ABOUT THE BOOK
Is love enough to repair the pieces of a shattered life?This is the question plaguing Courtney Cook’s mind as she packs what feels like her whole existence into a 20ft moving van. When she encountered Matt for the first time in a coffee shop ten years prior, she was immediately transfixed. Dark, adventurous and wildly untamed, Matt was everything Courtney didn’t know she wanted. One night of uninhibited abandon is all it took for her to be completely enthralled by the boy without limits. Now with two children, a sky-high mortgage and a marriage crippled by addiction, Courtney finds her world is riddled with cracks that no amount of love can repair.
Powerful and provoking with humor woven throughout the raw sting of heartbreak, Like Broken China offers an honest take on the decisions two people make and the aftermath that can destroy an entire decade because of them.
INTERVIEW WITH J.D. THOMPSON
Where’s home for you?
At the risk of sounding cheesy, home for me is wherever my children are. Geographically speaking though, home is in Campbellton, New-Brunswick. For all of those unfamiliar with this town (and I imagine there are many), Campbellton is on the Atlantic coast of Canada. And yes, our winters are long and cold, but contrary to popular belief we do not live in igloos.
What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
The dumbest purchase I ever made was probably my Palm Pilot circa 2003. At the time, I thought it would miraculously make me more organized. Of course it didn’t, and I was out a hundred bucks.
What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
Not to take life too seriously and chill the f*#k out. I spent the better part of my twenties worrying about everything, from my career to money to how to raise my children to be semi-well-adjusted human beings, that I didn’t enjoy them. I’m determined to make my thirties a tad more zen if that’s possible. haha.
What dumb things did you do during your college years?
I use to steal toilet paper rolls from the Art’s faculty. Literally all. The. Time. I don’t think I bought any bathroom tissue for the whole duration of my stay. I also use to spend all of my weekly food allowance on clothes and would subsequently be stuck eating Zoodles every day.
What do you love about where you live?
I live in a small town and I love that I can be anywhere within a five minute drive. Being as forgetful as I am (can I still blame this on baby brain if my son is 5?), it’s convenient to be able to run back home from work at any given time without worrying about a commute or traffic.
What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
That being a brat won’t get you anywhere in life and that kindness can go a long way. I shake my head when I think back to how big of a jerk I was.
What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
All of my late-night visits to McDonald’s. If I could go back and not eat a Big Mac combo at 2am every other night over the span of my student career and save myself an unnecessary 1200 calorie intake that would be great.
What’s your favorite line from a book?
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if only one remembers to turn on the lights.” (For the record, I love Harry Potter.)
How did you create the plot for this book?
I knew I wanted to touch the subject of addiction eventually. I have a bunch of ideas for potential books jotted down in a notebook and alcoholism won the luck of the draw this time. It wasn’t particularly hard to draw inspiration since it’s such a prevalent issue. More specifically, I chose to shed light on the people impacted by the addict. Once I knew what direction I wanted to take, characters and situations fell into place pretty easily.
Is your book based on real events?
Although I will admit that I draw inspiration from my life in every book that I write, none of them are based on real events.
Why did you decide to self-publish?
I don’t know that I can say I made the decision to self-publish so much as it was decided for me. In other words, I couldn’t secure an agent. I was pretty naïve after completing my first novel and thought the process would be much easier than it actually was. Query after query, I received rejection letters. Some agencies did go as far as requesting the entire manuscript (Writer’s House being the most exciting) however in the end I was left without representation. It was only then that I opted to self-publish. Self-publishing definitely has its challenges, however, it also gives you a certain amount of creative freedom.
What steps to publication did you personally do, and what did you hire someone to do? Is there anyone you’d recommend for a particular service?
For my first two novels, I did everything from the cover art all the way down to the formatting. I realized with time that these steps were keeping me from what I actually enjoy doing; writing. I had sat on publishing Like Broken China for nearly a year simply because I didn’t have the will to edit/format it. So after doing a little bit of research, I found a company that could do all of the above and they were worth every penny. (Shout out to Alyssa Garcia of Uplifting Designs!)
What are you working on now?
At the moment I’m working on a novel that deals with someone returning to her roots only to find that perhaps there was no tree there to begin with. I also have a collection of children’s books that I’ve written over the years that I would like to illustrate (I was an art student before switching to neuroscience – yeah, I know. Very random).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.D.
Thompson is a young authors and women’s fiction writer. She lives in a small town
in the chilly northern peak of New-Brunswick with her family, an array
tomato plants that annually fail to thrive and a growing number of
incomplete knitting projects. Like Broken China is her third completed
novel.Connect with J.D.:
Blog | Facebook | Goodreads
Buy the book:
Amazon
