Title: JUMP: A New Adult Clean Romance Equestrian Novel (JUMP #1)
Author: Tiffany Noelle Chacon
Year Published: 2023
Publisher: Write Horse Publishing
What's it about?: Mila's sister had a life-changing accident that affected everything in Mila's life. Every relationship in her life is changed, and she might be losing her love of show jumping - the only thing she ever wanted to do. Mila works to fix broken relationships, build new ones, and learn who she is now.
Keep reading to hear about author Tiffany Noelle Chacon's writing process!
Thoughts:
Off Course is the prequel to JUMP that I happened upon one day. One night I couldn't sleep so I pulled up Off Course on my Kindle to read, and I finished it before I finally went to sleep. Honestly, I went into it only knowing it was about horses, but it ended up speaking to me on such a deep level. I had to keep reading Mila and Anya's story, so I went to check out JUMP the next day, and it turned out to be publication day! How crazy and cool is that?
I immediately bought JUMP on Kindle and started reading it.
I love JUMP. It's hard to put my feelings for this book into words. In some ways I feel very seen because there are situations in JUMP that are similar to my own experience, yet completely different. I connected with Mila on a deep level and am currently learning the same lessons she learns throughout the book.
"It's easy to look back and have regrets; it's a lot harder to actually learn from those regrets."
Mila goes through a lot. Including watching her sister's horse fall then seeing her sister laying on the ground not moving and later having to go back into that same arena on the same horse to jump a similar course. Everything Mila has seen is similar to author Tiffany Noelle Chacon's own life.
Chacon told me that to help understand Mila's PTSD she "drew from personal experiences and extrapolated on them - I've had my fair share of pretty traumatic horse-related accidents. Some were harder than others to move on from. One time, a new horse I was training ran out on a jump with me and ran underneath a tree-a branch took me right out of the saddle, knocking me unconscious. Another time during a competition, my horse hit a top pole, it got stuck between his legs and he couldn't land properly. He ended up flipping on top of me. Thankfully I only walked away sore (with broken sunglasses!) but the fall shook me up quite a bit. I also have a very distinct memory of waiting at the in-gate at a horse show and seeing the rider in front of me fall, hit her head and have a Grand Mal seizure right in front of me. I had to go in the ring with that visual in my head! Some of these falls haunted me, and I was able to use that experience to write about Mila's difficulty dealing with her sister's accident."
In addition to drawing from her own experiences, Chacon "spoke with [her] therapist about the effects of PTSD and [her therapist] was generous enough to read the book and give [her] feedback."
The core theme of JUMP is facing fears. Mila has to overcome her fear of having an accident like her sister in order to become the rider she always wanted to be. Chacon once again drew from her own experiences to write about Mila's fears. She said, "This book was about facing my own fears as much as Mila facing hers! I got my Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing back in 2016 and have been trying to publish a novel ever since then. I've written (and re-written, and re-written...) multiple books, doing everything in my power to get a literary agent. I've flown to New York on several occasions, gone to every conference I could afford, queried my heart out-only to get rejection after rejection. I started writing JUMP because I was afraid that if I didn't write this book, I wouldn't write anymore. And by the time I finished the first draft, I felt something I'd never felt before: the courage to believe in myself and to publish this book on my own, without any publisher backing me. That was terrifying! But if I hadn't written this book, I'm not sure I ever would have gotten there. Mila's journey to find freedom even in the face of fear helped me to face my own fears and put myself out there for the world to read. And I'm so glad I did."
Mila is not the only character in JUMP that required special research. Mila's sister Anya became tetraplegic, meaning she lost the ability to move her body below her neck. This is one of the key parts of JUMP that makes it feel like this book was written for me. Two of my family members became quadriplegic due to different car accidents. I honestly think JUMP is the first book I've read that has a paraplegic character (other than The Horsewoman by James Patterson and Mike Lupica).
To understand Anya's disability, Chacon asked her mother, who is a doctor, "a lot of questions about some of the nitty-gritty details." She also "read quite a bit online, including some very enlightening blog posts from paraplegics." She even "used ChatGPT for specific questions [she] couldn't find answers to-one of the benefits of AI!" Chacon's research on paraplegia continues as Anya has a larger role in FALL, the sequel to JUMP.
