JA Jance

Throughout the years I have found authors that I love and I would run out to buy their books as soon as they were released. But none has stuck with me as much as JA Jance. Hers were the first books I ever read where the backdrop was Seattle - it made reading them so much more - I could see in my mind where the characters were. In her first few books she even had some of the action taking place in Issaquah. The main character in these first books was JP Beaumont Seattle Police Detective. Over the years she started 2 other series' of books - The Joanna Brady series and the newest series Ali Reynolds. It's funny - when her new books would come out and they were a Brady mystery and not Beaumont I would get upset - I wanted Beaumont - I don't like Brady! Today I went to the Bellevue Library to listen to her talk about her latest book - which actually has both Beau and Brady in it.

Let me start out by saying when I got there I felt like I was at a Senior Citizens gathering! There were 100 people and maybe 5 were my age! We all had one thing in common though - we loved Beaumont and were there to listen to JA Jance.

This was my first time going to a book signing where the author was going to talk first and not just read a few pages and then sign the book. I learned quite a bit about my favorite author and the other readers of her books. I learned that the readers in Seattle love Beaumont and do not like it when the next book is a Joanna Brady Mystery and the readers in Bisby, AZ love Brady and do not like when the next book is a JP Beaumont Mystery. Everyone loves to read a story that revolves around the area they live in. JA addressed this - she said that if she were only allowed to write Beaumont he would have been killed off long ago - she likes being able to write from different perspectives - this has enabled her to keep each series fresh. She understands that not all her readers will like every series and she's fine with that.

She was a little scattered during her talk - she got sidetracked a lot and would go off in different directions but she was entertaining. Even though Fire and Ice was just released yesterday she finished writing it a year ago - in that year she has finished another book that will be released in December and is in the editing process of a book coming out next June. She said her daughter reads her books right before they are released and then talks to her about them so she can refresh her memory on what it was about.

I left the library with one impression - here was someone who has always loved writing - who has been a published author for 23 years and 38 books - and is still so passionate about it.

De