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Welcome to the Tuesday Author Interview with Christina Boyd for the Who, What, Where, When, and Why.
Anyone who knows me, knows I love a good romance novel. I love reading them way into the wee hours of the morning and then falling asleep with a happy heart. I can't say when I first stumbled upon author Jody Kaye's "Kingsbrier" series or which book I read first, but I can honestly admit to having read most of them, kinda like potatoe chips, one after the other. Imagine my delight when she agreed to this interview.
CHRISTINA: When did you first think you had a book to write and how did you start?
JODY: Writing my first book was actually a challenge my husband posed to me. Long story short, he happened to find out I had a binder filled with scenes I’d written to stop them from replaying in my head, and he dared me to turn one into a full-length book. It took almost two years for me to figure out how to stitch scenes together into something compelling and worth reading. Not planning for authoring to go anywhere, I left it on a cliffhanger for the audience to decide what they thought would happen to the couple. The immediate response of the few people I showed it to was, “It can’t end like that!” I drafted the follow-on story in thirty days and published the books as a duet a few months later. (My husband and I now joke about whether he’d want to go back and rescind that one book challenge.)
CHRISTINA: I love that story so much. Love, love, love.
What comes first, plot, or characters?
JODY: Writing long family series/saga & found family romance, definitely characters. Nine times out of ten, I’ll be mid-chapter and a secondary character says or does something unexpected and a whole new book is born.
CHRISTINA: No wonder you have written several series in a relatively "short" amount of time. Impressive.
What is your current project or latest release?
JODY: My last release was the fall of 2022 and joined the "Shattered Hearts of Carolina" series, the "Kingsbrier Quintuplets," and the "Kingsbrier Legacy" series into one universe. This was something I’d intended to do with an antagonistic character’s story arc all along. It just took seven books to get there. It was my twentieth release in seven years, and I realized I was in writer burn-out. So I took this year to get back to loving writing the way I had before I published a word. I’ve actually written a ton this year, most of it in the "Kingsbrier Legacy" series and have had so much fun cross-pollinating characters and dropping in Easter eggs for fans of both series to find.
CHRISTINA: Oh, I can't wait for the release. Can't wait.
Which of your own novels is your favorite?
JODY: My favorite tends to be the one I’m about to start writing because it's filled with possibilities. However, the one I’m proudest of is Shred of Decency. I wrote it the summer before my oldest went off to college, and it tackles some really tough trigger topics (college sports hazing, campus assaults, adoption, child neglect) in a way that I hadn’t seen explored. We’re told to “write the book you want to read,” which is vitally important since you’re continually re-reading manuscripts, but the anguish in the first chapters can still leave me with a pit in my stomach. When someone close to me felt compelled to read them aloud to their teenage daughter, I knew I’d written something that had value.
CHRISTINA: Absolutely poignant. Good stuff. I might have to revisit that book now.
If you were to revise any of your books, which would you choose and why?
JODY: I have! I’d already released a duet in first person point of view with a round robin style that gave more characters than the romantic leads a voice. I was experimenting with the best way to do that with five siblings, so half of the "Kingsbrier Quintuplets" books are written in third person/omniscient. But towards the end of the series, I struggled to use that point of view. Eventually, I drafted an entire book in first and rewrote it in third, though I found I couldn’t repeat the process for the final books. They lost something in translation, and it was better to publish them the way they’d flowed when I was writing them. A few years after the series ended, I rewrote the point of view of book one simply for practice, which is the version that is currently available. For continuity’s sake—and because I feel like having more experience under my belt, I could better explain the motivation behind certain siblings’ actions—it would be nice if they all had a consistent first person voice. Who knows? Maybe someday I will.
CHRISTINA: Ooh, I didn't know that you had rewritten any of your backlist to first person. Interesting. I confess I do enjoy first person for romance novels.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
JODY: My background is in marketing/branding and graphic design, so currently probably some other writer’s assistant.
CHRISTINA: Ha! I love your tag line on your website: "Relatable Romance that’s racy between the sheets." Excellent branding. Well done, you.
And thank you for your time for this interview during the busy holiday season. I look forward to your next book. Cheers to getting back in the writing groove, and I wish you much success in 2024!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody's husband asked what she'd been doing all day. After five years she finally confessed, "When no one is around, I write." Okay. It was more like trying to get out of saying a thing. Jody's a writer. You want it pretty. Let's compromise.
"Just finish one," he said, challenging her to complete a story and share it. Little did he know that those words of encouragement meant they’d return from a family vacation with a wild and defiant set of quintuplets stumbling their way through life. Wasn’t raising their three sons enough?
A native of nowhere, Jody settled in New England for seventeen years before agreeing to uproot her brood of boys and move to North Carolina. She spends most of her time reading, writing, and hoping that her ravenous children haven’t eaten all the ingredients before she cooks dinner.
I'm impressed that Kaye has written some of her books from different perspectives! That sounds like a great challenge -- and one that must really help her develop character and voice well. Thanks for sharing this interview!