Hello and welcome, Jack! Where are you from?
Hello! I’m originally from Connecticut, which is why many of my stories lovingly poke fun at conceited New Englanders. I lived in Los Angeles for ten years but moved after the pandemic shut everything down. It was hard to justify paying so much to live in a place where everything was closed. In general, it was hard to justify the cost of living in Los Angeles. I made a collage out of some of my parking tickets from when I lived there. My husband did the math, the tickets in the collage add up to over a thousand dollars. Everything is more expensive in Southern California and there is not enough parking. After moving to Colorado one of my first thoughts was “Wow, I can just park outside the grocery store? For free?”
Don’t get me wrong, I have a soft spot for LA. Instead of writing a book about LA to commemorate my time there I wrote a book series about 18th century Europe. Everyone is a rich jerk who only cares about themselves, which is the vibe in LA. I threw multiple parties where all the guests canceled the day of because they got invited to better parties. This is a real place, you guys.
What genre do you write in?
I write paranormal contemporary romance, historical romance, and I’ve recently branched out into erotica. Basically what happened is I got a bunch of letters from readers like “you remember that thirst trap you wrote into your book? I’m gonna write a fanfiction about it.” And that got me really thinking. There were a lot of pairings I left on the table in my books because they wouldn’t make sense in the stories. Like, Klaus from “The Assassin’s Captive” can flirt with his evil ex-boyfriend but if they actually hooked up it would change the course of the story too much. I started writing one-off erotica shorts to explore what would happen if I let these characters hook up. It started out like a character development exercise. What would that encounter be like? What would the actually say to each other? You know, there’s a lot of unspoken tension between a these characters and having them hook up is a way to explore the underlying dynamics. The first one I wrote, “The Assassin’s Rendezvous” totally surprised me. I was planning on making an emotionless scene where three characters hook up. The dynamics came out of nowhere. Suddenly there’s like a love triangle? I’m writing this like “wow didn’t see this coming!” Keep in mind, I am the literal author.
Tell us about your latest book?
My latest book is “The Warlock Billionaire’s Soulmate.” I like giving books titles that let the reader know what they are about, lol. I love the billionaire genre for the same reason I love historical romance, because I lowkey fantasize about a rich guy sweeping me off my feet and spoiling me. The problem is I spent too much time living in LA, and I loathe rich people now. I know what these dudes are really like, and they are terrible. I have a hard time viewing wealth without viewing the exploitation behind it.
Like how in a lot of regency romance, the male romantic leads are rich dudes who live off exploiting the tenants on their land. They have backstories that somehow make them even less sympathetic. Usually, they lament about their time as an officer in ‘the war’ (its regency so Napoleonic wars): “Ah yes the caviar during the war was very low-quality. Many hardships on campaign….”
When I read contemporary billionaire romances I always feel bad for the billionaire’s employees. I was a personal assistant for about six months in LA but I got fired because I dropped my boss’s tiny dog. Also, because I was terrible at my job. I was like “Why do I need to return your clothes? What’s wrong with them? Why did you buy them if you don’t want them? This seems very inefficient? Are you sure I need to return these? This dress costs like $300, I’m sure its very nice, why don’t you give it another try?” My boss would invite me to eat lunch with her and her other assistant and I think it was just so they could make fun of me. I was like “You know, at the burger place down the block you can get a burger, fries, and a soda for only $7? What a deal!” They are eating like $40 diet salads like “Tell us more, Jack.” She used to take naps on the couch in her office because there wasn’t enough work to do. Again, I think of those poor suffering, regency romantic leads: “The HARDSHIPS!”
I decided to write a billionaire romance that addressed some of the realities in the dynamic. The billionaire’s love interest is a bartender named Conway who gets whisked away to the billionaire’s mansion because of a prophecy that he dies at the end of the month. Conway is critical of the billionaire’s lifestyle. He asks the billionaire to stop ordering his assistants on errands at 2 am. He’s like “I can’t love someone who treats their employees like this.” There is a scene where the billionaire orders his assistants to buy Conway new clothes. The assistants resent Conway because they have to do this for him. Like when I was an assistant, doing dumb stuff like that just made me mad. Even Conway is like “its super awkward that you are buying me clothes.” I think most people who work for a living feel would feel awkward in a situation like that.
Tell us something about your (hero, heroine, or villain) that wasn’t in the book.
It was really hard to make the billionaire, Redford Archer, a likable character. Basically, Redford is a seven hundred year old warlock who uses divinations to predict financial markets. He is completely dependent on his assistants to run his personal life. As I was writing him, I kept slipping into villain-mode where I would give him some despicable character quality. There’s asides where he talks about like, buying the mansion in Colorado. He explains that he never goes there, so its just something he has. Conway is like “bro I cannot even afford my one apartment how can you afford an extra house?” Or like, Redford is disappointed that he didn’t invest in rocketships sooner because now every billionaire has one except him, womp womp.
Even his magic is not immune to this. In this universe, magic users get to decide on their own whether they identify as “good” or “evil” and Redford has decided he’s a “good warlock.” Hannah, a necromancer, points out that divination is technically considered “dark magic.” She points out all the bad stuff Redford does, like the fact that he never praises his employees because he thinks negative reinforcement makes them work harder. I made it a cornerstone of Redford’s personality that he really believes he is a good warlock, and a good person. Almost to the point of delusion. A lot of the rich guys I met in LA really believed that.
Do you listen to music when you write?
I love those hours-long Youtube playlists like “you are a princess in a secret garden” or “you are a villain in 18th century France plotting to overthrow the king.” “It’s 1758 and you’re in the French army, remembering the battle of Fontenoy 1745.” Give me some VIBES.
How does your family feel about your writing?
My husband reads everything I write except the erotica. I let him read a couple scenes from “The Warlock Billionaire’s Soulmate” but not the whole book because it’s too spicy. He fact-checks for what I call “boy accuracy.” He used to be a bartender so I let him read those scenes for bartender realness. This didn’t make it into the book but all the warlocks play Call of Duty with each other and my husband made up their gamer tags. Conway’s tag is “ConWeezy”. Redford is so in love with Conway he’d do anything he asked, even learn how to play video games. His gamer tag is: “Cpt_beefstick.” Conway made the tag up and Redford doesn’t understand its a joke. My husband decided that Kevin’s gamer tag is “Imadoctor69” and he is terrible at Call of Duty. Everyone signs off when he signs on so they don’t have to play with him. I thought that was so mean! Kevin is two thousand years old, give him a break.
Where can we find you online?
Here are my links!
Website: www.JackBrightside.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070650890430
Twitter : www.twitter.com/brightside_jack
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jackbrightside
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3YgOJlIo2HCu7kwL9mu3g
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jkbside
Author page: www.amazon.com/author/jackbrightside
Thank you for being a guest!
Thank you for having me!
Link to “The Warlock Billionaire’s Soulmate” :
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09P84BKQ7
Thank you for being a guest!