She believes that everyone has a back story…and that story is fundamental in how people cope and react to life around them. Telling stories that are filled with heart-felt emotion and realistic characters is an absolute passion of Jordan’s. Since her earliest memories, she has been making up tales to entertain herself. It wasn’t until she reached her teen years that she first considered writing one. A computer failure and lost files put a major glitch in her journey, and it took until she graduated university with a teaching degree before she took up the dream once more. Since then, she hasn’t been able to stop.
“Writing high school romances brings me the greatest joy. My heart bubbles, my insides zing, and I am at my happiest when immersed in a great scene with characters who have become real to me.”
This journal is filled with images, quotes and special moments from the books. Jordan has written some personal notes of thoughts she had while writing the series, plus (because so many readers asked for it) she's included a snapshot of each couple one year after the Big Play Novels finished.
If you finished the Big Play Novels and weren't quite ready to say goodbye to the Nelson High characters, then this journal is made for you.
Inspired by the story of Rapunzel.
Tristan Parker is lost.
After living through his parents’ bitter divorce, Tristan surprises everyone when he decides to uproot his life and move across the country with his dad. Disenchanted, Tristan deals with his pain by shutting out the world… until one day, when trying to retrieve a lost baseball, he climbs a tower and meets a girl.
Helena Thompson is like no one Tristan has ever encountered. She’s quirky, weird, and lives in an imaginary world—her only way of coping with the bizarre life her paranoid mother forces her to lead. Drawn by Helena’s magical view on life, Tristan finds himself returning often to the unique girl with the long golden hair. But spending time with her is not an easy task, especially because their relationship must be kept a secret.
When Helena’s mother discovers the truth, can Tristan find the strength to fight for the girl who has awakened his heart? Or will the paranoid woman who keeps her daughter under lock and key stop their dreams from coming true?
Not wanting to burden anyone with his nonsensical nightmares, he keeps to himself until his contact in town, an intelligent girl he’s desperately trying not to fall for, reveals some long-buried evidence that will destroy everything he thought he knew about his family.
Caitlin Powell is cursed with an overpowering curiosity. So when a gorgeous stranger shows up in her small town of Legacy, she is compelled to figure out his story. Something about his quiet way and shy smile works like a magnet to draw her in, and she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery from long ago. A mystery people in Legacy refuse to talk about.
Unearthing the truth is a scary business and the young couple soon find themselves caught in a game of life and death as enemies from the past come back to finish what they started a decade before.
He should be having a good time, partying and living it up, not playing bodyguard to his best friend’s runaway witness girlfriend.
When he decides to leave the mountainside he’s called home for the last two months, he promises to be careful. He knows the stakes are high, and he knows that the makeshift family he’s leaving behind is counting on him to come back.
What he doesn’t count on is getting mugged and left for dead.
And he definitely doesn’t count on being rescued by a girl with secrets of her own…secrets that rival his.
As Julienne Bishop, a down-on-her-luck girl hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend, nurses Kade back to health, an uneasy bond forms between them. They need each other, even if they don’t realize it, and even if they have a hard time accepting it.
Because danger is coming at them from both sides, and they must figure out if they can trust each other.
Before it’s too late.
What she got was a one-way ticket to her personal nightmare.
Her friend is dead…and she knows who did it. Now a key witness in a murder trial, she’s been hidden away in the one place no one will think to look for her: Eton Preparatory School for Boys.
It’s a stupid move. Insane. But she doesn’t have a choice.
Instead of completing her senior year with the popular crowd, she’s being forced to hide in a school with exactly zero XX chromosomes. Even worse, she’s somehow supposed to act like the Neanderthals walking the halls.
But then she meets the guys next door—the smoking-hot ones. And it doesn’t help that one in particular could unravel her in a heartbeat…and potentially blow her cover. How’s she supposed to resist Trey Calloway, the star hockey player who never backs down from a fight…and who never takes no for an answer?
She’s supposed to be focused on staying safe, not on the guy who’s getting under her skin. Her chilling past isn’t going to suddenly disappear.
In fact, it might just be catching up with her.
Sammy Carmichael is just one of the guys, known for her mad boarding skills and her razor-sharp wit. But she has a secret, too—a crush on her best friend. It’s a relationship she’s not willing to risk damaging by getting all romantic about it.
When Tyler asks for Sammy’s help, she’s stoked to be able to spend a little one-on-one time with him. Their secret mission will bring them closer together…until she realizes what he’s really after—her sister. Tired of being in the shadows herself, Sammy sets out on a mission of her own to prove that she’s the Carmichael girl he really wants.
But the secrets and lies she discovers as she embarks on her quest could tear her relationship with Tyler to shreds, and Sammy must decide which lies are worth exposing and how much damage the truth will cause.
