Kelly Jamieson | Happily Ever After for All

The back story for LOVING MADDIE FROM A TO Z had been in my head for a long time. In fact, I actually wrote a story that’s pretty similar, which I posted on my blog in weekly installments years ago. Three college friends—two men, one woman—one of them a photojournalist who travels the world, who leaves because his heart is broken when the other two fall in love. That story went a whole different direction when the guy comes home—his reason for coming back was entirely different and that story ended with an HEA for one couple.

But I loved the idea for a ménage à trois story where the HEA is for all three rather than a love triangle, and so I re-cycled (!) that idea and made it into something different.

This time our tortured, wounded hero has been literally physically tortured and wounded, not to mention emotionally. When I started writing this book I was researching stories of photojournalists who’d been taken captive in war-torn areas, and the stories were truly heartbreaking. Some of them unfolded with definitely UNhappy endings after I’d finished the book, and I noted that in my dedication. My heart truly goes out to people who’ve lost loved ones in this tragic way.

Zack’s actually been tortured and wounded most of his life because of his sexual preferences and a feeling of being “different”. His difficult childhood got better when he met Aidan and Maddie in college, two people who accepted him for who he was. But even they didn’t know everything about him…because he had yet to learn about parts of himself.

Maddie loved her two male friends because they rescued her and took care of her at a time she wanted nothing to do with men.

And Aidan loved his friends because he could help them and take care of them, each in the way they needed it—Zack with acceptance and inclusion, Maddie with protection—which is his nature to do.

They all three fit together but it didn’t all come together for them in college when they first met. Seven years passed before they got back together. At the end of the book when they’re looking back, they know that time and experiences and maturing shaped them into the people they need to be to deal with their unconventional feelings and relationship. As Maddie thinks— “It had taken a long time, but things happened for a reason. The people they’d become were open enough to admit what they all needed, brave enough to give it to each other…and strong enough to accept it.”

About LOVING MADDIE FROM A TO Z

Home is where the hearts are…

Award-winning photojournalist Zack Donovan is happy to be alive after being held captive by a band of rebels in Syria. He’s not so happy to be on his way back to Chicago to recuperate with his college friends Maddie and Aidan, who are now a couple. The fear while being held prisoner was nothing compared to how he feels about facing the two people who unknowingly broke his heart seven years ago.

Maddie and Aidan are deeply in love, but lately they feel something is missing for them. They’d do anything to make the other happy, but are struggling to figure out what that is. Those problems are set aside, however, when their best friend from college is taken hostage in Syria. After graduation, Maddie and Aidan were hurt by Zack’s refusal to ever come home to visit, but he’s still their friend and he has no family, so when he’s finally free they insist he come stay with them to recover.

Zack’s a different man now. He’s seen terrible things. He’s come to terms with his sexuality and embraced his need to dominate. Maddie and Aidan would be shocked to know the kinds of things he likes to do. A guy like him will never have a relationship like theirs. But when Zack realizes he might be able to show Maddie and Aidan what they’re missing, he faces a dilemma. Do something? Do nothing? Pretend everything’s fine? Help them if he can? But will showing them what they’re missing help save their relationship…or destroy it?

About Kelly Jamieson

Kelly Jamieson writes romances with heat that's sweet. Her writing has been described as “emotionally complex”, “sweet and satisfying” and “blisteringly sexy”. If she can stop herself from reading or writing, she loves to cook. She has shelves of cookbooks that she reads at length. She also enjoys gardening in the summer, and in the winter she likes to read gardening magazines and seed catalogues (there might be a theme here...) She also loves shopping, especially for clothes and shoes. But her family takes precedence over everything else (yes, even writing). She has two teenage children who are the best kids in the world, not that she’s biased, and a wonderful husband who does loads of laundry while she plays on the computer writing stories. She loves hearing from readers, so please visit her website.