Born a university
brat and trained at the Master's level in Geology, Linda was
one of Exxon Corporation's first woman field geologists. In
her second career, she is the author of the award-winning Yellowstone
Series of novels, and writes romance under the name Christine
Carroll. Her love affair with Yellowstone began in 1973 when
she attended geology field camp near the park, so she naturally
turned to that part of the world for a setting. She and her
husband enjoy adventure travel and divide their time between
the West and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
***
"JACKSON
HOLE JOURNEY is a remarkable portrayal of a stunning time in
U.S. history. Linda Jacobs paints each scene vividly into your
imagination through the thoughts and fears of the characters
so that you might feel pulled back in history and relive it
with them. "
4 Ribbons, Romance Junkies
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Immigrant Francesca di Paoli reaches Jackson
Hole in 1925 . . . and narrowly misses dying in the historic
Gros Ventre landslide. Poised above homes and ranches,
will the wall of debris hold back the dammed waters? Over
the next two years, Francesca cooks at the Snake River
Dude Ranch, where the Sutton family's sons compete for
her. Firstborn William appears the steady one, but wants
to be seen as more than the owner's son. Bryce, believing
his parents care more for William, spends time away until
he meets Francesca. Tensions rise as their Nez Perce uncle
comes to the ranch to die, attracting the Klan's attention,
and earth tremors shake up the landslide dam. Swept up
in the floodtide of history, what will become of Francesca,
William, and Bryce?
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****
Robert Vaughan, New York Times Bestselling Author, Pulitzer
Nominee, and Spur Award winner (as K.C. McKenna)
"Linda Jacobs writes with power and authority about people
you care about in one of the most fascinating places and times."
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Linda's Latest
News: In 2010, I was thrilled to have the first three books in The
Yellowstone Series released in audio versions from Books in Motion.
I had never really been interested in listening to audio books, but
when I heard my narrator John Pruden, www.johnpruden.com
reading my work, it brought such an added human dimension to the story
that I've become an audio fan. Jackson Hole Journey, the fourth novel
in the series was released as an audio original in November, 2010.
Other books
in The Yellowstone Series
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Summer of Fire
Yellowstone Series: Book 1
June, 2005
Buy
the Book
5 Blue Ribbon Review, Romance Junkies
"Summer of Fire is a tense but passionate tale that will
keep you anxiously turning each page as you read of the struggles
to fight the fires of Yellowstone Park. "
Buy audio book read by John Pruden, www.booksinmotion.com
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About Summer of Fire
Among the thousands of summer warriors battling to save America's
crown jewel, is single mother Clare Chance. Having just watched
her best friend, a fellow Texas firefighter, die in a roof collapse,
she has fled to Montana to try and put the memory behind her.
She's not the only one fighting personal demons as well as the
fiery dragon threatening to consume the park.
There's Chris Deering, a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot,
seeking his next adrenaline high and a good time that doesn't
include his wife, and Ranger Steven Haywood, a man scarred by
the loss of his wife and baby in a plane crash. They rally 'round
Clare when tragedy strikes yet again, and she loses a young
soldier to a firestorm.
Three flawed, wounded people; one horrific blaze. Its tentacles
are encircling the park, coming ever closer, threatening to
cut them off. The landmark Old Faithful Inn and Park Headquarters
at Mammoth are under siege, and now there's a helicopter down,
missing, somewhere in the path of the conflagration. And Clare's
daughter is on it ...
Read
an Excerpt
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WILLA finalist, Romance Reviews Today Perfect
10
Buy audio book read by John Pruden, May, 2010
www.booksinmotion.com
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Rain of Fire
Yellowstone Series: Book 2
June, 2006
Read
an Excerpt
Buy
the Book
As a terrified child, geologist Kyle Stone watched her family
die in the Hebgen Lake earthquake disaster near Yellowstone
Park. To this day, she fears earthquakes and the dark. When
the signs point to a reawakening of the world's largest supervolcano,
Kyle mounts an expedition into the Yellowstone backcountry.
With her are Ranger Wyatt Ellison, a friend who wishes he were
more, and Dr. Nicholas Darden, a volcanologist Kyle loved and
lost one college summer. As conflicts mount within the team
and earthquakes uproot the land, Kyle must choose between past
and present . . . and defeat her darkest terror simply to survive.
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Lake of Fire
Yellowstone Series: Book 3
June, 2007
RT Four Stars, Spur Award Finalist.
Buy audio book read by John Pruden, June, 2010
www.booksinmotion.com
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About Lake of Fire
It began with lies. One-quarter Nez Perce, Cord Sutton attempts
to hide his Indian blood by adopting the life of a gentleman.
As part of the ruse, he plans to buy the Lake Hotel, an island
in the Yellowstone wilderness that offers elegant accommodations
to travelers on the Northern Pacific Railroad. When Chicago
heiress Laura Fielding is rescued from a stagecoach robbery
in Jackson Hole by a rugged mountain man, she hides the fact
she's wealthy. What she doesn't know is the man that's saved
her is Cord Sutton. After three days of travel, their alliance
is sealed - until their identities are revealed. With arson
and bigotry threatening their growing love . . . and their lives
. . . will they survive the Lake of Fire.
Read
an Excerpt
Buy
the Book
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A word about
bios, and not incidentally, writing.
I like to think it doesn't matter who I am if you like my work. But
if you've read something I've written and decided you'd like to know
more, or if you'd rather know where an author is coming from before
you pull out your credit card and order a book, then . . .
