Kerry Anne King chats about her latest release, Everything You Are, as well as a bit about her active life outside of writing. Please welcome, Kerry!
Author: Kerry Anne King
Book Title: Everything You Are
Book Genre: Women’s Fiction
Release Date: October 1, 2019
Publisher: Lake Union
Hi Kerry! How would you describe your latest book?
Everything You Are is the story of three people and a cello, all bound together by tragedy, broken promises, and a touch of magic—can music bring them healing, forgiveness, and love?
What inspired the idea for Everything You Are and how close is the end product to that seed of an idea?
The original idea started with a female character caring for her wounded war veteran brother and her alcoholic father. She played a cello, and the cello was determined to have a personality and a soul. The book shifted a great deal, in fact. In the final version, the original character still has a point of view voice, but she is a secondary character and a teenager, while her father has taken on a much more dominant role. But all of the characters revolve around the cello.
How has your real life (day job, hobbies, etc.) informed Everything You Are?
I’m licensed both as a mental health counselor and an RN, which totally plays into the book. Braden is dealing with Post Traumatic Stress and alcoholism. Allie is suicidal. In my professional life I’ve had a lot of experience helping clients find healing in these situations. Also, I was married to a musician for twenty years and understand the personal devastation that follows when a person is no longer able to engage in their art.
In what ways do you think you’ve evolved as an author over the course of your career so far?
I’ve learned to trust my own process and formed an alliance with my inner critic (for the most part, anyway – I call it dancing with my demons!) It makes it much easier and more fun to write when I’m not fighting myself. Also, I finally reached the tipping point with my last book where I was able to walk away from my day job and do what I love full time!
Congratulations on being able to write full time! What’s your favorite part about writing? What do you find challenging?
I love making stuff up! My favorite things about writing are getting sudden and unexpected ideas about a story, and watching my characters grow from ideas into real people who take over the plot line! The most challenging parts are connected to the business side of writing. When I fall into worrying it’s around questions like, “what if this book doesn’t sell, or I have to back to my day job?”
What are your interests outside of writing and reading?
Is there life outside of writing and reading? I live on forty acres of land with my Viking and that involves hard work like getting in wood, snow management, mowing the yard and other fun physical labor. Weirdly, I love all of it. I like to do yoga, and listen to music. I have a sourdough culture I’ve been maintaining for a couple of years now and I love baking sourdough bread. More recently I’ve also been brewing Kombucha!
What are you working on now?
I am currently working on developmental edits for my August 2020 release. It’s called A Borrowed Life, and is the story of a middle aged woman creating a new life for herself after the death of her controlling husband.
Where can readers find you?
You can find me at my website www.kerryanneking.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorkerryanneking, and on instagram as @kerry_anne_king. Sign up for my newsletter for all of the inside news plus a monthly drawing for a $5 Amazon gift card – www.kerryanneking.com/inner-circle
Thank you, Kerry! Everything You Are is OUT NOW.
Everything You Are
From the bestselling author of Whisper Me This comes a haunting and lyrical novel about the promises we make and the forgiveness we need when we break them.
One tragic twist of fate destroyed Braden Healey’s hands, his musical career, and his family. Now, unable to play, adrift in an alcoholic daze, and with only fragmented memories of his past, Braden wants desperately to escape the darkness of the last eleven years.
When his ex-wife and son are killed in a car accident, Braden returns home, hoping to forge a relationship with his troubled seventeen-year-old daughter, Allie. But how can he hope to rescue her from the curse that seems to shadow his family?
Ophelia “Phee” MacPhee, granddaughter of the eccentric old man who sold Braden his cello, believes the curse is real. She swore an oath to her dying grandfather that she would ensure Braden plays the cello as long as he lives. But he can’t play, and as the shadows deepen and Phee finds herself falling for Braden, she’ll do anything to save him. It will take a miracle of forgiveness and love to bring all three of them back to the healing power of music.
Author bio:
Kerry Anne King is the sidekick, alter ego, and touchier-feelier doppelgänger of fantasy and paranormal thriller writer, Kerry Schafer. She is the author of three works of women’s fiction, with number four releasing on October 1, 2019, and her last novel, Whisper Me This, was a Washington post and Amazon charts bestseller. Kerry Anne is the proud possessor of a tugboat, a Viking, and forty acres of rocks and trees in the middle of rural northeastern Washington. In addition to writing novels, she is an RN and licensed mental health counselor, a writing mindset coach, and a serious coffee snob. She is kept in line by three cats, a dog, and the aforementioned Viking. Her favorite leisure activities involve reading, yoga, and long walks in the woods.