Your Next Favorite Author–Jacquie May Miller!

Let’s start with a little bit about Jacquie May Miller: She lives in Washington close to her only child, Brittney, who is the light of her life.

Jacquie’s first novel, The Price of Secrets, is a work of women’s fiction which explores the tenuous thread connecting family and a love left behind so many years ago. Secrets of the past will either break or strengthen that slim thread, but not without a price. 

In addition to writing The Price of Secrets, Jacquie has created May Daze, a blog exploring the value of friendship, family, and life’s little surprises. You will find her at http://www.jmaydaze.com where she has attracted a loyal following.

Welcome, Jacquie, and howdy neighbor! I live in Washington as well! Here’s your first question: Have you always wanted to be an author?

I have always loved to write, but never thought I would write a book. My writing journey started at age eleven when my friends and I started a neighborhood newspaper, complete with local news, an advice column, and advertisements–The Nosy Neighborhood News. Years later near the end of my “real life career,” I decided to take some classes and fell in love with writing all over again. I assumed I’d write some short stories, but to my surprise, one of those stories developed into a full-length novel. 

I love to hear about people’s love affair with writing! I also love to hear about short stories that evolve into longer pieces. Another thing I wonder about author’s and their books is: What real life experience influenced your novel?

My first attempt at writing a novel included many of the kids I grew up with in my old neighborhood. Honestly, that real life story was a bit boring, so when I decided to start a new novel during NaNoWriMo, I let the kids grow up and meet again at their twenty-five-year high school reunion. A lot can happen in twenty-five years and my book, The Price of Secrets, is a story that brings all the secrets of the past to the surface. Many of the characters were patterned after people I knew but the actual story is pure fiction. Personalities are definitely drawn from real people, but I’ll stop there in case any of my old high school friends are reading this. Some of them might not be flattered by the picture I paint.

LOL! That’s a concern for author’s when they write about people they know! How about this question: What real life experience made it into your novel?

In my book, Jamie takes a ride on the rope swing in Frankie’s back yard. That swing existed in my youth and all of the neighborhood kids defied gravity swinging out over the gully, hoping we wouldn’t lose our grip and fall to our almost certain demise. We all survived, but I can’t believe our parents let us take that leap day after day. Was the gully as big a drop as I remember? Probably not, but the years and my vivid imagination make the drop more death defying with the passage of time. I’d love to take a ride on that swing today. I wonder if it’s still there…

I have to say, your rich memory has really helped develop wonderful characters and amazing plot twists, and I truly enjoyed The Price of Secrets! Read to the end for a review of this excellent read!

Buy links can be found at www.jmaydaze.com

0r at:

Amazon  

Barnes and Noble 

TWRP Bookstore 

Review:

Jacquie May Miller’s novel, The Price of Secrets, had me hooked from the first line!

If I had known I was going to die today, I would have chosen my underwear more carefully! 

Miller’s carefully crafted story begins on a flight to Seattle for her high school reunion. She is accompanied by her Twenty-four-year-old son for a reunion of his own with his grandfather, and he hopes to find out who his father is. Not that he didn’t have a father. Jamie had seventeen wonderful years with her husband Paul, who adopted Justin, but his death in a fire five years previous, left her a grieving widow.

Miller’s flash backs fill in the mystery of what happened on that fateful graduation night when Jamie Madison/Crandall sleeps with her second boy in two days. The first was her boyfriend the night before, and the second was her best friend whom she sleeps with after she finds her boyfriend in the janitor’s closet making out with another girl. 

            Jamie’s mother swears her to secrecy when she learns she is pregnant, and Jamie leaves Seattle for Berkeley on a full-ride scholarship and doesn’t look back, but only because she can’t. Her mother won’t allow it. A fierce and stubborn matriarch, Nancy Madison banishes Jamie and her illegitimate child, and Jamie loses her father, who chooses to fall in line with his wife, in the process too.

            Twenty-five years go by, Jamie’s mother has passed away, and her twenty-five-year reunion brings her back to her hometown. She comes on a mission to finally find out who the father of her wonderful son Justin, is. So, we have a paternity question, a sister who can run. The DNA tests to answer it, and two men who are also single and available and making the moves on Jamie. We have and ex-wife who still loves her husband but has her own secrets, and a man who divorced his wife for keeping secrets that prevented him from becoming a father.

            Miller develops a rich narrative voice in Jamie, and Jamie leads us with her heart. We feel her misgivings, her longings, her heartaches, and her joys as we journey with her to find out Justin’s father is. 

The result will shock and delight you, as Miller unfolds the results clue by careful clue until we reach the satisfying ending. I enjoyed Miller’s reunions, her characters, and her settings in Seattle and the Bay Area in California. Jamie’s high school drama picks up where it left off at the reunion, and the jealousy and rivalries come alive, as Jamie tries to decide who will accompany her into the next phase of her life. This is a five-star read, and I highly recommend this rollicking fun, and at times steamy, read.