Monthly Archives: May 2021

Story Behind the Story: The Way Home by Eliana West

A letter from the past will change their future… For this story, Eliana West was inspired by a conversation about family history with her sister, and the way these things happen sometimes, the story she wanted to write bloomed right then and there! The result is a delightful novel, providing a happily ever after for two characters whose heritages are echoed in America’s history.

Eliana West says interracial romance isn’t just for Black readers.

What’s the theme behind your story? 

The theme for all of the books in my Heart of Colton series is forgiveness. These are stories about forgiveness, redemption and of course love.

What’s the logline?

A letter from the past will change their future.

What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you?

I was talking with my sister about our family history and the story came to me almost fully formed. I also wanted to figure out a way to tell a story about the complex relationships between the descendants of enslaved people and the descendants of those who enslaved them. 

How did the original idea change as you went along?

My hero’s backstory changed quite a bit and new characters that evolved as the story went along, secondary characters that really became crucial to the story. Otherwise, the bones of the story have always stayed the same. 

How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?

Taylor Colton is kind of a combination of the Property Brothers and Ben Napier from Hometown on HGTV. For all of his success, he’s pretty insecure. When I had the idea for Taylor, I pictured him as a hero who struggles, not wanting to be the hero at first. For Josephine Martin, I wanted a heroine who worked in tech and a character with a strong will and a big heart. Ada Mae is based on my great aunt, and I drew a lot of inspiration from her personality and life. 

Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or why not?

The first draft of this story was just terrible and I had a point where I didn’t think I could salvage it. I took my time and did a major rewrite and now I’m so pleased with the result. I’m not sure at this point that I would do anything different.

Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?

Oh boy, that’s a good question. Maybe Chris Evans for Taylor Colton, and Jaylen Barron for Josephine Martin.

What else do you want readers to know?

What I’d like readers to know is that interracial romance isn’t just for Black readers. Interracial romance is for any reader; diverse romance is just that diverse. If you haven’t read an interracial romance, give one a try. 

My books may be a challenging story for some people. I write stories that confront some uncomfortable aspects of race and history. But at the end of the day, these are romances, love always wins.  

Bio

Eliana West writes contemporary interracial romance. Her first book, The Way Forward, establishing the Heart of Colton series, was published by Tule Publishing in 2020. When not writing, Eliana can be found exploring the many wineries in Oregon and Washington with her husband, traveling around in Bianca, their vintage Volkswagen Westfalia. She is the founder of Writers for Diversity (https://www.facebook.com/groups/writersfordiversity), a community for writers of all genres, creating diverse characters and worlds. Check out www.elianawest.com

Buy link

https://books2read.com/u/38RpRZ

Story Behind the Story: Denied by Mary Keliikoa

Writers of mysteries have to calculate a lot of odds. What are the chances a clue introduced early will be too big and lead to an unsurprising reveal? What are the probabilities of success for the novel if a secondary character isn’t appealing enough? And there’s always the risk of not walking the line deftly enough between revealing too much information and providing too little information. Mary Keliikoa tackles all in her latest novel, working from a solid framework while adapting new ideas on the fly. 

What’s the theme behind your story? 

The theme is really about how people are not always who we believe them to be. In Denied, Kelly Pruett finds she has a bit of a misperception about her father, and Kelly’s client, after a falling out with her own father, will find some truths about him as well. In fact, thinking about it, the entire book is filled with characters who present differently than who they might be—which is the foundation of a mystery, right?

What’s the logline?

The search for a missing father and the truth puts PI Kelly Pruett into a high-risk game of chance with a killer willing to gamble everything to win. 

What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you? 

Mary Keliikoa didn’t change her framework while writing her latest mystery, but left herself room to write by the seat of her pants.

That’s hard to pinpoint exactly, but I’ve always loved the iconic feel of Portland Meadows, which is a horse racing track. It had been around for decades, and I thought the idea of it being a place for pooling lots of different characters around gambling and debt and what we do when we get into trouble around those things, started niggling in my mind. From there, the story just started coming in. What happens if you do have debt, and what other areas in your world will you leverage to get out of it.  

How did the original idea change as you went along?

The original idea really did not change. I knew pretty much from the beginning how I wanted it to go—what the motivations were and the twists. 

How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?

Denied is book 2 in a series, so many of the characters were developed in book 1. But as for the character specific to Denied, they tended to show up! For instance, when I was writing the scene where Kelly is checking out Vince’s house to see when he might have last been there, Vince’s girlfriend showed up. I hadn’t necessarily intended for her to show, but she did with all of her characteristics intact. I tend to fall on the side of pantster—writing the story without having a plot set in place—and that is definitely the fun of that. My brain works best when my fingers are moving, and it’s a surprise sometimes just as much for me as my readers when certain people decide they want to join the party.

Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story? Why or why not?

Denied is my favorite of the series, and it’s because it really dives into a subject that I care about—healing relationships with parent and child. There is nothing I would change in the book and I feel that it has a lot of heart.  

Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?  

I like Reese Witherspoon for Kelly Pruett, Mark Ruffalo for Jeff, her ex, maybe a younger version of Ellen Burstyn for Arlene, and Chris Hemsworth for Kyle. And Floyd could be played by any lovable basset hound!

What else do you want readers to know?

Just that I think you’ll really enjoy Kelly’s journey. She’s very much trying to make her way in the world as a single mom of a deaf daughter, and stepping outside of her father’s shadow. He was a great investigator, and she is always trying to measure up. But in this book, she has a little help from her sidekick basset hound, Floyd, and her love interest. And she finds out some big truths about what family means. If you enjoy Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich, I think you’ll enjoy Denied!

Bio

Mary Keliikoa is the author of the Lefty- and Agatha award-nominated PI Kelly Pruett mystery series and the upcoming Misty Pines mystery series, featuring Sheriff Jax Turner, slated for release in September 2022. Her short stories have appeared in Woman’s World and in the anthology Peace, Love and Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Music of the ‘60s. A Pacific Northwest native, she has spent a part of her life working around lawyers. Combining her love of the legal scene and books, she creates a twisting mystery where justice prevails.

When not in Washington, you can find Mary on the beach in Hawaii where she and her husband recharge. But even under the palm trees and blazing sun, she’s plotting her next murder—novel, that is.

Buy links

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/books/denied-9781603817837/9781603817837

B&N:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/denied-mary-keliikoa/1138693315

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/denied-9

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Denied-Mary-Keliikoa-ebook/dp/B08V3G2Z73

Story Behind the Story: Coming Home by Carmen Cook

What’s the theme behind your story?

Friendship and redemption. All my stories seem to have underlying “The family you make” theme, and that’s definitely part of Coming Home as well. But more, it’s about having the ability to recreate yourself, no matter the circumstances.

What’s the logline?

Unexpected Risks. Unconditional Love.

What were you thinking about or what was happening when the idea occurred to you?

Coming Home, which brings a music superstar back home to rediscover her roots and love, is the next novel in Carmen Cook’s Sapphire Creek series.

These characters have been lingering with me for a long time — through several other books, but remaining in the background. I’d been thinking about what would get Erin Chase to stop touring and spend some solid time in Sapphire Creek rather than any of her other homes around the world. She needed to be wounded in a way that Sapphire Creek was the only place she would want to be. And then there’s no-nonsense Zach, who has a habit of fixing everything for everyone around him. What in the world would he do with this superstar who doesn’t want to be fixed? With someone who makes their living making music, when he’s hiding the secret that his hearing has been damaged. They’re so similar in some ways, but face life in completely different ways. It’s been fun to play with that part of each of them.

How did the original idea change as you went along?

The subplot of the drugs in the small town of Sapphire Creek starting in book 1, Coming in Hot. I hadn’t really planned on focusing so much on it, but readers really want that plotline to be tied up. They want to know who the villain is, so even though I knew, I needed to start thinking of a way to incorporate that more heavily into the story (which led to a couple of short stories as well, so I could set up the needed characters).

How did you conceive of your characters for this story and how did they change?

Both Erin and Zach were introduced in earlier stories. Erin, specifically, has changed the most because her entire world was flipped on his head after the bus crash made her question everything in her life. That was pretty obvious and external. Zach has changed a little more subtly. Partly because he hasn’t been around the cast of characters as often so everyone is getting to know him again.

Are you pleased with the results, or do you wish you had done anything differently in the story?

Why or why not? I am pleased with the results. As I mentioned earlier, the path to this story shifted quite a bit, and toss in a global pandemic that threw off my writing schedule, I’m very pleased with how the story shaped up.

Who would play your leads in the movie if (when!) you make a deal?

Oh gosh, that’s a hard question. I loosely modeled Erin after Carrie Underwood. For Zach…maybe a scruffed-up Justin Theroux.

What else do you want readers to know?

I do live readings on Instagram each Sunday at 10 am Pacific, featuring excerpts of different authors’ stories. I call it Revenge Garden Readings (or Readings from the Revenge Garden — I go back and forth) and have an IGTV channel featuring these readings. Early on in the pandemic, I was looking for a way to connect with readers and other authors and decided to (virtually) invite everyone to hang out in the garden with me. It’s been so much fun, and I’d love to have everyone join me. You can find me at https://www.instagram.com/carmencook_/

Bio

Carmen Cook grew up in Montana, riding horses and dreaming of life beyond the mountains. As soon as she could, she started traveling, heading across the country for college before backpacking through Europe. She then moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she promptly threw down some pretty deep roots by getting married and having kids. It wasn’t long before her imagination started running away with her and she began to write. Each Sunday she hosts Readings from the Revenge Garden on IGTV. Follow #ReadingsFromTheRevengeGarden to stay up to date on all the readings and featured authors.

Visit www.carmencooknovels.com to sign up for her newsletter to keep in touch.

Buy link

https://books2read.com/u/mgzVyz