00:02.30
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.
00:13.70
jeffekennedy
Delightful. Today is, say it with me people, it is Friday, January 26th. I apologize for missing last Friday. at which point I was going to tell you that I was going to be missing Monday. So two podcasts missed. I know it may have seemed like I dropped off the face of the earth. I kind of did. And it was a, um, turned out to be a very healthy and well refilling dropping off the face of the earth.
00:50.60
jeffekennedy
i can It was sort of a combination of circumstances. A week ago, Friday, some things happened in SFWA that meant that I needed to step away and let some other people review the situation. And so I said, well, I won't be looking at email or Discord until this is resolved. um It was the ethical thing to do to remove myself. and not attempt to influence anything. And I got some answers yesterday evening, so um we'll be moving forward ah more on that later. Sorry to be cryptic, but it's a it's been a delicate and difficult situation.
01:37.99
jeffekennedy
ah And this happened at the same time that, so ah Friday ended ended up being this very busy day and I did not have time to do a podcast. And then this happened at the same time that on Saturday morning, I left to go on a trip up to Colorado on Wyoming, which I would love to tell you all about. And I just got back last night. So I will tell you all about that. um First, I want to show you this this came like right as I was leaving but look at this cool box ah for those of you not on video it's beneath these cursed stars by Lexi Ryan who is a good friend and she's been a great friend over the years love Lexi and it says the new romantasy from the best-selling author of these hollow vows
02:34.77
jeffekennedy
um That sounds like vowels, and I meant to be these hollow vows. And I don't know if she says cursed or cursed, but I um i kind of like the doing the as cursed. I also do blessed. It's one of those random things. So if you open this lovely box inside, there's another image. I'm not doing a good job of describing the images. I would say I've not described them at all, and I'm not going to try.
03:05.36
jeffekennedy
but it's um wonderful illustrated romantasy images. And then there's a quote inside that says, you say your kiss is deadly, but every hour that passes, I feel more and more like I might die without it. Great stuff. And then there's wonderful stuff inside. There is this great little charm here um that says, true loves kiss. and it says enter the Fe realm and then nest it in the Easter grass I don't know what you call that stuff the crinkle stuff green crinkle stuff is a
03:48.64
jeffekennedy
The book, and here it is, Beneath These Cursed Stars by Lexi Ryan. And isn't it beautiful? A gorgeous hardcover. If I'd been thinking, I would have taken it with me, but I like set it aside so I could show you all on the podcast as I promised Lexi I would do. So this is book three. ah The first one was these hollow boughs and then these twisted bonds. And it's so beautiful. And Do I hear the the BCC, the back cover copy? Which in this case is the jacket flap copy. but um Armed with an enchanted ring that gives her death's kiss, Jazz has been sneaking away from the palace at night to assassinate her enemies. I love an assassin that actually assassinates people. i mean
04:40.04
jeffekennedy
that a lot of times I can think of one salient book that I don't want to annoy people by criticizing, but like the assassin was really foolish and didn't actually assassinate anyone. Not Jennifer Eastep. And Jennifer Eastep's Assassin Gin does kill people and very cleverly. Anyway, shapeshifter Felicity needs a miracle, fated to kill her magical father. She's been using her unique ability to evade a fatal prophecy. When rumors of evil King Mordias' resurrection spread through the shadow court, Jozlyn decides to end himself once and for all. And Felicity agrees to take the form of the princess, allowing Joz to covertly hunt Mordias and starting Felicity on the path that could finally take her home.
05:31.93
jeffekennedy
While Jaslyn's teams up with the charming and handsome Kendrick Felicity sets out to get closer to the wild faking Misha, Kendrick helps that Jaslyn feels something other than anger for the first time in three years. And Misha makes Felicity wish for a world where she's free to be her so true self. Soon the girls' missions are at risk right alongside their hearts. The future of the human and fey realms hangs on the balances, fates intertwine between perilous tasks, grim secrets and forbidden romances. Jazlyn and Felicity find that perhaps their stars are the most cursed, cursed of all. And there's the lovely Lexi Ryan. I adore her.
06:14.17
jeffekennedy
Love, Lexi. Gorgeous book. Thank you for sending it to me. Cannot wait to read. oh Of course, I advise you all to do that. And yeah, and here's this great little max necklace with the heart time. Lovely little gift. So um yeah, so I ended up between feeling like I, or knowing that I had to step away from CIFWA stuff entirely, and being on this trip anyway, I did not turn on my laptop. for the I dragged it with me all over Wyoming and Colorado and did not turn it on for the entire week. So that means this morning when I turned it on, I had exactly, exactly 9,999 spam comments on my blog.
