First Cup of Coffee – July 22, 2026

I'm back from book tour for AMONG THE THORNS and telling you all about it! Also ruminations on seeing old friends (both in age and longevity - ha!) and the experience of going back to my childhood and teenage haunts in Denver.

Preorder ~

Among The Thorns

Indie Booksellers! You can buy my indie books direct from me at discount!! Submit a Request for an order here

New Releases ~

Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

The posture correcting sports bra I love almost more than life itself can be found here

Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:02.29
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert, author of epic fantasy romance. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:16.76
Jeffe Kennedy
Delicious. to Today is Wednesday, July 22nd. um And i am also here with the UK edition of Among the Thorns. And look how shiny. The silver foil on the cover is just amazing.

00:35.29
Jeffe Kennedy
gorgeous um beautiful beautiful book I'm so excited. ah You could see it over my right shoulder too if you are on video.

00:48.89
Jeffe Kennedy
Yeah gorgeous gorgeous hardback. I also received copies of the international paperback which I forgot to get out ahead of time, but isn't that beautiful? Also shiny, um, beautiful books. So very excited about these. Um, it's, it's been a week. It's been very, very busy.

01:13.46
Jeffe Kennedy
When last we spoke, I was heading out on book tour and now I am back from book tour. And boy, it's just a lot has transpired in that time in between.

01:27.48
Jeffe Kennedy
um So I told you about the book launch party on Tuesday night, which was lovely. Wednesday, I feel like I got nothing done. It was all prep. It was doing the podcast, getting ready to go. I got to meet up with the fantastic and lovely Minerva Spencer, who also attended the Books on the Bosque event. If you see that um photo of the audience at the launch party, she's right there at the front with her husband, Brantley, the charming Brantley.

02:03.06
Jeffe Kennedy
Lord Brantley, we often call him or Brantlers depending on the mood. Um, and yeah, and so then Thursday morning I flew up to Denver early.

02:15.32
Jeffe Kennedy
And, um, realize that I hadn't really planned for having that whole day there, but Denver is where I grew up. So I went over to went and checked into my hotel, then went over to Cherry Creek mall, which I remember being built when I was a teenager,

02:36.44
Jeffe Kennedy
um, just kind of, it was, you know, like sort of the going home again thing, right? You know, it was, um, it's always funny to go back to the places where you grew up and haven't been for a long time. I remember when they built Cherry Creek Mall and my mom and I going there for the first time and um, running joke about it was, you've seen the catalog now see the store. Because a whole lot of the stores there were places we had never been to in real life. We had only ever seen the catalogs. And so it was, I'm going to tell you, it was goddamn thrilling to go into those stores and and shop. You know, they finally let us shop. This is part of like what growing up in the Rocky Mountain West is about or was about in the 80s because you know we just didn't have the same access to things that people on the east coast did. In fact, it was a culture shock for me when I went to college in the fall of 1984.

03:41.30
Jeffe Kennedy
to discover that my understanding of fashion, which I actually did pay some attention to, you know, I've always been a little bit of a clothes horse, um, that I was a couple of years out of date.

03:55.83
Jeffe Kennedy
I did not know what a Madonna wannabe was. my freshman year roommate, uh, like did the whole Madonna lace gloves, rubber bracelets, um, or kind of like the, um, desperately seeking Susan Rosanna Arquette skirt. Um,

04:19.26
Jeffe Kennedy
And this was totally like new to me. Uh, MTV was still really new then. I mean, so I knew who Madonna was, but she was not a phenom where I was. And yeah Uh, so it was funny going back to Cherry Creek mall and I was remembering a story where, you know, like my mom were there and we had gone into the Gucci store and seeing how much a Gucci purse was. And I don't remember how much it was, except that it was something like a thousand dollars.

04:55.70
Jeffe Kennedy
And this is in so know probably 1982 83. Um,

05:00.44
Jeffe Kennedy
And we ran into one of my mom's friends who was quite wealthy and very much a like high end clothes horse kind of gal, though I don't think I really understood that at the time because this was, i yeah, I don't know. I was like 15, maybe 16. But um and we're.

05:21.66
Jeffe Kennedy
Talking about how great it is having all these stores all of a sudden and and I was gushing about the Gucci store and I was saying how much. those purses cost and that it was incredible to me that the purse cost a thousand dollars. And, and after we walked away, my mom was like, did you notice that she was carrying a Gucci purse? And I was like, um, no.

05:49.82
Jeffe Kennedy
And my mom was like, yeah, I was really wishing that you would shut up. I was like, Oh, sorry. but So now you all know i come by it. Honestly, i have,

06:02.71
Jeffe Kennedy
pretty much spoken whatever's on my mind for most of my life. And my only defense is y'all should hear all the things that I don't say. I really am incredibly discreet. You just have no idea.

06:16.06
Jeffe Kennedy
So anyway, I shopped at Cherry Creek Mall, um, tried on a bunch of dresses, didn't find anything I liked. I really just should not stop shop at department stores. Um, they're just never me.

