Kris Kennedy is an award-winning, New York and self-published historical romance author who writes high adventure, super-sexy historical romance. She also writes scorching hot contemporary romance under the pseudonym, Bella Love.
Q: Welcome, Kris! Thank you for being our special guest today! Please tell us about your latest release.
A: I’m so excited about THE
KING’S OUTLAW, and the whole anthology, CAPTURED BY A CELTIC WARRIOR. It has four, entirely new,
complete historical romances by me and fab historical romance authors Jennifer
Haymore, Eliza Knight, and Ms. Vonda Sinclair herself!
We each wrote a sexy story
with a captured theme, an Irish or Scottish hero, and an abduction. We also each wove the story around a
legendary dagger that has, or will, affect the lives of all the heroes and
heroines.
Q: I enjoyed writing a novella to fit into this anthology so much! What inspired your story?
A: Ummm….Celtic warriors! J A captured heroine. Outlaws.
The Crusades. A hard, desperate
man with a questionable mission, and the innocent, fiery woman who stops him in
his tracks.
THE KING’S OUTLAW took its
time in coming to me. Over the past year,
in pursuit of this Captured story, I
wrote 5 other stories, 100 pages and more of each, all intended for the
anthology, but none were right. I kept writing
and knowing I wasn’t writing the Captured
story.
Partly, that was because
there’s a jeweled dagger that’s central to all the stories, and since my story
was appearing first, I knew I wanted to set up a compelling, exciting ‘story’
for it. But I also had to keep the
storyline relatively tight—no sprawling 400 pg epics here! And of course, it had to be über-sexy. All within
a ‘captured’ theme.
I wrote and wrote, but kept
writing around the story, until I
wrote what is now the opening scene with Tadhg, the Irish hero of THE KING’S
OUTLAW. He’s on the docks in a grubby little
French seaport, trying to get out of town before he’s captured by the villain,
and, boom, the story took off.
I guess I was waiting for
hero to show up and kick someone’s arse.
And then save someone’s arse. The
heroine’s, more specifically. J
I really loved the challenge
of this story, and when it came together, it came together fast and tight.
Really fun!
Q: I love the story you ended up with! How do you choose names for your characters?
A: Names are vital for a lot
of writers, myself included! Get the
right name, the story can come together. But if you get wrong one, the character can
sort of…hang back. It’s like they’re
standing in the wings, but they didn’t hear their name called, so they never step
forward onto the story ‘stage’.
Oh, Creativity, you crazy
thing, you.
That’s as true for villains
as for heroes and heroines. The wrong villain name can make the bad guy go all
wishy-washy. Not what you want in a bad
guy!
In the process of writing one
of my other books, DEFIANT, the story
languished for a long time, lying flat on the page, and the heroine was so
‘meh’ it hurt, until the hero suddenly called her ‘Eva’ in one scene—out of the
blue!—and suddenly (another boom) there
it was, the story. Everything changed
after that. I rewrote everything but the
word ‘the.’ ;) All because my heroine showed up via her name.
(Many thanks to Jamie Lost, the hero in DEFIANT,
for seeing her so much more clearly than I.)
In my Captured story, THE KING’S
OUTLAW, the hero’s name came to me at once when he was on the docks (see
above :) ). In fact, I typed his name a
few times before I realized I’d actually named him! Still,
I toyed with renaming him, because I worried ‘Tadhg’ might be too clunky, hard
to mentally pronounce, and thereby pull readers out of the story.
But every time I tried to
change his name, he disappeared. Stepped off the stage. So, he won.
Tadhg he remained. (fyi: it’s
pronounced /Tay-g/ J )
Q: That is fascinating. I also find the character, when I'm writing, must have the right name. Did you choose the title of your book and if so how did you do it?
A: My buddy, author Erin Quinn, suggested
it! I was toying with The Outlaw or The
King’s Man, and she suggested a middle ground: THE KING’S OUTLAW.
Q: Where is your favorite place in the world?
A: Writing when it’s
flowing. :) Seriously, writing feels
like a physical space to inhabit, a creative well, or a cave?, or…I’m not sure
of the proper metaphor, but it’s definitely a ‘place’ I can enter when I’m deep
in the story, and it’s flowing.
Q: Which element of story creation is your favorite?
A: They’re layers, and while
I’m doing any one of them, I love it the most. J
Characters are vital—they’re
the life-blood of a romance—but characters only show up in the midst of a
‘story world,’ by responding to the events & challenges of that world, so
plot is essential too. Or maybe I should say, stakes are important.
Whatever is happening to the character, (i.e. the plot) has to matter A
LOT…to them.
Sitting in front of a TV
eating nachos is not going to build a compelling heroine, not unless she’s been
trying to get off nachos. (Which can be hard to do….)
You need someone to break
down the door and kidnap her (or the nachos) to get ‘compelling.’ Or you need the phone to ring and someone
tell her news that wrecks—or hints at the coming wreckage—of her life as she
knows it. Something must launch her into
situations she’s unable to avoid, situations that require actions &
thoughts she’s never thought herself capable of before.
And for that, you’ve got to
have the right tests. Situations that push her past her existing limits, that bring
out the best—and the worst—in her. That’s plot.
So, short story long…I love all
the elements!
Q: Which element of this story was the hardest for you?
A: Once I found the hero Tadhg
in THE KING’S OUTLAW, it all came
together. Up until then…I’d say
figuring out how I was going to get the backstory in was a big struggle. It was a momentous backstory, and for a long
time, I couldn’t figure out how to present it, and still keep the story moving
forward, inside a tight timeline.
Q: What is your writing process or method?