07:07.23
jeffekennedy
um which I am in the process of eliminating so the trip it was it was a good trip it ended up being um yeah restorative I was I was working a fair amount as many of you know I mean working emotional labor working, right? Because as many of you know, my husband is, um, legally disabled at this point. He has Parkinson's disease. And so, uh, he, he needs a fair amount of help doing stuff. And my mom is, I'm totally outing you mom, you're going to be mad at me, but my mom is 82.
07:48.04
jeffekennedy
And she has been widowed for the third time and she needs help with travel. So here's the whole thing that I did. um On Saturday morning, I drove David up to Denver and we went to my stepdaughter's house and saw her and her husband and the teenage grandkids who were both sulky and delightful, as is the way of teenagers. And David hung out with them that evening. And then I went to my 40th high school reunion, which was very fun, way more fun than I expected. I ended up having a great conversation with this gal that we were like in theater together in high school. Yes, musical theater. But we were never very close friends. And we ended up like talking a lot of the night.
08:47.22
jeffekennedy
And at one point she said, why were we not best friends in high school? And I was like, I know. Loved seeing her, loved seeing other people. There was this one guy who was like hitting on all the women who didn't have wedding rings. He was going around and literally checking our ring fingers. ah I don't wear. a wedding ring for multiple reasons, largely because I'm not actually married to David. We've been together for 33 years, but we never had a wedding. Complicated story. ah But I'm monogamous. He didn't ask that part, right? But he says to me, because he remembers kind of who I am. I think he was befuddled that he didn't remember exactly who I was. But he said, you were one of the smart girls.
09:37.56
jeffekennedy
And, but you turned out hot. I put that on threads. I was so amused by that. The, some people thought that it's a compliment and I suppose I should take it as such. I mean, happy that he thinks I've turned out hot. um totally bemused by the idea that somehow the smart girl could not also be hot, which was clearly how the dichotomy worked in his universe.
10:09.60
jeffekennedy
um I talked to our class, who I thought was our class valedictorian, who corrected me that actually he was number two and someone else was number one. And I said that I thought that I was number seven or something like that. And he said, no, you were three or four. And I'm like, really? Are you sure? And he says, yes, I remember. So I was like, okay. um Our school was different in that the grade valedictorian did not give the valedictory speech. We had auditions for that. I gave the valedictory speech because, I mean, I'm good at rambling on and yacking, right? um So that was, I don't know, it was interesting to have that conversation with him. ah His current partner wants to be a writer, so I was passing along advice, and it was just kind of cool, though, these 40 years later to,
11:07.85
jeffekennedy
have that conversation. um Yes. And I also saw going slightly out of order um on Wednesday for lunch, had high school, had high school. Sorry. yeah Did not have high school, fortunately. Had lunch with my high school boyfriend, my first love, and regular podcast listener, Kevin Reitz. Hi, Kev. Long way to have lunch with Kev, who um rather gleefully, and I think,
11:39.23
jeffekennedy
rightfully so, pointed out that in high school he had recognized the fact that I was not only a smart girl, but also a hot girl. And he took a particular pleasure in my hotness in high school for which I will always b be happy. um First love, first lover, happy to still be good friends. And it was fun for him to see my mom, for them to see each other. But I get ahead of myself. ah So Sunday morning, we David and I said goodbye to the ah our daughter and drove up to ah Greeley, Colorado, where we connected with a couple of old friends from a martial arts school that we were in. Had a great conversation with them. That was and emotional in some ways, um very interesting.
12:34.95
jeffekennedy
to connect with them again. Then we got up to Cheyenne, Wyoming to David's sister's house where we had known she and her husband would be obviously and we knew that his brother and his brother's wife would be coming down from Buffalo, Wyoming and then it turned out his other sister and her husband came also and a few other assorted um kids and cousins and so forth. And they had a big birthday party for him. Suddenly it was David's birthday and his sister Cathy went to a great deal of trouble to cook a very nice dinner and make key lime pie. And we hung out and we had, it was just really great. It was nice to have all four siblings together again for the first time um since pre-pandemic. And so it was really, it was good.
13:26.10
jeffekennedy
So then on Monday, I drove David down to Denver International Airport and parked, which ended up being a thing. I don't know if I'll have time to tell the story, but I'm going to tell you all. If you ever have to do short-term parking at Denver International Airport, it exists. You don't have to do the long-term parking. There's short-term parking on the west side. Now we know. Now I know. um So, and I got a gate pass, you can just request that at the ticket counter. Get a gate pass to take someone who needs assistance all the way through. Another pro tip, go ahead and request the wheelchair. David is reasonably mobile, but
14:10.04
jeffekennedy
On Thursday, jumping ahead again, when I took my mom back to the airport, we went ahead and did the wheelchair and it's so nice because they expedite you through TSA. um It's just especially a huge airport like that. It was amazing. But David and I did it the hard way. um I did the gate pass. We went through security, walked all the way to his gate, went and had lunch and everything. And I put him on the plane back to Santa Fe and then waited. My mom's flight was unfortunately a little bit delayed, but not too bad. She landed like an hour and a half later. It was supposed to be half an hour later, but that's delayed plans. And I met her at her gate and we walked out, which was hard for her, but thus the wheelchair later.
