Novels of love, class, and power

Jeff Nelson

Stories set in worlds most people only glimpse from the outside — old-money California, dynastic Italian cinema, the inherited dangers of Mexican wealth.

The Books

Available Now & Coming Soon

The Montecito Rules

She was meant to be invisible. He refused to look away.

Sofia Reyes serves the champagne in Montecito. She's not supposed to drink it — and she's definitely not supposed to fall for the heir.

Fault Lines

He came to make a film. He might not live to finish it.

A noir thriller set in 1985 Mexico City — where Hollywood ambition collides with cartel power, and an earthquake shatters everything that wasn't already broken.

Lights, Camera, Roma

Love and Power in Italy's Greatest Film Dynasty

Coming June 4, 2026

A young American producer arrives in Rome with $120,000 in cash and a Coca-Cola commercial to make. Then Valentina walks into the casting session and the job stops being the point.

Jackie Kennedy's Stylist

From Cuban Refugee to the Inner Circles of Power, Beauty, and Fame

Coming June 18, 2026

An unprecedented look inside the private lives of America's most powerful women — told by the man who held their secrets. A memoir by Peter Lamas with Jeff Nelson.

About Jeff

Jeff Nelson grew up on the edges of old-money California, where wealth was quiet, rules were unspoken, and the line between the people who belonged and the people who served was absolute. His career in television production took him from helicopters in Colorado to Italian train crossings outside Rome — carrying briefcases of cash, managing crews in languages he was still learning, and discovering that the line between work and something far more personal was often thinner than it seemed.

His novels draw from that world — its charm, its cruelty, and its contradiction.