Jill Barnett
Personal Information
Description
Jill Barnett was born and raised in Southern California, in the kind of idyllic coastal town the Beach Boys made famous. But as a young girl she spent plenty of summers on her grandparents’ farm in Texas. Among her Southern family she was the lone native Californian. “My dad used to tease me and say I was the only prune picker in a family of cotton pickers.” A gap in jobs in her mid-thirties sent Jill back to college and working toward her Masters degree. “I intended to finish school and teach, perhaps write college textbooks that wouldn’t bore all the enjoyment of history out of the average nineteen year old.” But the gift of a baby daughter (something Jill had been told she could never have) changed everything. Soon she was juggling childcare and classes, motherhood, marriage and home, and found herself in the shoes of so many women, trying to be everything to everyone. “It was October and I took my daughter to a local pumpkin farm to pick a pumpkin. I stood there watching the absolute, pure delight on her two year-old face as she ran through the rows, finding each pumpkin more wonderful than the last. It was a seminal moment in my life. The ordinary world from your child’s eyes is a magical place. You see that joy in something you take for granted--if you notice at all--and suddenly you remember to stop and pay attention to life around you, to not pant through every day but pause to really take deep breaths. You find wonder all over again.” Four days later Jill quit school to rethink her choices and concentrate on family, something she has never regretted. She was asked once if sacrificing her goals for her daughter and husband wasn’t traveling backwards. “It was never a sacrifice. It was and is enrichment. I am more of a woman for the experience.” And Jill’s goals had only changed ‘not evaporated.’ Always an avid reader, she had been dabbling with a novel. “Writing is very intimidating. To dabble with an idea was safer, but was also how I found my way into my first book.” Soon she was writing during downtime and almost two years to the day she quit school, she sold her first book to Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster. “We women walk such a fine line in our lives, often straddling motherhood and career, and feeling the push-pull between the two, when the truth is: we need both to be fulfilled and each one enriches the other. I discovered I had to redefine happiness away from my own expectations and guilt and especially my demands on myself. Family, love and relationships all feed my writing. My emotional response and experiences, the grittiness in life, give my work a sense of humanity. In the years since, Jill has written thirteen novels and six short stories. There are nearly 7 million of her books in print. Her work has been published in 20 languages, audio, national and international book clubs, and large print editions, and has earned her a place on such national bestseller lists as the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Barnes and Noble and Waldenbooks —who presented Jill with the National Waldenbook Award. Visit her website at www.jillbarnett.com
Books
Betrayed
Wicked
Collects two novels about witches, Holly Cather and her twin cousins, Amanda and Nicole, who are caught up in an intergenerational feud between rival clans.
Carried Away
An array of short fiction, selected by the author and spanning the full range of her career, encompasses seventeen stories, drawn from such collections as The Beggar Maid, The Moons of Jupiter, and Runaway.
Highland fling
"In Highland Fling--Nancy Mitford's first novel, published in 1931--a set of completely incompatible and hilariously eccentric characters collide in a Scottish castle, where bright young things play pranks on their stodgy elders until the frothy plot climaxes in ghost sightings and a dramatic fire. Inspired in part by Mitford's youthful infatuation with a Scottish aristocrat, her story follows young Jane Dacre to a shooting party at Dulloch Castle, where she tramps around a damp and chilly moor on a hunting expedition with formidable Lady Prague, xenophobic General Murgatroyd, one-eyed Admiral Wenceslaus, and an assortment of other ancient and gouty peers of the realm, while falling in love with Albert, a surrealist painter with a mischievous sense of humor. Lighthearted and sparkling with witty banter, Highland Fling was Mitford's first foray into the delightful fictional world for which the author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate later became so celebrated. With an Introduction by Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey"-- "First novel by comic British novelist Nancy Mitford, first published in 1931, reissued with an introduction by Julian Fellowes"--
Midsummer Night's Madness
An exciting collection of romantic stories, all of which take place on a magical midsummer night, from several of today's top historical writers includes the works of Elaine Coffman, Alexis Harrington, Jill Barnett, and Sonia Simone. Original."
