Book Blitz + Review + Excerpt: FINDING FOCUS by Jiffy Kate

If you have not heard of this writing duo, you are missing out! Jiffy Kate’s debut novel, Finding Focus, is a brilliant collaboration. This book is a top read for me in 2016 and one that I would recommend to anyone! Check out more about the book, read Tina’s Thoughts, and take a sneak peek at the story!

Finding Focus
Jiffy Kate
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: November 30, 2015
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Sheridan “Dani” Reed is a recently unemployed photojournalist living in New York City. Her boyfriend is vacationing without her, and her best friend has abandoned her for a job in the south.
Is a quarter-life crisis a thing?
After accepting a freelance job in Louisiana for Southern Style magazine, she feels the bleakness of her life back in New York fading in the rearview mirror. Getting back to her southern roots seems to be just what she needs to lift her spirits and spark her creativity. During her stay, she meets playboy Micah Landry and his colorful family. She knows she should avoid him and keep things professional, but his southern charms are hard to resist.
Through the lens of her camera, she finds the beauty and soul of the Landry Plantation, but it’s her beauty and soul that capture Micah’s attention.
When an unexpected phone call takes her back to New York, she’s forced to face the life she was trying to escape head on.
Will her trip and the Landrys only become fond memories, or will Dani find her way back to them and her beloved south?
In their debut novel, Jiffy Kate bring you a story of love, adventure, and finding a place to call home.

Untitled design (3)You can purchase your copy of Finding Focus on Amazon! This book is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time so make sure to grab your copy today!Untitled design (3)

tina thoughts a review for you

Debut novels are like a treasure hunt for me. There is nothing better than reading an author’s first book and learning to embrace their writing style and ideas. Finding Focus was a brilliant collaboration that made me smile like a giddy fool! This book was fantastic, a story that touches your heart and gives you something to hold on to. It is a love story but there is so much more. It is a story of passion, life, and finding where you belong. Maybe it just speaks to me more based on where I am in life, but this book is a must read for everyone and now on my recommendations list, one I will tell everyone to dive headfirst into.

Dani Reed is a beautiful soul. She is a woman who has lost her mojo, longing to find a connection to anything that will bring her soul alive again.  She has lost her spark and life has set her on a journey to find it again. This theme throughout the story is a beautiful thing to watch unfold. Seeing this woman embrace what life throws her way and learn to adjust as the hits and misses come barreling towards her was encouraging to read. I loved watching things unfold in Dani’s POV, seeing her struggle with her frustrations and celebrating in her victories.

Every character in this story is brilliant. I loved seeing each and every person and the role they have in this book. The story unfolds in dual POVs. We see both Dani and Micah’s POV of what is happening and how things develop. Each of these primary characters has their own network of friends and family that intertwine and enhances what you read. Meeting the Landry family gives the story a deep rooted sense of home and the South. Their role in the story adds depth and feeling to what you read. Meeting Dani’s people allows the reader to better understand who she is and why she is where she is. There are so many people that weave in and out of this book and each person plays a vital role. There are no unnecessary secondary characters.  The cast gives the book a deep family feel, a feel that I absolutely love in my stories!

The romantic storyline is perfect in this book! When the story started I was a bit nervous about where things would lead. Dani is in a relationship and I was curious and nervous about where her interest in Micah, the hero of the story, would ultimately lead the storyline. Any hesitancy was completely unfounded. Jiffy Kate does a brilliant job of developing a romance that is perfect. The story spans so many different realities within different romantic relationships. It shows the good, the bad, and the ugly. We see the highs and lows. We see the beginnings and the ends. In my mind (and I am sure most readers), Micah and Dani are necessary together and watching that unfold was beautiful.

After reading this book, you might feel inspired to find your passion and learn to embrace life in a new way. This book is a story that will make you think about what your passion is and how to latch onto it with gusto. Finding Focus is a story of a woman who feels deeply and runs hard. She takes a step into a life of action, leaving behind the complacency and passive lifestyle she found herself stuck in. Her story is a nudge in the heart to find what you love and run hard for it.

excerpt alert
 Micah and I climb into his truck and he starts it up, but we just sit in the parking lot for a few moments in comfortable silence.
“You’re not what I was expecting, Chuck.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Oh yeah? What were you expecting?”
He shrugs before giving me a shy smile. “I don’t know . . . someone snooty and prissy, I guess. But that’s not you. At least, not that I can see.”
“You think you’ve got me all figured out?”
Barking out a laugh, he replies, “No, not at all. Just makin’ an observation.”
His eyes are a little too focused on me and the air inside his truck is a little too thin. I clear my throat and face forward, causing Micah to take the hint to put the truck in drive.
Once my heart has slowed to a normal rate, I decide to try to have a normal conversation while learning more about Micah at the same time. “So, what was it like growing up on a plantation?”
“It’s just a house, Dani.”
“A very large house,” I counter.
“True, and it’s special to me because it’s been in my family for so long, but I wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in my mouth, if that’s what you’re wonderin’. The Landrys are no better than anyone else. Believe me, my mama would’ve tanned our hides if we ever tried to act like we were—”
“Snooty or prissy?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
First things first, we’re the realest.
Oh, wait. Iggy already used that one.
Well, let’s see…
What some people don’t know is there are two of us and we’re both Jennifers. How lucky are we? The most common name from the 70’s! Our parents were so original.
We found each other through Twilight and tornadoes. Sounds like a crazy combination, but it’s true. We were roaming around in the same groups of people on social media, but we hadn’t really became friends. But that all changed on a stormy Oklahoma night when we noticed that we were both experiencing the same tornado warnings.
We met a week later for lunch and the rest is history. We already knew we had the whole Twilight thing in common, but what we learned that day is that we both loved music and traveling. Together, we’ve been everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but a lot of places…Seattle, Forks, LA, New York, Chicago, Philly, Nashville, and New Orleans, where our hearts reside.
About six months after we met, we also realized we both had a passion for writing. When we started outlining our first story, we thought that would be it. One story and done. So, we dumped everything we loved into those 100,000 words. If you’re familiar with the term “crack fic”, that was kind of what it was for us. We had fun with it and let ourselves live on those pages.
But it was like Lays potato chips.
We couldn’t write just one.
So, twenty stories later, here we are–publishing our first novel. And how crazy is it that we went back to the beginning.
Finding Focus was originally a Twilight Fan Fic titled Southern Comfort.