Sadie Jay

I just finished my third viewing of Heated Rivalry . I find myself, on each rewatch, catching something I've missed during previous viewings. There are so many emotional scenes in the series, but the one that makes me teary every time is the conversation between Shane and Yuna in The Cottage. It's just this gut-punch, and I think it was handled beautifully.  I don't have many coming-out scenes in my books because most of my characters are older, in their 30s or 40s, but in Smoke and Sparks , Daryl and Vaughn are 21 years old when they meet. Meeting Vaughn is the catalyst for Daryl coming out even to himself. And I have a scene with his mom. Sorry, I've gone way past a paragraph or two, even though it's compressed from the full book version: I sat at our kitchen table, alone in the big room, except for Mom. With six siblings, that was a rare occurrence. She set a mug of coffee and a slice of apple pie in front of me and then dropped onto her usual chair. I glanced at...

Because of work schedules, we haven't had "Christmas" yet, but my daughter arrived yesterday, and my son is off tomorrow. I'm fixing us a nice dinner and we're going to open presents. The day we celebrate doesn't matter as much as being together, after all. So what did I do Christmas day, you ask? Rewatched episodes 4 and 5 of Heated Rivalry while I waited for the Cottage! For too many people, the holidays aren't a happy time, and it was that way for Vaughn in Smoke and Sparks .  To his family, it's all about keeping up appearances and nothing about actually liking each other. Vaughn is dreading the week, as well he should. FYI Matthew is Vaughn's brother:   The car Matthew sent wasn’t a car—it was a limo. With him in it. And here I thought the day couldn’t get worse.  All the plans I’d made to not go until Christmas Eve were dashed when Claire mentioned she’d covered my shifts after Father’s secretary contacted her. That was followed by a text f...

Happy December! I'm in full baking mode at the moment, getting ready for an upcoming three-day vendor event. I've never tried something like this, so hopefully I survive! On the non-baking front, I'm waiting for my cover for Delicious . Because the original was part of a series that didn't happen, I don't want to use it. Hence, the search for something new. Fingers crossed!  This week's snippet again comes from Delicious . Hanson's sister has left her kids with the guys, and Grady is keeping them entertained while he unpacks. He's reflecting on the day before and his new ideas for his cookbook:   I’d kept Hanson’s niece and nephew busy while he worked by stirring up cookie dough after a quick trip to the grocery store I’d passed the day before, letting them loose with a rolling pin and the few cookie cutters I had. As I’d unpacked boxes, they’d squirted colored icing out of piping tubes, making a complete mess, but laughing the entire time. I’d taken a f...

It seems the last few years, at the end of November and first of December, we get cold weather and snow. It feels very Christmasy, but it's too early. Come Christmas, it'll warm up and feel very much not Christmasy. Sigh.   This week's snippet is taken from my current WIP, Delicious . Strange things are happening at Grady's house, and Hanson keeps telling him it's just the house settling. Little spoiler—it's not! Told from Grady's POV: We stared at each other in silence, neither sure who was supposed to move or say something first, until the tension was so tangible, I could have strummed my fingers over it like guitar strings. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered as I closed the space between us. With my hand cupping the back of his head, I pulled him forward, crashing my lips into his. The kiss was short, but we were both panting when it ended. “Ready to go deghost my house?” “Deghost? Really?” “Yup. I’ve decided I have a ghost. Unless you can prove otherwise.”...

I'm at that stage in my editing where I do a "read aloud." I find it's a very effective way to find grammar errors, typos, and places that simply read rough. But I'm so slow at it! At the rate I'm going, it'll be another two weeks before I get through this. Maybe. I'd wanted to have this ready to publish back in October. At this rate, maybe I'll have it ready by next October!  This week's snippet is taken from my current WIP, Delicious . Grady returns home after spending a pleasant evening with Hanson to find all of his lights on. Hanson speculates they'd forgotten to lock the door, and some kids had come in, not realizing the house had a new owner. Grady accepts the explanation and gets ready for bed: Yawning, I glanced at the clock. Time had slipped by, and it was later than I realized. Jumping in the shower, I washed quickly and grabbed a towel. After wrapping it around my waist, I stepped to the sink to brush my teeth, but froze with my...

The week started out nice. There was sun. There was warmth. And now it's cold, it's gloomy, and we had snow flurries today. Can we not do this, please? I really need to move to a warmer climate! The sun through the window hit this basket of artificial fall leaves and made them glow!  This snippet from Headphones: Fall Out is a chapter opening that starts out descriptive with Headphones reflecting on the changes in her life since the first of the year. I wrote this ten years ago, but it feels very much like the weather we're having now!  The brittle leaves still hanging on the oak trees rattled around Headphones as the occasional gusts of wind blew her hair across her face. The trees were patchworks of fall colors–evergreens still wearing their green while some of the hardwoods were red and yellow, with many already naked and settled into their winter hibernation. It had been a damp day with thick fog rising with the dawn, and mist that turned into a light almost-drizzle. B...