J.J. Bonds is an independent author who writes young adult speculative fiction. Her debut novel, Crossroads, was released in fall of 2011. It is the first in the Crossroads Academy series. J.J. lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where her love of all things paranormal keeps life interesting. She lives with her husband and two rambunctious dogs and is expecting a new addition to the family in March.
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I was born and raised in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which the locals like to think of as the new center of the universe, but this is probably only true if you have a day job in the grocery business like I do. (A girl's gotta pay the bills, right?) By day I’m a grocery buyer for a large NE grocery retailer. Seriously-- I get paid to buy bread and snack cakes. It’s a fun job, but I eat way too many cupcakes! By night, I’m an aspiring author. As it turns out, my passion for young adult literature far exceeds my passion for the grocery business. (Imagine that?)
I love to read. Everything. I wish I could say that I’ve always loved reading, but that just wouldn’t be true. As a small child, my mom had to bribe me to read (and learn my multiplication tables), but by the time I reached middle school I was unquestionably moving into the realm of shameless bookaholic. I was always reading and was tearing through the works of RL Stine, Christopher Pike and LJ Smith faster than they were being published. I was winning the quarterly 7th grade reading contests regularly (which amazingly did not help my popularity level), but did inspire me to write my first book. It was about sea turtles and while it was a lovely book, it didn’t exactly capture the attention of publishers worldwide. I continued writing throughout high school and pursued Journalism in college, but after interning at a local newspaper I realized I was in the wrong field and promptly switched my major to business. (I’m nothing if not practical).
Although I had a ten year bout of temporary insanity in my professional life, my love of literature never faded and I continued to outline stories I wanted to write while sitting in my MBA classes at night. When my father was diagnosed with cancer, it was the push I needed to reevaluate my life choices and take a risk in actually writing one of the books I’d spent so many hours fantasizing about. Writing Crossroads was both therapeutic and fulfilling. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
In addition to reading and writing, I have a few other guilty pleasures: wine, chocolate, alternative music, scary movies (especially the really bad ones!), Chinese food, gym
I’m loud, I talk fast and I wave my hands a lot. My family calls it animated. I call it me. I like people who can keep up and try to avoid slow talkers. When I lived in Atlanta, everyone knew I was one of those ‘damn Yankees’ despite my best attempts to master the use of the word y'all. Call me impatient, call me flawed… just do it quickly please!
I have a pretty awesome husband who lets me be the boss (he cooks too!), two crazy dogs (a Cock-a-Poo named Sabot and a mutt named Norm) and a closet that is positively overflowing with shoes.
