{"id":3513,"date":"2026-10-30T06:05:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=3513"},"modified":"2026-10-29T11:44:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:44:02","slug":"another-opening-another-show-the-taken-ones-is-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/30\/another-opening-another-show-the-taken-ones-is-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Opening, Another Show – The Taken Ones Is Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve loved musicals from the time an amateur theater troupe from Fort Huachuca brought a production of The Bells are Ringing, <\/em>complete with an orchestra, to the auditorium of Greenway School years ago. \u00a0The performance was on a Sunday afternoon. I was allowed to go by myself, and I came away enchanted.<\/p>\n

But those were the days of great musicals\u2014Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, Camelot, Man of La Mancha\u2014<\/em>and I still know the words to most of the songs. \u00a0But when it\u2019s time for a book to go on sale, the above lines from Kiss Me Kate always\u00a0<\/em>come to mind. \u00a0The songs marks off what it takes for a show to get to that point:<\/p>\n

Three weeks\u2014you\u2019ve rehearsed<\/em><\/p>\n

Two weeks, and it couldn\u2019t be worse.<\/em><\/p>\n

One week will it ever be right?<\/em><\/p>\n

Then out of the hat it\u2019s that big first nigh<\/em>t.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The Taken Ones, Beau #27<\/p><\/div>\n

The same thing is true for books. \u00a0It takes months of writing, rewriting and editing for a book to go on sale. \u00a0The first night, as it were, for\u00a0The Taken Ones, <\/em>Beaumont # 27, is November 10. I\u2019m writing this on my birthday. \u00a0Since I was born in 1944, you already know I\u2019m no spring chicken, and J. P. Beaumont has been part of my life for more than half of it. I started trying to write Until Proven Guilty <\/em>in 1982, but Beau himself didn\u2019t come into focus until the spring of the following year. \u00a0In 1983, with my kids at camp for spring break, I got on a train in Seattle, headed to Portland to visit a friend from my days in the insurance.<\/p>\n

As the train pulled out of the King Street Station, I wondered, \u201cWhat would happen if I tried writing this book from the detective\u2019s point of view?\u201d \u00a0I took out a blue-lined notebook and pen and began to write. \u00a0\u201cShe might have been a cute kid once. \u00a0That was hard to tell now. \u00a0She was dead.\u201d \u00a0Once I wrote those words, I was on the back side of Seattle\u2019s Magnolia Bluff, walking around a crime scene in J.P. Beaumont\u2019s shoes, seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard, but also hearing what was going on in his head. \u00a0We\u2019ve been together ever since, and having his voice telling me the story is the only way it works.<\/p>\n

Over the past forty years both Beau and I have undergone a lot of changes. \u00a0I\u2019ve see \u00a0him work his way from being a problem drinker into living in recovery. \u00a0In the beginning he was estranged from his kids, but I\u2019ve been able to watch from the sidelines as he\u2019s reconnected with his kids and now I\u2019m learning about his grandkids\u2019 lives, too. \u00a0Mel\u2019s retirement party at the beginning of this book gave both me and my readers an opportunity to check in on his family members, including some of the more prickly ones.<\/p>\n

The Taken Ones<\/em> starts with Gina Holt, a young woman from Anchorage, Alaska, leaving home for a summer internship with an architectural firm in Seattle. After sending a text letting her grandmother know she\u2019s on the ground at Sea-Tac, Gina goes completely dark. \u00a0Twinkle Winkleman, who\u2019s a friend of Gina\u2019s family and also an acquaintance of Beau’s, contacts him asking for help in dealing with Gina\u2019s disappearance. \u00a0Soon J.P. and his wife, Mel Soames, are knee-deep in the ensuing, cross-country investigation.<\/p>\n

When I write books, I don\u2019t outline. \u00a0The stories unfold as I go along. \u00a0Gina had disappeared, all right, but in the beginning I had no idea who had taken her or why. \u00a0I had to write the story to learn the chilling reasons not only behind Gina’s kidnapping but also the mysterious disappearances of several other outstanding young women. \u00a0In the process I saw how the various families responded to these disturbing events as well as how the targeted young women fought to survive.<\/p>\n

The tour schedule is now posted on my website: \u00a0https:\/\/www.jajanceauthor.com\/schedule<\/a>. Yes, there aren\u2019t that many appearances, and they\u2019re mostly local.\u00a0 In addition to being older than dirt, I\u2019m also my husband\u2019s primary caretaker.<\/p>\n

If you want a signed book, please contact Brick and Mortar Books in Redmond, Washington. info@brickandmortarbooks.com<\/a>. The store is near my location, and I can stop by and autograph books before they’re shipped. \u00a0On the schedule you\u2019ll see that I\u2019ll be doing a FaceTime Live<\/a> event with the Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale. They, too, will have autographed books available, but those won\u2019t be personalized.<\/p>\n

I wanted to be a writer from second grade on, and I regard it as nothing short of a miracle that not only have I been privileged to live that dream for the past forty-plus years, I still love doing it. \u00a0So happy reading, everybody. \u00a0I hope you enjoying reading the story as I did creating it.<\/p>\n

JAJ<\/p>\n

PS – Technical difficulties caused the blog to go MIA for several days. The Blog is back but unfortunately the comments didn’t make it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve loved musicals from the time an amateur theater troupe from Fort Huachuca brought a production of The Bells are Ringing, complete with an orchestra, to the auditorium of Greenway School years ago. \u00a0The performance was on a Sunday afternoon. I was allowed to go by myself, and I came away enchanted. But those were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-tour-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t