06:30.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, I did buy myself a new pair of sunglasses. Um, I had to replace my scratched up Oakley's And now I'm mad at Oakley even though I've been buying Oakley's for probably don't know 15 years longer 20 years. Um, because they like bought into the whole meta glasses thing. So no more buying Oakley's for me. Um, so now I got some new ones and I like them a lot. I got Maui Jim and not that it matters but so far I like them a lot.

07:07.10
Jeffe Kennedy
And I had lunch there and it was good. And don't know if I did much else. It felt like kind of, don't know. It was weird being in the mall on a Thursday, very hot Thursday, um, day, midday. So then I went to the zoo.

07:26.77
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, we had driven past it on my way in. Well, got cat hair on my nose. I just let the cat in. Um, so I thought, oh, well, let's go back to the zoo. And that was definitely a, you can't go home again experience. It was, um, just so much smaller and shoddier than I recalled. And I'd spent a lot of time there as a kid.

07:52.15
Jeffe Kennedy
So that was disappointing. Um, it was very hot. I was there in the afternoon. so most of the animals were sleeping,

08:02.58
Jeffe Kennedy
I did see some animals. um I don't know. It was not a, it was not the experience I'd been hoping for. But then that night at the Tattered Cover, we had a terrific event. ah Mary Robinette Kowal came and interviewed me, was my conversation partner. And she's so smart and insightful. And she said really wonderful things about my book and which she seemed to generally love And that really was meaningful to me. And my high school boyfriend, Kevin, came out and other really cool people were there. And it was fun to see the, I'm going to put it in quotation marks, the new location of Tattered Cover in Denver, which is apparently 20 years old. This is how behind the times i am. I used to go to the one in Cherry Creek down by where I was staying. And, but apparently they got, um,

09:03.54
Jeffe Kennedy
rent levied out of that space. And so now there are over on Colfax if you know, Denver and have been in that location for low these two decades, how time flies.

09:17.37
Jeffe Kennedy
And so then on and that I dinner afterwards with Mary Robinette and ke Kevin and that was very nice and great to reconnect and have good conversation.

09:28.28
Jeffe Kennedy
And then on Friday, I flew to you know, left in the morning and flew to Miami. Fortunately, a direct flight, but it was quite delayed. It's interesting, the app notices say air traffic control delays. And it was weather. It was actually weather. But like air traffic control in Miami was limiting, like when the flights could come in.

09:56.02
Jeffe Kennedy
But I got there in time for the event at steamy lit. ah Fortunately that bookstore was like. My hotel was five minutes from the airport and the bookstore was five minutes from the hotel. And so I made it there easily. Victoria K. Taylor was my conversation partner and she did a great job.

10:17.34
Jeffe Kennedy
d um I think this is a new location for Steamy Lit. ah They're not far from the airport, as I say. And it's a charming little place. They're still um getting it set up, but it's adorable. And i invite you to go check it out.

10:34.20
Jeffe Kennedy
And then ah my friend Marcella Bernard, wonderful writer of science fiction, romance and urban fantasy, among other things. She has a great dark fantasy coming soon. So watch for that.

10:49.27
Jeffe Kennedy
And no pub date yet. But um it's in the works. So Marcella came out, she lives on the other side of Florida, but she drove over. And so then she and I went out to dinner and we sat outside at this Spanish tapas place. And it was this balmy night, um, after the thunderstorms had cleared out. So, and it was very quiet.

11:17.85
Jeffe Kennedy
because people had stayed in, I guess. And we just had the most amazing meal. We had a wonderful meal and conversation. And then in the morning we got up and we went sort of back to across the street from that restaurant, Paco's in Miami Springs. ah Really excellent. I enjoyed it a whole bunch.

11:38.36
Jeffe Kennedy
Then we'd both noted the Starbucks across the way. So we went and um got lattes at Starbucks and sat outside and had talked some more. And then we drove out through the rain to the beach. We ended up at Fort Lauderdale Beach. I had kind of wanted to go to Miami Beach, but it was expensive. And it seemed like...

12:00.59
Jeffe Kennedy
insanely expensive for what I could get whereas I was able to use my Marriott points in Fort Lauderdale and we stayed at the courtyard there which it was great. They had a kind of rooftop or upper level pool bar and access to the beach and you got free beach chairs with your stay which was delightful.

12:25.21
Jeffe Kennedy
And Marcella and I got there and a girl who hadn't been able to come to my event at Steamy Lit, she had messaged me on Instagram saying that she was sorry to miss it. She said she'd picked up Never the Roses at Home Goods.

12:43.35
Jeffe Kennedy
Did you all know that Home Goods has books? I'm really interested in what that pipeline is. Like is it the same as like the target walmart pipeline.

12:55.48
Jeffe Kennedy
But anyway she'd picked up my book you know on impulse at random which I love this is how I discovered and patch it I picked up the patron saint of liars from a bargain book bin because I love the title.

