Meet Jacquelin Thomas, author of The Ideal Wife

Jacquelin Thomas is an award winning, best selling author with twenty-nine titles in print. Her books have garnered several awards, including two EMMA awards, the Romance In Color Reviewers Award, Readers Choice Award and the Atlanta Choice Award in the Religious & Spiritual category. Jacquelin was a 2005 honoree at the Houston Black Film Festival for the movie adaptation of her novel, Hidden Blessings. She was the first recipient to receive the Writers Achievement Award at the North Carolina Book Festival in Winston-Salem.

Although Jacquelin initially published in the romance genre, she decided to follow the call on her heart to write Christian fiction because she seeks to write books that will touch your heart and uplift your spirits with tales of characters who yearn to have an intimate relationship with God.  Committed to writing books that glorify God and her growing teen audience, Jacquelin published the first of her Young Adult Inspirational Fiction series titled Simply Divine in October 2006.  Her second book in the series, Divine Confidential was nominated for a 2008 NAACP Image Award.  She has since gone on to publish two more books in the series.  When asked why she is so passionate about writing teen novels, Thomas shares that teens are confronted with so much—sex, drugs, violence and abuse, physically and mentally. They need to not only listen to what the world says about these things but also to what the Bible says.

Jacquelin is a member of the National Writers Union, Romance Writers of America and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She is happily married to her best friend and is the proud mother of three children. Jacquelin and her family live in North Carolina.

Jacquelin, tell us about yourself.

I’m actually very shy, but am fighting to overcome it.  I am the mother of 3 children (more like the mother of 2 adult children and a teen still at home) and I’m married to my best friend.  When I’m not writing (which is rare), I love reading the works of others.  I’m also a huge football fan, so Wednesday to Friday and some Saturdays, you’ll find me at a football game.  My son and several kids from church play on various teams, and I’m there to cheer them on to victory.

What type of jobs or careers have you worked in the past?

I’ve worked as a department store manager, store buyer, paralegal and in management in corporate America.

Who are your favorite authors?

I’m a huge James Patterson fan.  I loooove his books.  I also love James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines and several others.

What are your favorite books?

There are actually two books.  Jubilee by Margaret Walker and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  I developed my love for history after reading them when I was around twelve or thirteen years old. Jubilee told the story of slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction period from the point of view of African Americans while Gone with the Wind is the story not just of a period but of a woman having to face those very same issues and finding that despite the color barrier,  Vyry and Scarlett O’Hara had much in common.

When did you begin to realize you wanted to write?

When I was in the 3rd grade.  I was extremely shy and writing became my voice.  By the time I was 16 years old, I knew that I wanted to be a writer.

Tell us about your journey to publication.

I was pregnant with my third child and on bed rest when I decided to write my first novel for publication.  After I had my son, I attended a writer’s conference and met Monica Harris, who ended up buying my first two books 3 months later.  My first book was published in 1998 and I’ve been writing ever since.

Are you a full-time writer? If so, describe your day?

I am a full-time writer, so I am in my office most days from 10–4, and I usually write 20-25 pages per day.  I try not to work on weekends because those are family days for me.  I write a very detailed outline before I actually begin to write a novel (research is covered within the outline).  When that’s done, I then began working on my novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jana Collins loves her husband with all her heart. But what if love isn’t enough?

Marrying a handsome, wealthy lawyer and living in a Hollywood Hills mansion . . . it’s a dream come true for twenty-four-year-old Jana, from the moment Lawrence Collins swept her off her feet and into his luxurious world. True, she put her studies at a local Bible college on hold in order to wed after a six-month whirlwind romance. Beautiful and vivacious, with a stunning body, Jana knows men like Lawrence don’t come along every day, and she vows to be a perfect companion—the ideal wife—to this sexy, powerful man. But at what price?

From her wardrobe and hairstyle to her friends and her choice of church, Lawrence seems to want to change Jana into someone she’s not . . . and soon, the man Jana thought she knew will test her values and her faith with a shocking revelation that goes against everything she believes—how far will Jana be willing to go to keep the man she loves? With her “ideal” marriage falling apart, Jana—the real, modest, smart, and strong girl who knows what she stands for—must put her trust in God, and follow His guiding light out of the darkness of a broken relationship.

Drawing from a moving scripture tale with an insightful message for women today, Jacquelin Thomas delivers a provocative and enlightening new novel.

Follow the blog tour at http://bit.ly/TheIdealWife

Read an excerpt at http://www.docstoc.com/docs/9653509/The-Ideal-Wife-by-Jacquelin-Thomas-(excerpt)

For more information about Jacquelin, visit her at http://www.jacquelinthomas.com