Author In the Spotlight Premiere with Jessie Lane!

 

Welcome to our very first Author In the Spotlight! This is a new feature hosted by Rather barefoot than bookless. Each month we will introduce you to an author that we like and dedicate a whole month just for them!

We will start this month off  with a post about the author duo Jessie 

Lane who is the authors of "The Burning Star"

 

 

Introduction To Jessie Lane

Jessie Lane is the pseudo name for the writing team of Crystal Leo and Melissa Pahl. This is a remarkably quick story on how ‘Jessie Lane’ came to be. The two were introduced when Crystal met Melissa’s older brother Michael, and fell madly in love with him. Over time, the two women realized that they had a scary amount of things in common, such as hobbies involving creativity and books. However, personality wise, they are quite different. Melissa is the kind of person who walks into a room, owns it, and instantly becomes everyone’s friend. Crystal would much rather find the quiet corner of the room and start people watching everyone she doesn’t know. Based on that alone, Crystal thinks that if the government ever let them, the pair could be a kick ass spy team. Who’s ready to recruit them?

Needless to say, the two sister-in-laws became thick as thieves.

So one night Crystal went to sleep and had one of her infamous crazy dreams. It was such a vibrant and weird dream that she woke up, found paper and pen and started to write it all down. Her husband Michael then woke up, looked at her like she was nuts and went back to sleep mumbling about nutty wives, straight jackets and padded rooms.

This began Crystal’s long, frustrating journey of struggling to write a book on her own.

After Crystal told her beloved in-laws that she was writing a book, her much adored sister-in-law Melissa, and brother-in-law Matthew, realized that they too should follow their dreams and began working away at their own books. The three often chit chatted about how their books were going. Or sometimes, how their books were NOT going.

Finally, after two years of writing a book, declaring it was finished, to decide ten minutes later she actually didn’t like a certain paragraph anymore, Crystal broke down in desperation and called Melissa. She’d had this little voice in the back of her head telling her that her sister-in-law was the missing piece. Melissa picked up her phone on the opposite side of the country, listened to Crystal rant and rave for half an hour, before Crystal finally blurted out “I can’t do this anymore. Would you please write with me?”

Melissa’s response was “I was just waiting for you to ask”.

Crystal’s next thought was relief, closely followed by a desperate need to strangle the sister-in-law she loved so much for making her figure all of this out on her own neurotic timetable instead of suggesting they write together in the first place. (Just a side note, Melissa gets her sage I-am-going-to-nod-my-head-and-listen-to-you-rant-till-you-figure-it-out-on-your-own wisdom from her mother Patty who likes to torture Crystal with the same sage tactics as well).

So anyways the next day Melissa started to go over Crystal’s book fixing all of the things that Crystal said drove her nuts but she couldn’t find the right way to fix them. Along the way, she smoothed over the story in a way that made Crystal think that Melissa was totally psychic because she seemed to pick up on all the things that Crystal couldn’t possibly find a way to explain in her chaotic thoughts. After two or three weeks, Melissa sent the book back to Crystal and said, “Let me know what you think.”

A few days later, when Crystal was finally done rereading The Burning Star, she sat in her chair and cried happy tears of relief. After over two years in progress, her book was finally done, and she knew that she never wanted to write another book unless Melissa wrote it with her. In a funny way, she decided that Melissa was like the other half of her writing soul. Someone who thoroughly understood what she was trying to say or do without her trying to explain in her awkwardness what she was trying to write.

This is how ‘Jessie Lane’ came to be.

Since Melissa is hard at work, and Crystal is at home writing this by herself, rest assured that as the politicians would say at election time: “This is a Melissa approved message”.

Author Bio:

Jessie Lane is the writing team of Melissa Pahl and Crystal Leo. The two sister-in-laws share a fanatical love of naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention or threaten to slap you until you do pay attention to them. Because really, it is ALL about the characters. (They’re kind of megalomaniacs)

They often live half their lives with their heads in the clouds dreaming of military hunks, alpha werewolves, bad to the bone vampires, and kick ass heroines crazy enough to chase after things with weapons that they seriously should know better than to chase.

Their first novel, The Burning Star, was released on May 24, 2012. They have several projects underway ranging from teen to adult romance. Their next two novels, Big Bad Bite (December 2012) and Secret Maneuvers (February 2013), are scheduled to release soon.

Social Websites:

Website: http://jessielanesite.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessie-Lane/123971541071199

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessieLaneBooks

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6150577.Jessie_Lane