Monday, January 10, 2011

Welcome Kinsey Holley to BWB! {Guest Post}

When I decided I wanted to write a werewolf romance a few years ago, I only had one character and one idea to start with.

The character was a young woman I’d been carrying around in my head for a while. (What? No, believe me—this is totally normal for a writer.) She gave her life for a little boy she loved very much, by throwing herself in front of his drunk and violent werewolf stepfather.

The stepfather killed her, and it changed her whole life.
The idea was that, in my world, werewolves are out and living openly among humans. They’re fully assimilated into American society (the situation varies in other countries). There are no female werewolves, so werewolves marry human women, have kids—some werewolves, some not—and raise their families among humans.
And my werewolves would not be borderline psychopaths forever on the cusp of bloody rampages. I figured, if they’d managed to live and evolve alongside us in secret for millennia, legends and superstitions being the only hint of their existence, then they must have been good at passing for human, right? Which meant they could control themselves. Granted, alphas were more prone to violence than betas, but still—they couldn’t go around ripping chunks of flesh out of everyone who looked at them cross-eyed. People would have noticed a long time ago.
So once I had my heroine and my werewolves, I just had to write the story. It only took me two years and many nights on my sisters-in-law’s porches drinking wine or, when I got really stuck, margaritas, and asking them plaintively: But how did she die? What’s the big secret Cade’s mother was hiding? And what’s the deal with Declan?
They never told me—they always made me figure it out for myself. But they were good for feedback and constructive criticism, and the alcohol and food were always welcome.
Along the way I got frustrated and started looking for an excuse to stop. So when Samhain put out a call for a shapeshifting anthology, I thought why not, I’ve already got this cool world built, and Cade’s not doing what I want him to, so let’s put this aside and try a novella.

Kiss and Kin: A Sexy Shifter story
Kiss and Kin sort of fell out of my head. It came to me so much more easily than Rocky Mountain Howl, which is what Yours, Mine and Howls was called for two years before my editor decided it wasn’t romance-y enough.
And Kiss and Kin got published, and it sold very well for a first book and got good reviews. And that gave me the boost I needed to finish Yours, Mine and Howls.
It’s a little darker than Kiss and Kin. The characters are tangentially related to characters in Kiss and Kin, but the latter don’t make any appearances.
I don’t think it will take me two years to write the next book in the Werewolves in Love series. I’ve already got another novella, Ready to Run, scheduled for August release (Nick Wargman and his assistant TJ are in it).
I’ve just started writing Seth’s story—you’ll meet him in Yours, Mine and Howls. He’s a quiet one, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. Dec will get his own story, as will Michael.
And, yes, Nick and TJ too…
I really (really, really) hope you like Yours, Mine and Howls.
If you’d like to know the story of Cade’s nanny troubles, briefly alluded to in the book, you can go here and read Yours, Mine and Howls: The Nanny Years, for free.
Lastly, and most importantly, I’d like to thank Blog with Bite for highlighting Yours, Mine and Howls this month. I really appreciate it.
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Kinsey Holley lives in Houston Texas, where a lot of people know about her Secret Romance Writer Identity. Hopefully those people don’t include her mother or the folks she goes to church with. She’s married to the Hub, mommy to the Diva, and works part time as a law librarian.
Kinsey takes her mail at kinseywholley@live.com, lives at www.kinseyholley.com and http://ninenaughtynovelists.blogspot.com, and hangs out way too much at

Twitter (@kinseyholley).
Pop round and say hi sometime.


3 comments:

Kinsey Holley said...

Thanks for letting me crash here today!

LJ said...

I love the cover of Yours, Mine, and Howls. It's very intriguing. Great guest post. Being a new writer, I find it motivational to hear about how a book came about. This one is definitely going on my TBR list!

Kinsey Holley said...

Thanks LJ! The cover artist is Kanaxa - I asked for her and was thrilled when they assigned it to her. She's great.

www.kanaxa.com