Böcker av Jadi Campbell

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 Screen Craft Cinematic Book Competition. Prepare to meet Todd, a hero with dangerous fantasies. Coreen is trapped in a cult. Ronnie dreams other people's futures. Guy waits for disaster at a Christmas Market. And Lynn, the connecting thread, takes a train with a seductive man who has a secret identity. As much as we like to believe our lives have clear rules and goals, events occur that throw all our plans off-kilter. Be careful when you flirt with a stranger - or climb in a window. Watch out, when your family starts to believe the world is coming to an end. And pay attention to your dreams, because sometimes they predict the future. Even random decisions have huge consequences: you can decide to take the train rather than fly, and still end up sailing through the air. Tsunami Cowboys is written in vivid, graceful prose that makes the improbable more than real, and the unimaginable far too easy to imagine. By turns terrifying and funny, this is the story of people riding life's waves... the tsunami cowboys.

Broken In: A Novel in Stories was a semifinalist for the Hidden River Arts 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award and Finalist for Greece's 2021 Eyelands Book Award (Short Stories). The chapters are casual but carefully arranged spokes, radiating out from a rainy evening. At first glance it's the story of an accident near JJ's Bistro involving a drunk driver and some parked cars. With each chapter, the picture grows more complex. Each character faces the challenge of being broken in, one way or another.... Gabe is the mixed-race bartender with a sore heart. Lisa is about to confront the hyper-sexual reality of Bangkok. Rob died, because ambulance and police were all racing to the scene. A burglar schemes to steal Jeff's sanity. A star chef knows it's her fault that a man is dead. Jeremy should tell his wife he has an incurable disease. Sally mourns her missing children. What seemed so clear cut (a rainy night, bistro patrons, an accident) is an event with layers, and consequences, and after-effects. The circles will go on rippling long after the reader finishes the book.

Rich and Nicole Gleason are a typical married couple: three kids, a dog, a cat, a home mortgage. They've drifted apart, consumed by family, jobs, and the never-ending chore of holding things together. Until a summer holiday when Rich and the kids go camping without cell phones - and without Nicole. She attends a convention in San Francisco and visits Glen, her brother's oldest, best friend. While her family explores the great outdoors, a cyberattack lames the planet. Nicole's plan is to reunite with her family in Seattle. But now planes aren't flying, and she can't reach Rich and the children. Nicole and Glen have renewed the closeness of childhood friends... and an unplanned, new intimacy as lovers. It's complicated. They embark on a road trip to Seattle. The miles fall away as Glen reveals the tragic story of his ex-wife and scarred son. Two stories, read aloud on the long drive, frame their tale: a temple in India and a blizzard in northern Sweden. The stories are like Glen and Nicole: hot, and cold, and searching on the road for a place between extremes.How do we heal from an unbearable loss or unfulfilled desires? What happens when you get an unlooked-for chance? Maybe being grounded is when we recognize possibility and responsibility in relationship to each other. Maybe being grounded is facing our lives and choices square on, without flinching. And maybe, just maybe, being grounded is the state between decisions where we experience a non-judgmental, all-encompassing state of grace. Reviewed by Laura R. Brush for Readers' Favorite: Grounded, a captivating novel by Jadi Campbell, pulls you into the subtly complex world of Rich and Nicole Gleason, a married couple whose unity is on the brink of collapse despite sharing three children. Their lives, once intertwined, now seem to be diverging. They attempt to maintain the facade of a harmonious family but ultimately choose to embark on separate journeys during a summer break. Rich ventures into an untamed wilderness in the West for a camping trip with their children, while Nicole finds herself in the bustling corporate scene of a convention in San Francisco. As fate would have it, disaster strikes, enveloping their lives in an air of uncertainty and suspense. Nicole is ensnared in a web of unforeseen circumstances that thwart her attempts to reconnect with her family, intensifying the tension of her precarious situation. Editorial Review: In Jadi Campbell's intricate narrative, the storyline takes an intriguing turn when Nicole reconnects with Glen, a companion from her early years. Their joint endeavor to find Nicole's family becomes a journey of self-discovery, leading them to introspectively examine their existence. They are caught in a dilemma and must grapple with the burden of their obligations while acknowledging the fragility of their opportunities and paths. Their story is a poignant portrayal of unattainable desire and the profound grief of irrevocable loss. The story's title, Grounded, encapsulates the dichotomy that they face: the choice between confronting life's stark realities or pursuing an alternative course of existence. It is a fascinating exploration of the human condition, a testament to the complexities of choice and consequence. 4 Stars.

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, 2021 Top Shelf Award Runner-Up, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.This collection is Jadi Campbell's fourth book and her first finished work in four years. She completed many of these stories during the coronavirus lockdown. From tales of Eddie, high on LSD and trapped by "What Died in the Fridge", and a compulsive gambler hiding during a Category Five storm in "Better Weather", to the luminous title story of two strangers meeting by chance in the backwoods during a pandemic, her stories describe the pain and humor of being alive.Included in this collection are "Rules to Live By", a funny and deeply thoughtful story about what we choose to teach our children. The author examines our responsibility to others when a hunter is shot and left for dead in "The Green Under the Snow". In "Do Dreams Float?" a wife considers a hit-man's offer of revenge. And the eternal search for happiness is carried out by a gloomy little girl nicknamed "Princess Rain Clouds".In ten stories, Campbell paints vivid descriptions of everyday life in strange times. Whether during the upheaval of the last century or the present COVID-19 crisis, The Trail Back Out guides the reader through a labyrinth of questions about how to live and love.