Hello
SASSE Readers, let’s welcome Kennedy Ryan to our SASSE World. Pull up a chair
and tell me if you prefer pizza or grilled chicken salad on fresh spinach
leaves for our little chat.
Kennedy: Unfortunately, pizza is my all-time favorite
food! Toppings: feta, mushrooms &
spinach, please! J
SASSE:
Oh, yes, serve me up a slice. My daughter and I have it every Friday. Now that our mouths are full of ooey-gooey, cheesy delight, tell the readers a little about yourself. How did you get into writing? Have
you always thought you would be a romance writer?
Kennedy: I always knew I would write fiction. As a
little girl, while the other kids were playing kick ball, I would go to my
grandmother’s back porch, use her mop as my long-haired heroine, and make up
stories. I started writing poetry, editorials, short stories for newspapers in
high school, and my degree is in journalism, so I got sidetracked by true
stories for awhile. I still do some non-fiction, but am really enjoying writing
love stories.
SASSE:
What was the first romance book you ever read? What did you think? What was
your first impression of the genre?
Kennedy: Gosh, I think
it was Kathleen Woodiwiss, The Wolf and
the Dove. I was blown away. I love history, so the medieval era fascinated
me. And I loved Wulfgar, of course. Woodiwiss is a pioneer in the romance
genre, so I started with the best! I had to smuggle them into my house because
my mom wouldn’t let me read them. So they were always tucked under mattresses
and stashed in closets. I devoured them. I’d read literally until the sun came
up, roll out of bed, go right to school. I loved them.
SASSE: How did you come up with the idea about the
Bennett series?
Kennedy: I had put my
dream of writing fiction on the shelf. My son has autism, and assisting him and
then starting a foundation for families living with autism consumed the last
decade of my life. Everything I read was about Autism and advocacy. My son,
like a lot of ASD kids, adores water, and during the summer, we are at some
body of water every night. Two summers ago, it was the Chatahoochee River. This
scene came to me of a girl standing between these two best friends ready to
come to blows over her. I started fleshing that out every night we’d go, and
their story took place in a fictional town called Rivermont, inspired by those
long summer nights entertaining my son by the river.
SASSE:
Are there more Bennetts to come after the first two?
Kennedy: Oh, gosh, yes.
Well, one more. I just turned book 3, BE
MINE FOREVER, in to my editor. It releases on my son’s birthday, February
3! It is part of the series, but will be able to be read as a standalone.
SASSE:
Contemporary romance is a classic, what do bring in your stories to keep it
fresh?
Kennedy: I like to step
outside of some of the boxes people expect. I don’t rescue my characters from
those situations that make them, and often the reader, uncomfortable. For
example, and you could find this out in a preview on Amazon, so it’s not much
of a spoiler. WHEN YOU ARE MINE opens
with the hero, Walsh, offering the best man toast at his best friend’s
wedding…to the heroine, Kerris. The woman Walsh is in love with. I tell you
from the beginning, this is going to be messy. No one is going to stop this
wedding at the last minute. She’s going through with it, and you’ll have to
sort this out with me. I think making those decisions, taking those turns that
readers don’t expect, keeps things fresh. I also love diverse casts. So often,
stories are homogenous, which is fine, but we are less and less homogenous as a
society. The lines are blurrled and blended. I choose to write stories that
reflect those different hues and that cultural shift. Kerris and Cam, her
husband, are both multi-racial characters. It is mentioned, you know it, but it
is not the focal point of the story. You’ll always find characters of diverse
backgrounds in my books.
SASSE:
In When You are Mine, Kerris and
Walsh has such strong chemistry and found themselves in a situation that seems
impossible. How hard of a challenge was it to write such a complicated love
situation as theirs? Make readers root for them.
Kennedy: The first
thing I had to do was set aside my judgments. I allowed the story to unfold
between them without judging their emotions. I was also very disciplined in how
much of Cam’s, Kerris’s husband and Walsh’s best friend’s, perspective you were allowed as readers. When
you only hear from Walsh and Kerris, it becomes easier to sympathize with them
because you are a part of their struggle. How hard they fight their feelings
for one another. So many readers said they hated how I made them want something
they shouldn’t want: For Kerris to choose Walsh over her husband. I would never
want that in real life either! But I needed readers to feel the pull as
strongly as the characters did so they would understand the tension they’re
experiencing.
SASSE:
Tell the readers what they can expect with book two Loving You Always when it comes out October 7th.
Kennedy: Book 1 is pretty angsty. There is more of
that, but you can expect a lot of growth from these characters. The three books
span about six years. Book 1 introduces the characters at their genesis. They
are the most immature in this first book, fresh out of college. LOVING YOU ALWAYS picks up mere weeks
after WHEN YOU ARE MINE ends. Kerris
especially has to figure out what she really wants, how to make things right in
the wake of mistakes she made.
Everything comes to a head in this book. It is not an easy road to
happily ever after, wherever she lands, and there are no easy choices. Everyone
will be hurt, and she has to take responsibility for her feelings and actions.
SASSE:
Thank you Kennedy, this has been just delightful to sit back with you and learn
a little more about you and your story.
SASSE READERS DON'T MISS THE PARTY AND CONTEST!!
Two-Week
Book Party!!
There’s
a group reading WHEN YOU ARE MINE together! Everyone in the group qualifies to
win a $100 VISA Gift Card, or a prize pack of signed books from Kristen Ashley,
Jill Shalvis, Rochelle Alers, and Jessica Sorensen. We’ll award prizes EVERY
DAY! Great guest authors will make appearances EVERY DAY!
Learn more about Kennedy Ryan:
Kennedy Ryan writes
contemporary romance and women's fiction. She always give her characters their
happily ever after, but loves to make them work for it! In an alternative
universe and under her government issue name, Tina Dula, she is a wife to the
love of her life, mom to a special, beautiful son, and a friend to those living
with autism through her foundation Myles-A-Part, serving Georgia families.
Her writings on Autism
have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and she has been featured
on the Montel Williams
Show, NPR, Headline News and others. She is splitting 25%
of her royalties between donations for her foundation, and to her
national charitable partner, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA).
Website: http://kennedyryanwrites.com/
