip without my work on a thumb drive (ironically, I do have one that has everything backed up to it daily...in my laptop.) 
   
• Perhaps I am holding on too tightly. To everything. As a consequence, I am calling bullshit on myself. 

The calendar, the writing for three houses and putting out my own work...I've become rigid and inflexible with my calendar, which is simply an extension of myself. If I'm rigid and inflexible, my work will be as well. We can't have that. Where's the fun in being a writer in this scenario?

Remember my war on the word busy? I think I need to start a war on the word inflexible, too. Rolling with it is just not my forte anymore, and I'm not sure when that happened. 

I can't change my nature, not really. I am who I am. I will always feel in control when I know what I have to do, and by when, and plot out my days accordingly. But I can learn to let go of things that I can't control. Leaving my laptop at home was stupid, yes. But the upshot was, I still had my Kindle, and my phone, and my sneakers, and a beach. After two days of really beating myself up, I let it go and took advantage of the situation. I ended up getting things done, getting ahead on my reading responsibilities, and had a little break, too. 

Granted, it wasn't a sanctioned, scheduled break.... (Let it go, JT. Let it go.)

I'm looking forward to getting home because it's time for me to check my annual review goals for the year. This whole Year of No thing might need a major mid-course correction. I'll keep you updated.

In the meantime, I am all ears if you have advice on how to battle this newfound rigidity....

6.8.15 - On Eliminating Busy From Our Vocabulary

As a writer, I love words. I find our language rich and beautiful. There are so many exciting, insightful ways to express ourselves. Truly, there are few words that I dislike. My friends know my biggest no-no buzzword (it starts with an M) but aside from that squicky one, there is a word that I truly despise. 

Busy.

I hate the word busy with the fierce fire of a thousand suns. I hate myself for using it, because it’s such a deflection, such a cop out term. “How are you?” “Oh, I’m so busy. Busy, busy, busy.” It implies importance, excitement, a sense of belonging to our crazy society. It’s become the buzzword of our generation.

We are all so busy. So very, very busy.

And it's a term so often abused. Busy is the new No. Don't want to do something? Just say, "I am too busy," and everyone immediately understands, empathizes, and seeks to soothe. In the past, I found myself often too busy to get together with friends, too busy to talk on the phone, too busy to make dinner, do laundry, get the appropriate amount of sleep, eat well, love well, even (gasp) read.

I’ve launched a campaign against the word busy this year. This year, the busiest I’ve ever had. I’ve been underwater too many times to count with deadlines and obligations, which means only one thing. It's not that I'm busy. I am overcommitted.

Worse. I am rushing through my life.

A life that is well-lived, but going so fast. Too fast.

As I sit here with my parents, 78 and 80 respectively, I think about where they were in their lives 40 years ago. A major move across the country, to an area of the country thirty miles from the nearest town. Three children in three different schools. New jobs, a new real estate practice. New friends and parties and unpacking and settling in.

They were busy, my parents. 

But I never felt like they weren’t around. I never felt they weren’t present. My dad took me fishing. My mom took me to the library. My brothers played Pippi Longstocking with me, allowing me to throw them bodily around the house (They are 9 and 11 years older. They had such patience with their little sister.) We lived a life, a beautiful, quiet, lovely life. 

I think back to the peace of my childhood, of growing up in the woods, and realize my parents chose this place because it was away from the bustle of the city. Because nature and life were inextricably linked. Because they didn’t want the insanity of being busy all the time.

It explains why I feel so comfortable here. Why my creativity sparks. Why I feel like I can breathe. 

For the first quarter of this year, I was trying to satisfy too many masters, letting important things slip through the cracks because there weren’t enough hours in the day. Yesterday, 9 p.m. rolled around and I mourned because my day was over. So I stayed up until 11:30 watching a movie because I didn’t want the day to end. Today I have a headache, and I'm tired, and I've been working, but it's been forced. If I'd just recognized it was time to end the day instead of trying to sandwich in just one last thing, I would have been much more productive today, and felt better to boot.

I want time to slow. I want life to slow. My Year of No has gotten away from me, and it’s time to pull back again. 

I’ve been taking baby steps away from busyness for the past few months. Recognizing I simply can’t do it all, nor do I want to do it all. You know how they say actions speak louder than words? 

I’ve been showing up on the golf course. I’ve been getting to bed at a decent time. I’ve stopped piling every thought of Oh, I must do THIS, and THIS, and THIS into my Wunderlist. How many things on your To Do list are actually vital to your survival? I bet over half of them aren't important at all. 

I’m eating better — they call it eating mindfully, but it's true. I enjoy food more when I slow down enough to think about what I want to eat, then cook or prepare it, eat it, taste it, appreciate it.