Bridge to Happiness
When March Randolph meets Mike Cantrell, she has no idea how her life will change, and how time will change her. For over three decades she and Mike forge a marriage, a family and a business together, helping to make snowboarding into a popular, worldwide winter sport, and raising four strong-willed and independent children into adulthood, never once fearing the future won't be as golden as their past. In a heartbeat, everything changes, and March and her family suffer a tragic change, one that drives a schism into her once perfect life, and will test the bonds of love and family far beyond any thought of recovery. Suddenly March is stuck in the past, unable to move forward, and only if she, alone, finds the strength and will to move on, can any of the Cantrell's have a single glimmer of hope at a new life of happiness.
Imagine
Sentimental journey
That Summer Place
It's nothing special on the surface, merely a rambling old Victorian summerhouse on a secluded island, where the sky is blue and the water is clear. Yet after a month at the Rainshadow Lodge, people begin to change--and fall in love. How else can you account for what happens to the most mismatched, unlikely couples? There's Beth, who's stuck sharing the lodge with a complete stranger--and a difficult one at that. And Mitch, a workaholic on a deadline who has to depend on free-spirited Rosie, who functions on "island time." Not to mention Catherine, who's falling in love with Michael, the lodge's handyman--for the second time!
The days of summer
In the aftermath of a fatal car crash, Laurel grows up in a single-parent home and Cale and Jud Banning are raised by their grandfather, a situation that culminates years later in the Banning brothers' heated rivalry for Laurel's affections.
Dzhungli strasti
The story of those living in the shadow of Russia's giant industrial project of the 1930's. The bare steppes of the Urals were transformed into a blast-furnace complex, and a city was raised out of the ground. With excerpts from Joris Iven's 1932 film'Song of the heroes' about the building up of the Soviet Union, which used Magnitogorsk to show how the 'new world' and the 'new man' were being forged.
Wild
In her deliciously steamy novellas, Lori Foster introduced the sinfully attractive-and sensual-Winston brothers. Now she continues their story-as sexy Zane Winston sets his roving eyes on the lady of his dreams...Zane Winston is used to fielding women's not-so-subtle advances. But he's still shocked when an exotic gypsy whispers some very suggestive words in his ear-and surprised to find that he's aroused by her words rather than amused. After all, she's not exactly his type...But he soon discovers that Tamara Tremayne's not really all that exotic. Her so-called psychic powers are (mostly) made up. Her waist-length black mane is a wig. And underneath the witchy makeup is a very stubborn, seductive woman-who may be in very serious danger...Tamara refuses to accept Zane's help-but he's still sure she's the woman for him. She may not be supernatural. But she's sassy. Sexy. And totally wild...
A Season in the Highlands
Love that grows among the heather is enchanted indeed...blessed with the misty magic and timeless passion of fair Scotland! New York Times bestselling author Jude Deveraux unravels a ghostly murder mystery in an ancient Scottish castle. National bestselling author Jill Barnett decrees all is fair in love -- when a rollicking Highland clan war leads an impetuous lass to kidnap the wrong man! Geralyn Dawson puts a rough-hewn Texas cowboy under the spell of a charming herbalist with some curious powers of attraction. Patricia Cabot leads a beautiful runaway to her kindred spirit -- a Scottish lord who sweeps her away to the rugged shores of the Isle of Skye. Pam Binder flings a pretty Edinburgh baker and a computer-games designer into an adventure of passion and intrigue -- inside the sixteenth-century palace of Mary, Queen of Scots.
New beginnings
Recently widowed March Cantrell must deal with her husband's death while trying to escape the constant interference from her well meaning grown-up children. All her children, that is, apart from Molly. March discovers that the new man she's dating, Spider Olsen, is much older than her daughter - and believes the relationship is doomed to failure. However, any attempt to talk to Molly only drives them further apart. Meanwhile, March's sons are fighting for control of the family business. In order to heal the growing rifts between them all, the family decides to spend Christmas at their mountain home in Lake Tahoe. But whilst out skiing, March finds herself stranded with a young man called Rio and is surprised to discover that she is attracted to him ...