HAPPY RELEASE DAY!
Mischief Under the Mistletoe, the first book in my newly re-christened series, The Matchmaker’s Ball, has released! Go grab your copy here!
It’s currently available on Amazon for .99 and by this weekend will be available wide–on Smashwords, B & N, Kobo, and Apple. It’s also available in print from Amazon.
This book (and the Handful of Hearts series) came about because in the summer of 2011, I was in Washington, DC attending a seminar on Shakespeare at the Folger Library. It was July, and I wanted to post something on my blog with the Christmas in July theme, so each week I was there, I posted a short, short Christmas story–what we might call flash fiction today–of about 2500 words each week in July. The one of these was called ‘Tis the Season, about a Christmas dinner for a young lady named Jenny Crowley in which she finds out that she’s actually betrothed to Alec, the boy next door. Jenny is totally against this, but she and Alec talk and he tells her he plans to go to London in the spring and make her change her mind about him.
After I published this on my blog, I got a comment from an anonymous commenter who said they enjoyed the story, but really wanted to hear the story of Jenny’s Season and whether or not Alec won her heart.
This got me to thinking I should expand the story, but I wanted to keep it a Christmas story, so setting the book during the actual social Season wouldn’t work. So instead I came up with the idea that Jenny would have a Christmas social Season at a house party where she’d be able to meet lots of eligible young men and Alec could come and try to sweep her off her feet. So by that Christmas of 2011, I’d written and published the next version of the story, called A Kiss Beneath the Mistletoe.
That fall, however, I’d written another short story called Heart of Deception, about a
young lady determined to marry the man of her choice no matter what her father said. I really loved the heroine of this story, Lady Celinda Grantham, and began to plan a series of sweet books that all took place during the Season of 1820, a series called Handful of Hearts. And I decided Celinda needed to be introduced to my readers as the friend of Jenny Crowley in A Kiss Beneath the Mistletoe.
Eventually, I wanted all the books in the series to have the word “Heart” in the title, so I changed the name to Hearts Beneath the Mistletoe, got my indie editor, Danielle Fine, to create a fabulous new cover, and the book became the prequel to my Handful of Hearts series.
Now, over ten years later, I came to the realization that my brand has shifted completely to steamy historical romance, so I’m recreating all the Handful of Hearts books, adding additional content (and in the case of Mischief Under the Mistletoe new motivations as well) and ramping up the steam. I hope you enjoy this re-imagined version of Jenny’s plight.
You can still read the original story, ‘Tis the Season, in my collection of the four flash fiction pieces called All Wrapped Up. It’s available for Free here on Amazon. Two of the other shorts in this collection have also gone on to become novellas in their own right. One, The Present, is now His Christmas Present, about a girl who has to do her sister’s dirty work and break up with her boyfriend two days before Christmas, is available on Amazon. It is a contemporary, erotic novella. The other one, originally called the Kissing Tree, was turned into a novella two years ago in an anthology called Nine Ladies Dancing. It’s called The Christmas Pact, about two children who make a marriage pact when they are quite young and what happens when one of them wants to claim the pact years later. I hope to release it this Christmas as a stand alone novella.
So that is the story of how Mischief Under the Mistletoe came to be.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, I’m giving away a signed print copy of Mischief Under the Mistletoe, and a $20 Amazon gift card to random commenters on this blog post.
Anyone else who wants a signed copy of Mistletoe, send me an email and we can set that up!
Mischief Under the Mistletoe is now available on Amazon for just .99! Celebrate its release by grabbing your e-copy today!
Jenna Jaxon Romance--because passion is timeless. 
happy release day! i really need amazon to get christmas stuff! 😉
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Sounds like a book I would enjoy reading. Thanks for chance to win.
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This sounds like a quick, delightful read.
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Happy release day!! Reading is so enjoyable!!
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Happy Release Day Jenna!!! Sure would love to read this book.
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Thank you so much, Cathy! I hope you do get to enjoy Mischief!
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Happy Release Day! I am very excited about this book because I really need a Christmas story to read right now. I read holiday books all year long but have yet to read a Christmas story in 2024. It has a beautiful cover also! Thank you, Miss Jenna Jaxon.
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Thank you so much, Brenda! I’m excited that my book is the first Christmas story you’re going to read this year! Enjoy!
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thank you for the chance to win.
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You’re very welcome, Lori! Thanks for coming to the release party. 🙂
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Thank You For The Opportunity To Win
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You are truly welcome, Apate! Thank you for dropping by!
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What a great cover! Can’t wait to curl up with an amazing, new JJ read.
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Thank you so much, Amy! I’ve loved every cover Danielle Fine has ever made for me. She’s the best. Hope you enjoy some Mischief this July!
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Love the cover, thanks for the chance to win!
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Thank you, Virginia. I’m so glad you came to the party!
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I am so excited to read this book. I love every book she writes.
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Thank you so very much, Laurie! You’re in for a lot of reading this year! 🙂
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Happy release day, Jenna! “Mischief Under the Mistletoe” sounds amazing! I am looking forward to reading it!
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Thank you so much, Tracey! I can’t wait to see what you think of it!
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You are very welcome, Jenna!
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Happy release day! Can’t wait to read this version!
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Thank you, Fridaymagic! I hope you like this one. It’s quite…invigorating! 🙂
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Happy Happy Release Day!!! 🙂
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Thank you, Colleen!
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Happy book release
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Thank you, BN!
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Happy release day!
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Thank you, Tmom!
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Jenna, You are a woman on fire! I just downloaded your early book “All Wrapped Up.” I love how you are revising your earlier work and putting a little steam in them. Maybe a lot of steam. Most of today’s readers have changed from years ago. So good for you! Good luck with everything!!!
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Thank you so much, Lorraine. I think you’re right–I’m burning the candle at both ends and from the middle out! LOL With the reboots of 6 books in this series, plus two more Welwyn Marriage Wager books and one more Lyon’s Den books to come out this year, I’m writing like the house is on fire! So expect a lot more release day parties in 2024!
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Thank you for the chance to win this, it sounds pretty interesting!
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Thank you, Drew! It had a fun metamorphosis. 🙂
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