Romance author Jennifer Patricia O’Keeffe chats with me about her latest romantic comedy, Snowfall.
During her virtual book tour, Jennifer will be giving away a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn participant. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Jennifer Patricia O’Keeffe is a humorist fiction author whose works include the stories My Name is Not Cupid, The Scent of a Man, and the beautifully reviewed thriller about a mother who would stop at nothing to save her child, Hot Chocolate on a Cold Winter’s Night, among others. Known for her quirky romantic comedies that feature realistic women of various ages and races and the trials and tribulations of adulting and dating, Jennifer’s writings allow real women to see themselves in her characters. Jennifer is also a proud LGBTQ+ ally and often features gay characters in her stories, including the tale All I Want is to be Happy, which features a wonderful gay protagonist. Jennifer, herself, is a single straight woman, still looking for love, and living with her cats in an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee.
Welcome, Jennifer. Please tell us about your current release.
First of all, thank you for hosting me on your wonderful site! I really appreciate it and love getting the chance to chat with my readers or future readers! ‘Snowfall’ is my first solo release. I’ve been known as that romcom girl in the anthologies, and while I do love anthologies, it’s pretty fun having my own solo release. The book is a clean romantic comedy. It’s fun and funny, but like with the majority of my writings, it does not use foul language or sex. I’m a firm believer that romantic comedies can be excellent while still keeping it clean. ‘Snowfall’ follows Melody. She’s a lovely young assistant librarian who is very content in her single-woman lifestyle. She has a good job, an apartment, and a love for books. A wrench is thrown into her perfect life when she is accidentally clobbered by a set of twins who are having a snowball fight after the city is suddenly covered up overnight after an unexpected snowfall.
What inspired you to write this book?
I had been dealing with depression. I hadn’t written in a long while – not since my story for the anthology The Scent of a Man. Life just got in the way, but I missed it. Suddenly, on a cold winter’s night, my muse finally returned from her multi-year vacation and gave me Melody’s story. I’m thankful for Melody. She booted me right out of my depression and right back into the thing I love so much – writing.
Excerpt from Snowfall:
As she walked, she read. While there were a lot of people around, it wasn’t very crowded. She didn’t worry about bumping into anybody or tripping over anything as long as she stayed on the paved pathways that circled around and wound through the city park. The pathways had plenty of snow covering them, but the people who had arrived before her did good work in trampling through and stomping down the snow that covered them.
Soon, all thoughts of her surroundings faded away into the background as Sally and her tale of love and life took over. Melody was at a really great part too. Sally, the protagonist, was single and twenty-five – close enough to Melody’s own age to make her very relatable. And there was this guy named Eric who worked at the same clothing store as Sally. Sally had found him attractive, and she hoped the same from him. At the start of the current chapter, Sally received a dozen red roses with an unsigned note card attached that says, “You look beautiful today.”
Melody gushed and paused in her step to just take in the moment. And, in that very moment, she heard a man shout, “I got it! I got it, bro!”
Looking up just in time to see a snowball nearing her face and a man leaping in front of it to try and catch it, Melody squealed. The snowball splattered against the man’s hand. The man lost his footing on the snow and fell backward. This caused him to impact with a startled Melody, plunging into her and knocking her down to the ground. Her bottom plopped down into the deep snow, and her elbows helped prevent her from landing flat and making it worse. Had she not been holding on to Roses for Sally for dear life, she surely would have damaged the book in the snow.
What exciting project are you working on next?
My next book is a romantic comedy called ‘The Socialite.’ It’s about a very wealthy young woman who stands her fiancé up at the alter for the second time. She decides to escape from her prominent lifestyle and disappear to a small town where no one knows her name. There, she buys a house and tries to make a life for herself, but there are certain challenges that come, including a house she doesn’t know how to repair, an angry fiancé and a slew of paparazzi that are hunting her down, and a sexy hardware store owner that she has eyes for. It’s a pretty fun, quirky romcom that I really enjoyed writing.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I first knew I wanted to be a writer when I was a teenager. I always loved books, and I had so many stories in my head that hadn’t been told – or at least ‘I’ had not read them. I decided to write, and wrote poetry and short stories whenever I had the time. It allowed me to develop the craft into something that worked for me. I got my first story published a few years ago with DCL Publications and it garnered really good reviews. Ever since then, writing is my passion, and DCL is that passion’s home.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I wish I could write full time, but no. I do have a day job. It’s not very exciting, but it pays the bills while I work hard to continue my craft. Primarily, I write in the evenings and on the weekends. Sometimes, I have trouble turning off my muse and will write through the night and then realize – uh oh, I gotta go to work now. Being a single girl with no children gives me the spare time needed to write without any guilt associated with it.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I don’t like to write sex scenes or use foul language in my books. I had to break that rule once for an anthology called ‘The Two Sides of Santa’s Lap.’ It was a two part anthology with the first half been nice and the second half being naughty. The first story for the nice half was easy as pie – traditional romcom in my style. The second story in the naughty section was a challenge for me. It’s when I wrote one of my best reviewed stories ‘Hot Chocolate on a Cold Winter’s Night.’ It’s about a stripper whose daughter gets kidnapped by a powerful gang after Hot Chocolate witnesses the strip club owner being murdered by the gang. It was not a romcom. Nor did it have sex. But I did write my first action thriller in that story, and I used ‘light’ foul language. I have nothing against foul language or sex; I just don’t think they have to be ‘everywhere.’
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Barbie. No joke. I wanted to be Barbie and live in her big dreamhouses and driver her awesome cars and wear all the wonderful clothes. Every now and again, I’ll go clothes shopping and still pretend I’m Barbie as I try on stuff in the dressing room. I also wanted to be Wonder Woman, but being Barbie seemed more realistic. Did you see the Barbie movie? Oh my goodness, I love it.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Hello, dear readers! I sure do hope you’ll check out my new romantic comedy ‘Snowfall’ and I hope it warms your heart and puts a smile on your face. Please find me on my social links! I love getting to know my readers, and I love involving my readers when I have new book ideas!
Links:
Website | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Twitter/X | Bluesky | Facebook
Thank you for featuring SNOWFALL today.
Thank you so much for featuring me on your site today!
OMG I love how you wanted to be Barbie! That was too fun!
Thank y ou! Don’t tell anyone, but I still kind of want to be Barbie!
I get it! She does have all the cool stuff and best clothes! 😉