Tao of J.T. is the online blog of New York Times bestselling author and EMMY-award winning television host J.T. Ellison.
It's that time of year. Final deadlines loom for March's release, promotion is about to begin for October's release, and next September's book is being written. In other words, the Perfect Storm is upon me.
As such, I'm taking an Internet vacation. No social networking, no blogging, no email. Just me and the hubby, the laptop, some good wine, and lots and lots of words.
I'll see y'all in September! Write well!
The ImmortalsEllison's outstanding fifth Taylor Jackson thriller (after February 2010's The Cold Room) pits the homicide cop against a killer in league with the dark side. On Halloween, the day Jackson gets her lieutenant's badge back after being unjustly demoted, somebody ritualistically murders eight teens in one of Nashville's tonier neighborhoods. Jackson could use the help of her fiancé, FBI profiler John Baldwin, but he's been called back to Quantico to face a disciplinary investigation after another agent's files implicate him in a badly mishandled case. Jackson and her crackerjack team are left on their own to systematically locate and analyze every clue. The police procedural details never get in the way of the potent characterization and clever plotting, and Ellison systematically cranks up the intensity all the way to the riveting ending. (Oct.)
Thanks, PW!
I never thought I'd have another debut day, but here I am, celebrating the release of ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS into the UK marketplace. With its stunning new cover, excellent reviews (Henry Sutton from the Mirror used the term brilliant, and I'm still blushing) and wonderful support from places like Heffers in Cambridge, Waterstones, the BBC, SHOTS Magazine, Crime Time, The Book Bag, The Bookseller, The Catholic Herald, Selfridges, Midas PR, (especially Sophie Ransom and Alex Martin) all the amazing folks at Mira UK, (especially Kimberley Young) and my dear Dianne Moggy, who helped make this happen for me), I hope that its second bite at the first timer apple will be a charm.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this dream a reality. Cheers!
*Signed copies of ATPG are availble from Heffer's Bookshop in Cambridge and Waterstone's in Chelsea or buy ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS here!
To celebrate the release of ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS in the UK* August 20, I thought I'd share the full text of the poems that are significant to the book. They're some of my all-time favorites. I hope you like them too!
PERFECT WOMAN
by William Wordsworth
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as star of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd
To warm, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
LEDA AND THE SWAN
by William Butler Yeats
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
LOVE
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruin'd tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She lean'd against the armed man,
The statue of the armed Knight;
She stood and listen'd to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I play'd a soft and doleful air;
I sang an old and moving story--
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo'd
The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listen'd with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade--
There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!
And that, unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;--
And how she wept and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain--
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain;--
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay;--
His dying words--but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved--she stepp'd aside,
As conscious of my look she stept--
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see.
The swelling of her heart.
I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.
THE FLEA
by John Donne
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
*Signed copies of ATPG are availble from Heffer's Bookshop in Cambridge and Waterstone's in Chelsea
Here's the very first interview about THE IMMORTALS, hosted by the fabulous folks at Suspense Magazine. I come on at the 30 minute mark, and I was asked questions I've never been asked before... so fun. And the fabulous Steven James precedes me, so give the whole thing a listen. Enjoy!
