The Heart’s Journey Home by Nikki Jackson

It’s summer vacation, and all seventeen-year-old Tori Logan wants to do is hang out with her two best friends, practice her mixed martial arts and go to FBI spy camp. Summer means freedom (mostly from adults) and Tori plans to fill every spare moment of her last summer before graduating from High School with all the fun things she and her best pals can come up with.

Description:

Published: September 12th, 2015 

California Blend Summer Vacation is the first book of this series.

As book one it introduces the three main characters: Tori Logan, AJ Reynolds and Kalea Kinimaka.

It’s summer vacation, and all seventeen-year-old Tori Logan wants to do is hang out with her two best friends, practice her mixed martial arts and go to FBI spy camp. Summer means freedom (mostly from adults) and Tori plans to fill every spare moment of her last summer before graduating from High School with all the fun things she and her best pals can come up with.

The Heart’s Journey Home Book CoverTori, whose mom died of breast cancer when she was young, has always relied on her own strength to get by – especially because her Archeologist father tends to leave her behind with his live-in girlfriend while he gallivants around the world on digs. Thankfully, Tori can take care of herself. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants to do with her life. Her Lakota Sioux grandfather, a former Navy SEAL, trained Tori in self-defense from a young age. Now, as a teenager, Tori excels at mixed martial arts and the use of various weapons. During the summer she will be attending an FBI sponsored Summer Camp which she hopes will lead to her dream job – becoming an FBI serial killer profiler.

With her two best friends at her side, Tori believes she can handle anything. And with summer vacation stretching before them, the trio plans to find plenty of adventure.

But while Tori is determined to be independent, life has other plans for this fierce young woman, and they include coming to grips with some hard – and surprising – truths about both her past and her future.

GUEST POST

My Dream Co-Writing Partner 

If I had the opportunity to co-write a book with any living author I would choose Steven King. Those who know me would be surprised because I don’t watch ‘scary’ movies and I don’t read scary books. I saw the original version of Night of the Living Dead many years ago and that was it (well, that coupled with those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz). I couldn’t sleep for a month. That’s when I swore off scary movies forever. 

So then why Steven King? Two works of his: The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. The movie - The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from King’s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. I thought it was excellent - the plot, the characters, the tightly woven story – I’ve watched the movie a zillion times. 

Likewise, The Green Mile, another prison story and another fine piece of work. Wonderfully diverse characters, great drama: parts of it was funny, other parts sad, a story any author would read and wish they’d written (or co-written). 

King is great at his craft. Literally a master. We writers read and view the works of those we respect with a jealous awe because they’ve figured it out – how to take the reader/audience through a full range of emotions and leave them spent and satisfied in the end. I’d love to look into the non-scary inner workings of his writer mind, a mind that can make plots and characters so believable. A mind that can weave a morality tale into the middle of a gory story that challenges the reader/viewer with - what would you do if faced with the same situation? He both scares you and makes you think. He makes you commit. This is why Steven King is my co-writing choice. He’s an amazing story-teller and cinema genius. 

I love being a writer. I love the idea of having the effect on others that the authors I’ve read have had on me. Laughing out loud and crying out loud too. Getting mad and yelling at the book, even throwing the book against the wall because I got shocked or snookered just that bad. I love endings I didn’t see coming and then the sweet sugary ones I saw coming a mile away but I hung on because I was curious as to how the author would write it. I love reading that last page and closing the book and smiling. Totally satisfied. 

Ultimately that’s what we writers want from you readers – we want you to buy into the journey and be satisfied at its end. We want you to lick the plate clean, and grin your widest grin, and ask us for more.

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About the author:

Nikki Jackson considers herself to be an Indie Writer, Journeyman and Traveler. She's camped out in the Grand Canyon just to see the sunrise over a stupendous backdrop and she yet dreams to travel to Mount Everest, not to climb any part of it but to simply stand at the North Base Camp and take it all in, in person. Nikki's love of adventure was inspired at an early age at the local library where she spent summers reading about young travelers going cross-country and around the world. She loved the adventures that took her out of the bottom bunk of her bed (her favorite reading spot) and had her soaring across the clouds to lands filled with wonderful and diverse people. It was then and there Nikki decided she wanted to be a writer - she wanted to have the same effect on people reading books had on her. The Heart's Journey Home is the beginning of the adventure.

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