This page is for booksellers who do newsletters and media folks who want to snag a quick interview for an article (my thanks go out to you!). Please feel free to use any or all of this text. Check out the FAQ link as well. All I ask is that you include a link to my website: www.jaimerush.com.

Blurbs for TOUCHING DARKNESS  (May 2010, Avon Books)

Nicholas Braden, a psychic spy in a covert government program, suspects he's a pawn in a mad man's quest for justice. His boss's stunning assistant is too loyal to give him answers, but Olivia's secret, wild side bends his mind and fires his body. As they edge closer to the darkest truth, good and evil blur, threatening their very survival.

Very short: Olivia's always been the good girl, but a man she should see as the enemy will sweep her into a danger and passion she could never have imagined.

 

 

FOR THE OFFSPRING SERIES:

 

A group of twenty-somethings live ordinary lives, but they possess extraordinary psychic abilities. They are the Offspring of parents involved in a mysterious experiment gone awry. Sexy…dangerous…outcasts… They are being hunted by the government and others like them. Together they must find the truth and fight an enemy out to destroy them.

 

 

INTERVIEW:

 

Jaime Rush has taken her affinity for all things strange and unexplained and wrapped them into a series packed with action, suspense and romance.

 

"The Offspring series," she says, "is everything that I loved about The X-Files, Roswell, and Highlander. Now that those shows are off the air, I can only get my fix through the DVDs. So I created my own series where I can live the adventure again. Paranormal fiction, in books and television, is huge right now, and I've loved and written it for many years."

 

So the readers of series written by Christine Feehan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Kay Hooper should enjoy these books?

 

"Absolutely. I don't have creatures (vampires, werewolves) in my books, though one character surprised me with shape-shifting abilities. But any reader who is willing to suspend disbelief and enter a world that's different than his or her own will like the Offspring. What I love about my series is that it's not all that far from reality. Some people do have psychic abilities, and we don't know what our minds are capable of. I believe we could all be psychic if we exercised that part of our minds. Authors like Sonia Choquette give us ways to do this."

 

Which then begs the question: Is Jaime psychic?

 

She laughs. "I've had definite knowings in my life, like I knew I would be published, that I'd meet a wonderful guy, and that I would win a Toyota Supra. So has my mom. The concept of psychic abilities was something I grew up with and is a natural part of my life. I'd like to get more psychic, but as with anything else, that takes time and practice."

 

Jaime has also used real-life government experiments as a jumping off point for her series. She read about STARGATE, a remote viewing project that started with the CIA and was bounced between agencies before being terminated in 1995. The official results were that remote viewing wasn't worthwhile as a military tool, but several of the participants cited specific "hits" that can't be logically explained.

 

"Of course, the government wouldn't lie to us," Jaime says. "Right?"

 

Jaime goes on to say that it wasn't only the U.S. government that was exploring using psychic abilities for their military advantage. "The Soviets were very interested, and some literature implies that they actually started the wave of experiments. The U.S. was afraid that the Soviet Union was getting ahead of us, but apparently the Soviets thought we were, too. It's all fascinating. And I'm having great fun with it."

 

Mostly, though, she's enjoying the group of Offspring that she's created. "I love the group dynamics. That's why I've been summing up the series as X-Files meets Lost. Throw a group of people together who have nothing in common but extraordinary psychic abilities that are often the bane of their existence and see the sparks fly! Romance, conflict, heart-pounding action while they are hunted by a faction of the government…it's all good. The reader gets to know these people and see them grow from book to book. They'll each get their romance and to be the star of a book. After the fourth book, the overall arc will be complete with subsequent books being more stand-alone.  I've just finished book Four (BURNING DARKNESS, January 2011) and am now plotting book Five. It's been fun to see how the series has developed. I'll tell you a secret: I didn't know some of the answers to the crucial questions until I was already headlong into the series, like what the substance was that changed them. So it was a surprise to me, too."

How long do you see the series going on for? Obviously through five books.

"I'm contracted to write six books. The series can go on indefinitely the way it's coming together. Each book will still feature a new couple, though I see the other Offspring making appearances. For the next two books, after Touching Darkness, I'm finally giving two characters who have been in the series from the beginning their stories. Readers have been clamoring for Eric's story, and wow, what a ride that was to write!"

Will readers coming in after the first book have trouble catching up?

"I worked hard to catch up new readers without dumping a lot of information on them. Each book has its own problem to solve within the overall arc. And hopefully they'll enjoy it so much, they'll go back and see what they missed."

 

"My series has action, suspense, paranormal, but it's really about the people," she adds. "The characters are the heart of the story. Just like in real life, the people are what counts."

 

Look for the first two book of the series, A PERFECT DARKNESS and OUT OF THE DARKNESS, available now.

 

 

 

Jaime Rush's website: www.jaimerush.com

 

Jaime Rush's Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/jaimerush

Facebook:www.facebook.com/jaimerushauthor

Twitter: www.twitter.com/jaimerush

GoodReads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/2168689.Jaime_Rush

Harper Collins: http://harpercollins.com/authors/35145/Jaime_Rush/index.aspx