14:55.29
jeffekennedy
oh And we went to our hotel in Cherry Creek in Denver. We stayed at the Halcyon and it was fantastic. It was such a great choice. A local friend had recommended it. ah As soon as we checked in, we dumped our stuff in the room and went up to the rooftop pool. If you're in the area, you can go to the rooftop pool and bar ah restaurant. You don't have to be staying there. And that was, and it's so fun. There's great views of the whole city of downtown and of the mountains. And my mom and I had drinks and we had dinner and it was gorgeous evening and it was really fun to be together. The downside is that it was hard for my mom to be in a different place after being in our house for a while. This is the first time she's traveled in a bit. Being in a hotel was challenging for her.
15:52.08
jeffekennedy
ah She had a hard time remembering our hotel room number and the hope and the elevator have one of those scanners so that you use your key card to scan ah before you can hit the number of your floor, and she just couldn't quite master that. It was just too different. And it really did put me in mind of the challenges that people face with you know that kind of changing technology. Also, the the shower was difficult for her to work, and so I was having to help her with that.
16:24.61
jeffekennedy
ah But we had a great time. We spent the mornings on Tuesday and Wednesday reading by the pool. We spent most of the day on Tuesday reading by the pool. Some friends came over and had lunch with us at the pool bar so we didn't have to budge far. Wednesday, Kevin came and had lunch with us. And then on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, we went out and had dinner with her old friends, her crew, the people that she partied with very hard in the eighties, people that I've known since I was in high school, early high school. And, you know, these wonderful
17:04.15
jeffekennedy
ladies and gentlemen who ah you know kind of help usher all of us into adulthood. I remember them you know like like coming back from college and them handing me drinks and you know sort of being like, welcome to the party. And it was it was awesome and it was great to see all of them again. um And so then Thursday, yesterday morning, I took my mom back to the airport and this time wisely did the wheelchair. Actually, the people kind of talked us into it. They're like, did the wheelchair? ah Because my mom was tempted to be proud. You know, she's like, well, I could do it. And I'm like, yeah, but why? Why? And that's what they're saying. Why? We'll expedite you through two TSA, you know?
17:50.83
jeffekennedy
enjoy and it was just and she was of course back at this gate at the very end of B Concourse B 66 she came in on 68 and it was it was just so nice to be able to wheel her all the way to the gate and by the time we got there she's like yeah I'm glad I didn't try to walk and then my stepsister Hope picked her up um on the other side and so it it worked great and I left the airport and Drove back to Santa Fe, blasted my tunes. And yeah, so that's sort of the saga of how I did not look at my computer for an entire week. It means I also didn't work on the book, but that's all right. I had a little bit of breathing room on it.
18:34.27
jeffekennedy
um I'm at 73,000 words out of a predicted 87. So I think, you know, with this little bit of time away, I'm going to go back and revise from the beginning and then finish it off. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. Should make the end of August release date. um I do have to work on, I did do some business on my phone. My one email that comes to my phone is, you know, like the one my editor has, my agent has, the emails I really want to see.
19:11.87
jeffekennedy
And ah she, um, we're working on maps, maps for never the roses and also endorsement quotes. So that's a cool thing. Um, I was just looking, Dorinda Jones read never the roses for me and she sent me, she sent me the nicest email. I woke up to it yesterday morning. She's put. The subject in line is, I can't even, all caps with lots of exclamation points. And she says, Oh my God, I don't even have words at this point. This book was so poignant, so devastatingly exquisite. I have so many questions, but I have to go to bed. She said this at like a quarter to one in the morning. LOL. I love everything about this story, how you set it up, the themes, the characters, the ending, all caps, many exclamation points. I haven't cried like that from a book in a long time. The ending was fucking gorgeous.
20:06.76
jeffekennedy
her And she sent me a little bit more tame endorsement quote, but isn't that lovely? So yeah, I feel... um tanned, rested, and ready for those of you who have been listening for a long time, my my old joke. and And I haven't even touched on the amazing news this week with Biden dropping out of the race. I know that I was very firm on here about the power of the incumbent and that Biden shouldn't, but um i I see the strategy now.
20:40.09
jeffekennedy
I'm totally on board. I think it was a brilliant move by the Democrats and I am a thousand percent behind Kamala. So, uh, yeah, we understand the assignment, right? All right. You all take care. I will talk to you on Monday. Bye bye.