If I start feeling stressed, start feeling busy, I set down my laptop and breathe. I play with the cats. I take a walk. Read a few pages from a book. Cut an apple with a knife and dip it in peanut butter. Make a cup of tea. Play with the cats. Do a few yoga poses. Call a friend.

Anything—anything—that will calm my racing heart and pull me from that scattered sense of Stress and Busy multitasking gives me.

I have a long way to go until I unyoke myself from the busy. But I’m trying. Will you try with me? Together, we can stop this insanity, and start living our lives again, instead of rushing through them, busy, busy, busy. 

Are you in?

5.17.15 - What Lies Behind the Book (see what I did there?)

On July 24, 2013, I read a story about a young med school student named Paul DeWolf who’d been killed in his apartment. No motive, no witnesses, no suspects. By all accounts, DeWolf was an exceptional young man. He excelled in everything from school to his military training to sports and his faith. He was perfect. Everything about him foretold a brilliant future. And here he was, his promising young life cut short. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I read everything I could find on the case. And there was a single conclusion to be drawn. 

It was a perfect murder…

That became the first line of WHAT LIES BEHIND. I let my imagination run, wrote up a somewhat outlandish proposal. By August 12 I had a title, one that fit beautifully with the idea of a locked room mystery, and the futility of a life lost too soon. The title comes from the Thoreau (or perhaps Emerson, no one knows) quote:

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us  

are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Oddly enough, the day I decided on the title, I was in Ace Hardware looking for plants, and saw a plaque with beautiful birds on it. Up close, I realized it was the very quote I’d used to title the book. (I snatched it up, and it resides in my office in a spot of honor.) I knew then I had something special. Sometimes, the universe tells you when you’re on the right track.

In October, I submitted the proposal, which my agent and editor loved. I shelved the story until April 2014, when I was finished with my six months of the year I dedicate to Catherine and could think about it.

I started writing April 3. My publisher needed an excerpt for the paperback of WHEN SHADOWS FALL, so I wrote an opening. Cobbled it together, really. And in so doing, realized the story I thought I was telling wasn’t the story that wanted to be written.

It happens that way sometimes. You think a book is about one thing, but it surprises you, takes on a life of its own, and suddenly, you’re left with a completely new story. The characters dictate the story, obviously. And a lot happened between October 2013 and April 2014. Weird things, and good things.

Several wonderful people gave money to charity to have their names appear in the book. When I accept these kinds of commissions, I don’t just toss in a name. I want the donor to get their money’s worth. I create real characters, with real purpose to the story. Tommy Cattafi became my dead medical student. Robin Souleyret was his contact, also dead. (There’s another character name I can’t share, because I don’t want to spoil the story for you. You’ll see that one in the acknowledgements.)

And then the story decided it didn’t want to be about dead people. It wanted to have live people, who did amazing things. Every day, while I watched, it wove itself into a completely different entity. Tommy Cattafi wasn’t dead, but gravely injured. Robin Souleyret was very much alive, and a former CIA agent. What? She had a sister who was FBI, and her name was Amanda. She was murdered and Cataffi injured in what looked like a murder suicide. Their names became so intrinsically involved that, because of these character names, the story itself changed. It evolved. It became about Sam and Robin, the push and pull of the investigation, and the power of love.

There were other issues with the story as well. At its heart, WHAT LIES BEHIND is about a bioterror attack on the U.S. using an Ebola-esque hemorrhagic virus. Yeah. Topical much?

I was more than halfway through the writing well before the African outbreak, and as the virus, and the story, continued to spread, I kept having to change the book so it didn't look like I'd stolen the story from the headlines. Because I, apparently, am simply too prescient when it comes to writing about current events.

And then we have Sam and Xander and Fletcher. The backbone of these books. Vital, one might say, to their longevity. Samantha really comes into her own during this investigation. It was such a blast to watch her take over. She’s always been a smart cookie, but now, she’s smart and tough and isn’t about to sit back when she sees injustices. To put it mildly, she kicks ass.

It took five months to write this book, because the story was a moving target, day after day. When I finished the book, I was almost afraid to turn it in. The synopsis I’d given my editor months before was unrecognizable outside of a young man cut down in his prime. Completely different from the finished book. Happily, she loved it, and here we are.

It’s always fascinating to me to relive the writing of a book. WHAT LIES BEHIND was possibly my most challenging to date, simply because it did not behave. It didn’t do what it was told. It’s fitting WHAT LIES BEHIND was the thirteenth novel I’ve written. It seems I’ve just given birth to my first teenager.