13:08.92
Jeffe Kennedy
And then fell in love with her writing. So this gal, um Nesli, in case you are listening, it's N-E-S-L-I. She had told me she was working a night shift at the hospital, and that was why she couldn't make the event. But she drove out to Fort Lauderdale to have me sign her books. And it turns out she's in her third year of residency as an internal medicine doctor and internist. And she's so smart and gorgeous and just delightful to meet her and that she made the effort to come out to meet me. I loved that. And it's something I think about because I think I will never be the author with huge events, right? I'm never going to have...

13:56.18
Jeffe Kennedy
the Rebecca Yarros type. I shouldn't say that scathingly. I don't mean it scathingly. um It's great that she gets these huge, huge turnouts. and um And maybe one part of me thinks that would be really great. You know, i mean, who would not want like a theater full of people cheering for you, right?

14:15.45
Jeffe Kennedy
But I think I will never, ever be that author. But the kind of author I am is that I have these readers who are these amazing, smart, interesting, um, emotionally complex people who, I mean, it's, it's now our benchmark, right? Who, who cry about the book when they come up to my signing table. And, um, if had to choose between the two,

14:43.80
Jeffe Kennedy
that That is what I would choose. And I'm immensely grateful for that and grateful to get to meet people. So thank you to everyone who came out on the book tour. It was it was really lovely. and And I will be doing more events through the fall.

15:01.40
Jeffe Kennedy
So, so yeah, I got invited to a book festival in October, ah but I'm already going to a different book festival that weekend. So, you know, that's nice. That's, that's a good kind of popularity to have.

15:16.47
Jeffe Kennedy
And also, well, my am my travels back were fraught and delayed more thunderstorms, more weather. And I was on American this time and connected to Dallas, Fort Worth. And i actually woke up in the middle of the night, Saturday night, and I was really tired. That's one thing I have got to try to remember is that release week book tour is just exhausting on levels that I don't anticipate.

15:46.94
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know why I thought I was getting any writing done last week because reader, I did not. Uh, but yeah, I went to bed fairly early on Saturday night, Marcella and I, we'd spent the afternoon on the beach. We went out to dinner. We had, we had a wonderful time and, and we even like went back to the, uh, the pool bar and had a nightcap there in the very warm Florida night, looking out over the um Gleaming ocean and surf and it was it was wonderful and it was really great I probably didn't cover this to catch up with Marcella because we have been friends for 20 years maybe a little bit longer and but had not seen each other in 10 and so and we are of an age so we were talking about our lives and things have changed and what we like and what we don't and it was it was wonderful.

16:44.28
Jeffe Kennedy
So I woke up in the middle of the night to, to visit the restroom and, uh, saw a notice on my phone, you know, cause I take it off. Do not disturb to see if I have any messages and American had messaged me that because of air traffic control in Miami, that my flight had been moved from 10 AM m to 4 Um,

17:05.82
Jeffe Kennedy
I was like, okay. So at least I turned off my alarm that I'd set for 630. And which was nice, because then I slept till 830, which means I slept like 11 hours that night, which felt so good and so needed. So I just hung out at the hotel and on the beach until about one o'clock. And then went into Miami to the airport and there was additional delay and they rebooked me for a different connecting flat out of DFW.

17:37.11
Jeffe Kennedy
But I don't know I won't go into the whole thing but it was a mess. Um, and I got home at like I landed at like 9 45 but didn't get home to 11 because my suitcase didn't make it.

17:50.84
Jeffe Kennedy
But I got it back the next morning. So I don't know. All of this is all of this is stuff, right? It's all things. Um, and the, the woes of travel, I hear some people saying that it's getting harder to travel. I'm not sure that's true, but definitely not easy.

18:13.16
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, I'm not sure it's if it is harder. I, I don't know because I've certainly had woes in the past and at least now they do the thing with the app where they rebook you and you know, you don't end up going to the airport to discover that your flight has been delayed six hours.

18:33.27
Jeffe Kennedy
So. Yeah. But for all of that, I would have missed my connection at DFW, except that that flight was also delayed two and a half hours. So, but then all in all, I ended up landing, um, only four hours after I was scheduled to land. So that's kind of funny. Um,

18:54.39
Jeffe Kennedy
And then Monday was just recovery day, getting my suitcase back day and doing other things. And yesterday was David's birthday. He's 67. Oh, also Monday, we went to see his doctor, his movement disorders doctor.

19:07.74
Jeffe Kennedy
And I might talk about that more, but basically he, um, the new medication's working well and we are hooking up with some Parkinson's support groups here in Santa Fe. So that will be interesting.

19:21.62
Jeffe Kennedy
All right. And on that note, I'm sort of out of dork around time on drafting this book. So I do need to buckle down. I'm not doing business today since I did like nothing on Monday, but I'll see if I can get words in today.

19:37.40
Jeffe Kennedy
And I will talk to you all next week. You all take care. Bye bye.