Karen Rose has been one of my favourite Authors for the last 10 years, so when I got the chance to be a part of her blog tour I jumped at the chance. I was super exited when I also got to ask her some questions. My Gran is also a fan of Karen, so I thought I would see if she had any questions, her input was can she write lots more books.
Last September I got to meet Karen at a book signing in Manchester she is so lovely and tiny. She stayed longer to make sure everyone got their book signed. She signed my Monster in the Closet Book. At the time she visited her Family where in staying in church and school because of the hurricane that was hitting Florida.
Karen Bio
Internationally bestselling, RITA-award winning, author Karen Rose was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She met her husband, Martin, on a blind date when they were seventeen and after they both graduated from the University of Maryland, (Karen with a degree in Chemical Engineering) they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Karen worked as an engineer for a large consumer goods company, earning two patents, but as Karen says, “scenes were roiling in my head and I couldn’t concentrate on my job so I started writing them down.
I started out writing for fun, and soon found I was hooked.”Her debut suspense novel, DON’T TELL, was released in July, 2003. Since then, she has published more than fifteen novels and two novellas. Her twentieth novel, EDGE OF DARKNESS, will be released in 2018.Karen’s books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, London’s Sunday Times, and Germany’s der Spiegel (#1), and the Irish Times, as well as lists in South Africa (#1) and Australia!
Her novels, I’M WATCHING YOU and SILENT SCREAM, received the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award for Best Romantic Suspense for 2005 and 2011. Five of her other books have been RITA finalists. To date, her books have been translated into more than twenty languages
Karen Rose Q&A
1.Which character in Death is Not Enough did you find the easiest and hardest to write?
The easiest character to write was Thorne. I was in his head long before I wrote the book. The hardest to write was Gwyn. I often hesitate about writing characters who I’ve put through a wringer in previous books. I feel a little guilty, to be honest, like I’ve done something horrible to them and now I have to live with the consequences.
2. How do you celebrate finishing/ publishing a book?
I usually sleep for a week, LOL. Many times I’ll binge on TV shows I’ve missed or read a book I’ve been saving. I’ll go out and see friends who I haven’t seen while in my cave. But mostly I sleep.
3. What do you do when you’re not writing?
I’m a voracious reader. When I’m not writing, I’ll read a book a day. I also like to watch films with my husband. We travel together. And I knit a lot.
4. What is the best piece of writing advice you have even been given?
Don’t stop to find the perfect word. Keep going. Always keep going. Then go back and revise later.
5. As an avid reader of Crime fiction, I sometimes find that look at places and think that would be good place to be Kidnapped etc. As a crime writer do you find yourself looking at the world/ situations differently?
Oh, absolutely! I see all the places the bad guys might be lurking and I’m super careful about sharing personal information etc. My children have picked up on this and have been known to say a time or two, “He/She could be a serial killer.”
6. What drew you back to Baltimore to write Monster in the Closet and Death is not Enough?
MONSTER IN THE CLOSET was a different kind of book for me. It was the first time since my first sale in 2001 that I hadn’t written a contracted book. I had a book I was supposed to be writing, but we’d recently had several deaths in our family/friends and I was emotionally spent. I needed to refill my well and revisiting some old Baltimore friends was a happy thought. One of those who died was like my surrogate dad and I wanted to write a happy ending for a father. Clay Maynard was perfect. I’d left him searching for his daughter, so I was able to reunite them.
At the end of MONSTER, I left a secondary villain uncaught. I knew I needed to go back and finish this story and poor Gwyn had been left all alone as well. So I had some loose ends to tie off and a Happily Ever After to grant, so I wrote DEATH IS NOT ENOUGH.
7. Do you ever plan to revisit the characters in Chicago and Minneapolis?
I do, actually! I have a story queue and a few characters in Chicago and Minneapolis were left hanging, so their stories are in the queue.
8. Can you give us any hints to what you are working on next?
I’m finishing the first book in a new series set in Sacramento, California! It features a few characters from other books, but mostly a whole new crew. However, there will be one crossover character from an earlier series that I think will make a lot of readers pretty happy J.
9. What books are currently in your TBR pile?
Quite a few! Unbroken, by Sloane Kennedy & Silver Silence, by Nalini Singh are next up.
10. To my family & friends I am the quiz master, in a quiz what would be your specialist topic?
My husband is the trivia expert, but if I were playing … probably “Science and Math.” After that, anything having to do with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I am a fan).
If you are interested in reading Karen Books below is the reading order, and location the books are set.
- Don’t Tell (Chicago #1)
- Have You Seen Her? (North Carolina #1)
- I’m Watching You (Chicago #2)
- Nothing to Fear (Chicago #3)
- You Can’t Hide (Chicago #4)
- Count to Ten (Chicago #5)
- Die for Me (Philadelphia #1)
- Scream for Me (Philadelphia #2)
- Kill for Me (Philadelphia #3)
- I Can See You. (Minneapolis #1)
- Silent Scream (Minneapolis #2)
- You Belong to me (Baltimore #1)
- No One Left to Tell (Baltimore #2)
- Did You Miss Me (Baltimore #3)
- Watch Your Back (Baltimore #4)
- Closer Than You Think (Cincinnati #1)
- Alone in the Dark (Cincinnati #2)
- Every Dark Corner (Cincinnati #3)
- Monster in the Closet (Baltimore #5)
- Edge of Darkness (Cincinnati #4)
- Death is Not Enough (Baltimore #6)
My Next post will be a Review of DEATH IS NOT ENOUGH.
Thanks for reading
Gem x