Layla Mahoney likes to party. It’s the only sure-fire medicine for helping her forget the fact that her father’s dead and a new guy has taken his place. But when she’s drunk, Layla has a big mouth…and the wrong friends. Unable to remember what she’s been up to at her various parties, Layla falls into a nasty trap. Thanks to some compromising photographs, she is now under the thumb of the person she hates most in this world—her stepbrother, Derek. With Mack gone, she’s forced to turn to someone who’s always kept his distance, a good guy who has never had time for her partying ways. Letting Finn in on her dark and dirty secrets is something she never planned to do, but his tender strength and quiet protection draws it out of her, creating a bond between them that neither saw coming…and a whirlwind of problems that they’ll only survive if they stick together.
Kaija Bennett did not escape her New Zealand high school only to be dragged into the popular crowd at Nelson High. She’s on the run from a past she wants to forget, and the attention of the gorgeous quarterback is not helping. Can she resist his pulling power and keep her secret safe? Or will the dynamic football captain unearth the truth and make her fall harder than she ever has before?
This is it—Tori Lomax’s senior year.
Her last chance to leave Nelson High without a bucketload of regrets.
Number one priority—get Colt Burgess to fall in love with her. So what if he’s the Raider’s number one playmaker? So what if he’s so far out of her league, the idea of them together would rupture the school’s social order?
She has to try, before it’s too late.
She’s come up with the perfect set of plays. All Colt has to do now is buy into them.
Colt Burgess wants one thing: to play football after high school. But his grades are tanking and his dreams of playing college ball are fading…fast. He shouldn’t waste time on Tori Lomax. However, she was a friend back in middle school, and he can’t really ignore her small request for a favor. How hard can it be to get the guy she’s lusting after to notice her?
He’ll help her out, and then he’ll focus on what’s really important: football.
Assuming he can stop thinking about her…
I have a few things on the go. See No Evil has just been released as an audiobook, with Speak No Evil coming soon. It’s been so incredibly cool to listen to the stories. I love these characters so much, and the audiobooks really bring them to life :)
I’m also working on the Barlow Sisters trilogy, which is SO much fun. It’s about three sisters who have to move to a new town filled with mysteries and trouble. It’s three individual love stories with a big mystery running throughout. I seriously love these girls and watching them fall in love is the best :)
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
One of the key messages that comes through all my books is that people should be true to who they are. We’re all unique and different. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. We need to own those, and be proud of the person we’ve been created to be.
How much of the book is realistic and are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
I like all my books to have a sense of realism. The main way I do that is be creating characters who are flawed and imperfect. That’s being human, right? I try to give each of them a realistic backstory and problems that readers can relate to. It’s about making a connection with the characters in the book so you feel like you’re going on a journey with them, and experiencing all their ups and downs.
Sometimes I take events from my own life and put them into the books, but it’s always little things…like the Ambrosia Pie Jules makes in Speak No Evil—that’s one of my recipes. And the way Tori from The Playmaker speed talks when she’s nervous—I do that.
I’ve actually had three cover designers - one for each series, plus the designer who did my Brotherhood Trilogy, also did my Paper Cranes cover. It’s fun to work with different people as I feel like it gives the covers a fresh look.
Here’s the cover for the upcoming Barlow Sisters trilogy - Book 1 - Curveball.
It’s been designed by Shayne from Parliament Book Design:
https://parliamentbookdesign.wordpress.com
Sometimes I find the first draft hard to get through. Editing is my favorite stage of a book’s development. I love taking the raw material and refining it, making it the best it can be. I usually hit a slump in the middle of a first draft and really have to push through. I’m not even sure why it happens. I call it the 1st draft blues, because my mind starts messing with me, telling me the book is awful and everyone’s going to hate it. It’s a mental battle to keep going. But once I get out the other side and re-read what I’ve done, I realize it’s not that bad after all ;)
When and why did you begin writing?
I started writing in my mid-twenties. I never realized it was something I could do, but once I started I knew it was something that had always been inside of me. All my life I’ve been making up stories in my head and to be able to write them out is so incredibly rewarding. I hope I get to do this for the rest of my life, because I love it so much :)
What book are you reading now?
I’m reading The Ghost of You and Me by Kelly Oram. It’s really great. I’m only a third of the way through so I’m really looking forward to seeing how it unfolds. I love teen romance :)
Oh man! I would love ALL my books to be made into films, which is why whenever I write them, I always use actors for my character inspirations :)
Here is my inspiration board for The Brotherhood Trilogy :)
I know these actors have probably changed and grown too old to play teens, but while I was writing the books…these were the people I was imagining :)
Yes - here’s my website: www.jordanfordbooks.com
Thanks so much for the interview. I loved answering these questions :)
xxx