Jillian Chantal

I’ve been sick for the last week. It hit on Wednesday and seemed to get worse as the week wore on. I finally dragged open my computer Monday afternoon and imagine my surprise to find that my story from Secret Cravings/Sweet Cravings, The Tainted Keitre, was nominated for best mystery/suspense/thriller of the year from Love Romances Cafe. I’m in some very good company and I’m so excited about this nomination. This story was also nominated for best short story on the preditors and editors site.

It’s really great to have these nominations as it reinforces my belief in my own instincts because this is a story I wrote that I submitted to a publisher who had a call out for summer heat stories. They asked me to make quite a few changes to it on a revise and resubmit. I didn’t think the requested changes were true to my characters. It seemed to me that the changes would make the story something it wasn’t intended to be.

I decided to have a friend whom I trust read it. She’s a Cajun and so are my characters. She made a few suggestions that made sense and I incorporated those into the story. I then sent the story to the publisher whom I really felt it would fit with and they accepted it as it was.  So, thanks to a little guidance from Danica Avet and a wonderful publisher who believed in my sassy Cajun characters, I have this nomination. Believe me, the statement you always hear about being nominated is an honor in and of itself is true. I was floored to be nominated.

Here are the other awesome writers in this category:

Best Mystery/ Suspense/Thriller Book
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> Against the Night by Kat Martin
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> Delusion In Death by JD Robb
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> Continental Divide by Lisa Worrall & LE Harner
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> Cheeky Blonde by Liz Crowe (Decadent)
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> Fractured Paradise by Alexa Bourne
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> All for a Dead Man’s Leg by R. Ann Sircusa (Breathless Press)
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> Out to Protect by Amber Skyze (Loose Id)
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> Flesh Cartel 1: Captured by Rachel Haimowitz (Riptide)
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> Photographs & Phantoms by Cindy Spencer Pape (Carina Press)
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> The Tainted Keitre by Jillian Chantal (Secret Cravings/Sweet Cravings)
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