Along with research, Chacon was once again able to draw from her own experiences to write Anya's story. She experienced chronic pain and illness in her own life: "When I was in my mid-20s, I went from being a very healthy, active person to essentially becoming crippled by debilitating pain. I had to walk with a cane, and sometimes could barely get out of bed. My life ground to a halt. Even though I was the primary sufferer, my husband honestly suffers just as I do. And it's something that has affected almost every aspect of our lives. Any kind of trauma like this-whether it's pain, illness, disability, or mental health battles-has a trickle-down effect on the lives of the people around that person. It's a challenge and I rarely read about the realities of this in fiction, so I'm happy to be able to put that out in the world for people to get a glimpse of what that might be like. That's the beauty of reading-it allows us to live in another person's shoes for a time, and that makes us more empathetic and understanding of what others go through. I've definitely learned a lot from being in Mila and Anya's shoes and I believe that's made me a more caring and compassionate person. Everyone is struggling on some level, even if we can't see it."
"That's the thing about tragedies like this - everyone else eventually moves on, but you have to live with it."
The writing in JUMP is beautiful. It flows wonderfully and causes me to become fully immersed in the story and feel all the emotions. I was cheering Mila on and yelling at her throughout the story.
One way Chacon worked through this story and figured out what happened was to write from different characters' points of view. Mila is the narrator of JUMP, but Chacon "wrote a little from Michael and Amber's perspectives to try to understand them better, and I did the same for Alex-not intending to publish it. But once I wrote from Alex's perspective, I thought, People have got to read this! I don't normally feel that way about what I write, so I knew it was something special. The love that he has for Mila kind of blew me away." Chacon shares some scenes from Alex's point of view as a bonus at the end of the book and they really helped me to believe in myself. From Mila's point of view, Alex always says and does the right thing. From Alex's point of view, he's unsure of himself and his ability to comfort Mila. You never know how what you say can affect others.
The wonderful writing did not happen by accident. Chacon worked hard in editing her novel. She told me, "Editing is definitely harder for me (than writing) -I already know what I want to say, so it's easy to gloss over mistakes. Also, the newness of the story is gone so it takes a lot of discipline to sit and edit, to make the story the best that it can be. But it's so worth it."
As she mentioned, Chacon wrote other books before JUMP but they all got rejected as she tried to publish them traditionally. That made me wonder what the difference between getting a rejection and editing notes feels like because both can feel like a personal attack.
Chacon told me, "I was so nervous to get edits back on JUMP - but I was absolutely committed to making this book the best that it could possibly be. I was pleasantly surprised by my editor's comments - she totally ‘got' the book. She preserved my voice as the writer, while also pushing me to make it even better. It was actually a very refreshing process because I could see these moments that were made a hundred times better for the reader-and that's worth every ounce of difficulty that came before that. It's all about the end goal-when I got rejections from the agents, I couldn't see the end in sight. Whereas with the edits from my editor, I could see that the end goal was to have a better book, one that would resonate with readers in the way I wanted it to."
She described the difference in a way that I think every author should experience: "I think the difference between the rejections versus the edits is that my editor was on my side. She saw what I was trying to do with this book and believed in my ability to accomplish that. I hadn't experienced that before, and I'm so grateful that I found that. I do think that finding an editor is a little bit like finding an agent in the sense that you have to find one that ‘gets' you and your work and who believes in you. Although I never found that in an agent, I'm so grateful I found that in my editor!"
I love this book. I enjoyed reading it so much. I connected so much to Mila. I literally got giddy with excitement at some of the events in the novel! This is an amazing debut novel and I cannot wait for the next book!
Thank you, Tiffany, for writing this story and being brave enough to share it. It has touched my heart.
Thank you, Tiffany, for taking the time to answer my questions.
What book has touched you on a deep level?
Find JUMP here.
Learn more about author Tiffany Noelle Chacon here.
Find more book recommendations here.