Paige Toon Talks About The Accidental Life Of Jessie Jefferson

I am delighted to welcome Paige Toon back to Handwritten Girl for the second time and she talks her her first Young Adult book, ‘The Accidental Life Of Jessie Jefferson’.

1. Can you tell me what your new book ‘The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson’ is about?
   Jessie is the 15-year-old old daughter rock star Johnny Jefferson (from ‘Johnny Be Good’, ‘Baby Be Mine’ and ‘Johnny’s Girl’) never knew he had. This story is told from Jessie’s point of view. Jessie’s mum died six months ago taking the secret of Jessie’s real father’s identity with her to the grave. Or so Jessie thought… She’s gone off the rails a bit and is rebelling against her stepfather, so he decides to tell her the truth: that her real dad is a world-famous celebrity. She goes out to LA to meet him and his family and falls for a very sexy, indie rock star bad boy of her own.
2. ‘The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson’ is your first Young Adult book, what inspired you to write this?
   I had the idea for Jessie’s story when I was writing ‘Baby Be Mine’ – I liked the idea of writing about Johnny’s secret daughter. Then a friend and fellow author (Ali Harris) suggested I write two books a year and make one of them YA. I realised Jessie’s story would work as a young adult novel – a whole series of books, in fact. So here we are…
3. With the success of ‘Twilight’ and ‘The Hunger Games’, what do you think it is about the Young Adult genre that have made them appeal to a much wider market?
   We all love losing ourselves in a good book – it doesn’t matter how old the protagonist is. In fact, living through younger characters is even more fun when you’re not a teenager yourself!
4. And finally Paige, do you have any projects or releases on the horizon which you would like to share with the readers of the website?
   My next adult chick-lit book, ‘Thirteen Weddings’, is coming out in May. It’s about a girl called Bronte (who was mentioned in ‘Pictures of Lily’, so expect Ben & Lily cameos) who becomes a part-time wedding photographer. But one of the grooms is a guy she had a one-night-stand with a year and a half ago, and there’s still way too much chemistry for it to be comfortable…

Stay tuned to Paige Toon online or follow her on Twitter Paige Toon because she has a few other projects up her sleeves…