Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Kidnapped

Kidnapped is now out in paperback!

For those of you who've waited for the paperback edition, it's out now. I hope you'll enjoy this most recent Irene Kelly book.

I hope to see some of you in Santa Barbara this Saturday at the book festival.

You've all been extremely patient with me this month, and I appreciate that. I have a lot to tell you about, but for various reasons, I need to wait a day or two to post again. Meanwhile, know that I am truly thankful for my readers!

Yours,
Jan

9 comments:

Booklogged said...

Jan, I read my first of your books recently and fell in love with it. The book was Bones. I plan on reading all your others.

I'm joining a blogging reading challenge in 2008 called Celebrate the Author. We are to read one book by an author in the month of their birth. Would you mind telling me yours?

Booklogged said...

I meant to leave a link to my post about the challenge.

Unknown said...

Dear Mrs. Burke,

I'm something of a "serialist" - an author serialist, that is. My friend started me out with Goodnight, Irene and I read through the entire Irene Kelly series before I got to Eighteen, your collection of short stories.

I have to say that the last two stories in the book - "The Abbey Ghosts" and "Devotion" TRULY touched me. I want more of Charles, Lucien & Edward. And I would love to see more of Ben Sheridan in the Irene Kelly series. As a matter of fact, Ben himself is such a character, I would read an entire series about him!

Dick Francis has a character, Sid Halley, that is the only character he has written more than one story about (three to be exact!). Sid has a prosthetic hand due to a jockey accident and Ben reminded me of Sid - both in his determined personality, incredible thoughtfulness and kindness of heart. I want to know more about these people!

Thank you so much, for writing. For sharing these stories with the world. I'm a hopeless romantic, a believer of a little utopia on earth - but every day, I just try to find SOMEONE that I like. And often, those people are found between the pages of a book, because the heroes of real life are so far and few between. Thank you for creating people that I like, people that I would want to meet.

A devoted fan,
LaTanya Rene

Jan Burke said...

Hi Becky! What a fun blog!

I was born in August.

Thanks for the kind words about Bones.


Yours,
Jan

Jan Burke said...

Dear LaTanya,

Wow, I'm overwhelmed. Thank you!

It's so interesting that you mention these characters. I am fond of them, too. I have often thought of doing a book from Ben's POV, or at least featuring him as the protagonist, but I must admit that as much as I love them, I never thought about returning to Charles, Lucien, and Edward -- but now that you've put the idea in my head...hmmmm....

Thank you!

Yours,
Jan

Anonymous said...

Dear Mrs.Burke,
I love your Irene Kelly series, I started reading when I was 14, I'm 20 now, and I have never been able to put them down. I re-read them while I wait for new ones to come out. My favorite to date is Bones because it was the first my mum ever bought for me in the series and equally it gave me another female role model to look up to. She is an amazing main character. I also love Bingle and his antics, they make me laugh out loud when I read them. I have grown up with big dogs and I can picture in my mind everything he does. Thank you so much for writing these books, they made me enjoy reading as much as I do now. I was wondering if you will continue to write more for the series?
Your fan,
Shannon M.

Anonymous said...

Jan, I started reading "Kidnapped" a few weeks ago, and I want to tell you it is the best book I ever read(and I read a lot of books).
I want to ask you waht is your opinion of "Kidnapped" and have you broght in any personally moments or "rememberings" in it.
Please write baxk as soon as possible because I need the information for presenting taht book in my school.


Your fan Erik N.

Jan Burke said...

Hi Shannon,

Forgive me for taking so long to respond to your kind comment. It's so amazing to me to think that you've been reading my books for so many years!

Thank you!

You asked if I'm going to keep writing for the series -- I am! I'm working on a new Irene book now!

Yours,
Jan

Jan Burke said...

Hi Erik!

Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the book.

As for rememberings, or personal moments, there really aren't any specific ones I can think of, but in a general sense....
When I was researching Bloodlines, I kept coming across information about missing children, and especially about "noncustodial abductions" -- when a parent who does not have legal custody takes off with the child (or children) and lives on the run with them. As I asked myself why more people weren't caught at this, some friends of mind started home schooling thier kids.
Well, I thought, that's one way to keep them out of the constant eye of the system, and isolated from other adults and kids. And then I looked at the family of some other friends -- where most of the children are from other marriages, and don't especially look like the parents or one another, and thought, "Well, it's not as if I asked for DNA swabs to prove these kids are theirs."
Now, I don't suspect either set of friends to be doing anything illegal, but it just made me think about it not being as difficult as we might believe it is to hide children in plain sight.
Also, perhaps more along what you're looking for -- being in a suburban area, I know that people often don't ask many questions of their neighbors, and live rather isolated from them. If you mow your lawn, wash your car, paint the house, and don't make obvious trouble, no one is going to try to learn too much about you. I started asking myself about the kinds of things that might be going on behind those closed doors.

Good luck with your assignment. Hope this helps.

Yours,
Jan