Probably the most important thing to know about me is that my approach
to writing is the same as it is to reading. I find fiction . . . whether
I am immersed in someone else's good book . . . or whether I'm spinning
the yarn, to be a magical escape.
My characters are composites that come to me, at first visually. Then
I choose a name, sit down and write, "I am so-and-so." What
comes out through my fingers onto the page is like when someone says,
"Tell me about yourself."
My plots come only in the smallest way from my own life
because when I write I'm escaping. I confess to having never fought
a fire as in Summer of Fire, or seen a live volcano as in Rain of Fire,
but other people have told me about it.
I often borrow stories. One day I was having lunch with
an outfitter friend who arranges adventure travel all over the world.
He told me a harrowing experience of his own while river fishing in
Canada. Seems he fell out of an inflatable boat into thirty-something
degree water while not wearing a life vest, trundled along through a
logjam, getting caught several times, thought he was dead . . . and
emerged to tell the story. I turned that into a woman falling from horseback
into the Snake River in the year 1900, getting caught in a logjam and
. . .
Lots of folks have one or another version of the same
question for authors, along the line of, "Where do you get your
ideas?" Once when I was at the Jackson Hole Writer's Conference,
someone popped the question. Author and screenwriter Tim Sandlin replied,
"There's a secret Internet site . . ."
I like to compare ideas to soap bubbles. Only instead
of having a bubble exist and pop into oblivion, this bubble appears
from nowhere. I was in a gas station automated carwash, where you can't
see anything through the suds, when I suddenly imagined a scene in which
someone enters the car through a back door as the vehicle disappears
into the tunnel. Under cover of clouds of spray, he or she strangles
the driver. When the car is released from automated control, it rolls
down, driverless, and bumps into the curb.
An author fades in and out of that magic other world
all the time. One day when I was exiting my health club locker room,
I was struggling with a plot problem. There was going to be a big earthquake;
my characters would be caught in a canyon on horseback, but what would
happen to raise the stakes? I thought about killing or injuring one
of my main folks, but knew I needed them to be fully functional shortly
thereafter for the book's climax. As I opened the door, it came to me.
"Kill the horses," I said . . . right into
the startled face of a woman carrying her gym bag.
So if she, and the rest of you, want to know who that
deranged woman was, here's a brief edition of my life story.
******
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Photo of the Grand Tetons
See more photos in Linda's Photo Album below
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When I was three, my Mom taught me to read the Golden Books
fairy tales. Yikes, how I hated it when the sun sank over the castle, when Sleeping
Beauty pricked her finger on a spindle, and SHE DIED. Luckily, there was a happy
ending. By elementary school I had decided that when I grew up I was going
to write "a novel." Thirty years later, I hacked away on my first manuscript
for four years, then put in "in the drawer." Later, however, I was been
able to get a romance out of it (Children of Dynasty writing as Christine Carroll,
Medallion, Sept. 2005) out of it . . . and I'm working on two more romances. The
Senator's Daughter has just been submitted to my agent and Sins of the Fathers
is in the proposal phase. | I
fell in love with Yellowstone, that crown jewel of National Parks when I attended
geology field camp just south of the Tetons. I've published Summer of Fire (Yellowstone
aflame - in 1988) and Rain of Fire (Yellowstone Awakens - the supervolcano) with
Medallion Press. In both, the heroes and heroines must overcome their darkest
fear in order to survive. I find this theme to be particularly suitable in a post
9-11 world. My agent is currently marketing a historical trilogy set in the park.
My non-genre books are mainstream, but always with a strong love interest So,
for both Sleeping Beauty and for my aspirations to write "a novel,"
it turns out there was a happy ending. |
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******
Children of Dynasty by Linda Jacobs writing as Christine
Carroll has been nominated for a 2005 RT Reviewers Choice
Award for Best Small Press Romance
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When
it comes to reading, I'm an omnivore. Well, actually, I do tend to stick to certain
categories. I don't read a lot of nonfiction, or many literary novels. I enjoy
commercial fiction, mostly mainstream, romance, historical, sci fi, and some of
the classics. Some of my favorite "read-over-again" books are things
like Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The
Fountainhead, Stephen King's The Stand, and John Fowles The Magus. In other words,
I like a big bold book with a lot going on. As to present day works, I admire
Nora Roberts and I'm proud of some of my writer friends from RWA, notably Patricia
Kay, Colleen Thompson, Shane Bolks/Shana Galen, and Jessica Trapp.
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| Q:
Studying with Rita Gallagher must have been such a wonderful experience. What
is the one piece of advice she imparted that sticks with you today, that you always
pass on to others when they ask for your advice?
Linda:
Watching this brilliant woman
edit one of my manuscript drafts was extremely educational - at eighty, she could
still find a sentence on page seventy-seven that belonged on page seventeen. It's
hard to believe she isn't still in her townhouse, wearing her lovely colorful
caftans and teaching other eager students. What she taught me that was most valuable
was her particular version of story structure, but people can learn this elsewhere.
So, I'd have to say her confidence in her students, that we would be published
is what I can pass on to others - don't give up, you can do it! Read
More of Linda's Interview>>> |
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That
would have to be October in the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. When
I was in elementary school, we had to memorize a poem called, "October's
Bright Blue Weather," and I can't recall a line of it. But, no matter where
I am, I'm always drawn back to those bright blue days, when the air is crisp and
you walk beneath a flaming maple and the leaves crush beneath your feet. One thing,
though I fondly remember jumping in piles of raked up leaves, I think that if
I tried it now, it might just get me itchy. |
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