Character spotlight ~ Jenny B Jones' Maggie Montgomery

Today the spotlight shines on..............Maggie Montgomery



Jenny B Jones has been delighting YA readers with her fresh and funny novels from her Charmed Life and Katie Parker Production series. Now I know why! Just Between You and Me is brilliant and you should drop everything and grab yourself a copy now.....but don't forget to come back and read this spotlight!

Over to you, Jen:~

Brief physical description

Of me? Well, I’m 5’9, 24 inch waist, wrinkle and cellulite-free, look a lot like Heidi Klum. . . Due to technical difficulties, I won’t be able to provide a picture to verify this..

What? Oh, you meant description of the main character of Just Between You and Me.

Rel:~ See, told you Jen was funny!!

Maggie Montgomery has long red hair, slender, though she eats junk all the time (because this is fiction), and dresses chic, yet casual, due to her job as a cinematographer. Often has a cultural accent on her, such as a scarf from a foreign country. She would be the type to look great in a Target t-shirt, but would want one element on her that’s one of a kind.

Rel:~ You can never go past a good Aussie girl!

Actor/famous person

Definitely Isla Fisher from the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic. I was really struggling for a plot for this novel that would become Just Between You and Me and I finally just left the house and got out with some friends. As I was sitting in the movie watching Shopaholic, my brain took a detour, and most of the major plot points for the book unfolded in my head. The character and plot have absolutely nothing to do with Shopaholic, except I did give Maggie Isla Fisher’s hair in her honor. If I hadn’t have seen the movie, I would still be stuck at home waiting for inspiration. And bookless.

Patrick Dempsey as veterinarian, Connor Blake

Strengths and weaknesses

Maggie Montgomery is independent, self-motivated, and a dare devil. She lives large and has chased her dream and made it a reality. She had to—she had to leave her small hometown and make a life for herself without anyone’s help. I would like to think she has a sense of humor and some moxy. Her weaknesses would be that she hides behind her sass and jet setting lifestyle and appears fearless, but underneath? She’s a total chicken when it comes to love, family, and relationships. When a family emergency draws her back home, she has to face a past that she’s been outrunning for years.

Quirk (if any)

She’s a total stress eater and all but snorts SweetTarts. I had to really dig deep and research that because I have no idea what it’s like to eat such trash. I tried to get her to be a well-balanced fruit and veggie eater like myself, but the story just didn’t work as well that way. I mean just because I currently have a bag of Hershey’s chocolate in my bathroom and no idea how it got there, you must believe I’m a healthy eater. Sugar is for weaklings. Yes, I love veggies. The greener the more nauseating. I mean the better.

Your inspiration for the character/Background to the story

My editor came to me with an idea about creating a novel based around being fearless and trusting God. So we ran with it from there. The main idea for me was to create a book that hit on a few fears that people are experiencing right now in these tough times—money, job, retirement, family dysfunction, snowballing anxiety—and show the various ways the book’s characters dealt with these issues.

Most importantly I wanted Maggie, who is afraid of love, her past, and strangely enough water, to be an example of someone who acknowledges that fear, yet sees that it’s like a Choose Your Adventure story. If she stays in the safe zone and gives in to the fears, she goes one way. But if she steps out of the boat and places her hand in God’s, another path is opened for her. A better path. A blessed and anointed path.

I was really inspired by the thought that we as Christians go through all the same trials and tribulations—losing a job, losing a spouse, losing a home. Yet shouldn’t our reaction look different? I know mine often doesn’t. But we have a safety net on the other side others do not. We have Christ. So we fear, yet then we press on.

Fabulous, Jen! Thanks so much for sharing about Maggie - can't wait to read more of your "grown up" fiction ;-)



On Thursday, the spotlight shines on Lisa Harris' Catherine Morgan & Corbin Hunter from Love Finds You in Revenge, Ohio.

Relz Reviewz Extras

Review of Just Between You and Me

Visit Jenny's website and blog

Buy Jenny's books at Amazon or Koorong