A: Oh…talking about my
writing process would be a bad idea. And
by ‘bad,’ I mean ‘horribly embarrassing.’
It’s possible I’ve been an
experiment for the Powers That Be: “Hey guys, I have a fun idea. Let’s design
the most inefficient creative being that’s ever existed, k? Winner gets a beer!”
All I can say is, I hope it
was a good beer.
Q: What’s next for you?
A: A new series, CONQUERORS
AND OUTLAWS! Eee!! They’ll all be scorching hot historical
romances with dangerous, determined heroes and the women they can’t avoid,
upend, or, in the end, resist.
THE KING’S OUTLAW is the first.
Next (and available for
pre-order now!) is CLAIMING HER, a scorching
hot Elizabethan-set story that takes place beyond the Pale in Ireland. Aodh Mac Con is a tattooed, conquering hero
bent on seduction, and all his attention is bent on Katarina, the heroine who
everyone has seriously underestimated.
And I’m also at work on a
re-release of another one of my earlier books, DEFIANT. I’m editing and honing it, and it should be
available in a few weeks!
I also plan to get back to writing
some of my contemporary romances, after I release the next few historicals. Yes,
I write contemps too!
The first contemp romance I wrote,
SPIN, was intended solely as an
experiment, a straight-up sexy story, minimal plot, just sexy fun times, with a
slightly damaged, albeit upbeat, heroine.
I got what I wanted.
The second, OUTSIDE THE LINES, definitely has more
meat on its plot bones. Sort-of a mystery, sort-of a thriller, still lots of
sexytimes with a seriously alpha businessman hero.
I plan to write more of the
second type, because it was a lot of fun!
And I’ll “meat-up” the mystery/thriller angles in future stories. Those books are under the Bella Love pseudonym (http://bellalovebooks.com/)
Q: Would you like to ask readers a question?
A:
Oh, yes! Here’s a ‘what if…’ I’ll give
you an excerpt from THE KING’S OUTLAW, and you tell me what YOU would do next!
Setup
Magdalena has just confronted a corrupt
town official and been saved from his wrath by a mysterious stranger.
Things seem to have taken a turn for the better, but Magdalena is about to
discover the true consequences of joining up with outlaws: they might do
anything. Anything at all.
Northern France,
January, 1193
…Voices broke
out from the other end of the quay. They turned. The reeve’s
assistant and a few other men were coming up the quay, one looking even more
officious than he. Following them were a few armed men.
Goddammit.
“Mother Mary,”
she whispered. “What more can go awry?”
Tadhg shared
the query.
There was
nothing for it; he made his decision in a heartbeat.
Sliding his
hands up her arms, he spun her and almost flung her up against the side of the
nearest building, then reached up and tore off her headdress.
“Good God,” she cried. Her hands flew up
to capture the silky veil, but he already had it off and was tugging off her
distinctive cloak next.
“Mon Dieu,” she gasped
next, grappling for the cloak, but he’d already fisted it and the silky veil
together in his hand, down by his hip. He stretched out an arm and
planted his palm on the wall, blocking her face from the visitors now hurrying
down the quay.
“Kiss me,” he
said.
Her shocked
face stared up at him. “I b-beg your pardon?”
“Kiss me, then
run.”
“What?”
“If you kiss
me, you’re a whore. If you stand there staring, you’re a merchant with a
pouch of stolen seals in her hand.”
A second’s
pause, then she pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
Dizziness and
heat swooped in like hunting birds for Magdalena, dispelling sense and reason
and anything else that might have been of use to her at the moment. She
had barely touched her lips to his when he descended without mercy, his mouth
hard and slanting. There was no prelude, no warning, no kindness or care,
no quarter given. She was a whore and he was having her.
He played the
ruse exceptionally well.
He plowed her
open with teeth and tongue, explored the depths of her wet mouth with sinful
abandon. She could do nothing but cling to him, her hands around his
neck, her head forced back, her spine cupped, her body…thrilling.
Madness.
Madness, all.
The hand not
holding her cloak and wimple closed around her hip and began to tug up her
skirts. She made a feeble attempt to stop him, but his grip grew fierce,
and he yanked the gown up, dragged it up the side of her leg until she felt
cool air on her shin and calf.
Her head spun
as if she’d been twirled like a top. Picked up by a bird and sent flying.
Her knees grew
weak, but she did not break that kiss. She could not. He’d become a field of energy, the way metal
filings pulled toward iron, or one drop of water clings to another. She
was affixed to his kiss, to his chest, which she’d somehow pressed up against,
to his shoulders, which she’d somehow wrapped her arms around, to his tongue,
which was tangled with hers, his hot male breath, his cunning male hand, his
hard male knee now making all manner of incursions between her thighs, and she,
she, reveling in it.
***
So,
Reader, tell me…what do you do next?
One commenter will win either a copy of DEFIANT OR CLAIMING HER. (Winner's choice.) EVERYONE WHO ENTERS, PLEASE LEAVE SOME FORM OF YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS SO WE CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU WIN. THANKS!
Please visit Kris at: http://kriskennedy.net
CAPTURED BY A CELTIC WARRIOR is coming out in a week, and you can preorder now,
at a special preorder price of 99 cents! It is available at these online book retailers!
Camille
sent another quick glance toward the brawny Highlander at the other table. In
truth, she could hardly keep her eyes off him. Short beard stubble darkened and
defined his stubborn jawline. His shoulders were as broad as one of the distant
Cairngorms. His proud and confident bearing told her he was someone of
importance, perhaps a leader. A chief? His clothes did not look new or expensive,
however. Mayhap a war leader? Of a certainty, he appeared to be a strong
warrior.
