Welcome to Rita’s Bower where readers gather to meet our favorite or soon-to-be favorite authors while sipping delicious drinks and savoring decadent treats. Serve yourself a plate and drink, settle back in a comfortable chair, prop up your feet, and welcome our guest author, Kimberly Adkins.
I am very pleased to interview Kimberly. She’s recently returned from Lori Foster’s Reader Author Get Together (#RAGT). Was the conference a success?
It was a great year where the readers and authors shared many books, stories, and raised a lot of money to support One Way Farm, a charity that helps children.
It’s always nice when readers and authors can get together, especially when a charity benefits. Tell us a bit about yourself, Kimberly.
I’m a bit of a geek, and proud of it! I was the girl who played Dungeons and Dragons in high school and had Ren Faire costumes in my closet. For fun, I study the effects of gravity on the spacetime fabric so that maybe someday I can develop wormholes 🙂 Until then, however, I must settle for a fun Sci-Fi collection which includes odd things from Star Trek, Star Wars, BSG, Star Gate and Doctor Who. I’m living for August when Doctor Who comes back to BBCA!
I don’t game well, but I love Ren Faires and have followed Doctor Who for years. You’re a real expert, though. You’ve published several books in the Sci Fi/fantasy genre, but they’re all quite different. Tell us about those books and your writing preferences for and within the Sci Fi/fantasy genre.
That’s the beautiful thing about romance novels. You have the option to cover such a wide spectrum of story types. I really can’t think of much the romance genre could be limited to. As you mentioned, I stick close to fantasy and Sci Fi. It’s because I still believe in magic…especially the magic of love.
I enjoy reading fantasy, especially books with a strong romance element. I just finished Tesla’s Imprint one of your more recent books (Black Lyon Publishing, 2014). Loved it—the best of fantasy and romance! Could you share a bit about the story?
Oh, I can try! It’s difficult to tell without giving away any spoilers, lol. The story revolves around a woman named Tesla (Tess, to her friends) and the legacy she inherited from her family. There is a hidden research facility, deep inside a mountain. A gorgeous stranger who has no memory of his past possesses top secret technology that is leaps and bounds beyond what we know today… and no idea how he got it. He figures the men in black pursuing him around the world probably do, though. Not that he’s going to stop running long enough to find out. At least not until he meets Tess and realizes she could be someone from his past.
You did a great job of building the suspense towards a masterful ending. Writers like to predict how a story will end. The pieces were there, but all I could say was “I should have seen that coming.” Will this develop into a series?
Yes, this is the first book in the Imprint trilogy. I could tell you more about the second one, but then I’d have to retract your memory 🙂
No, thank you very much. Tesla’s Imprint combines some of the best aspects of scifi/fantasy and romance. The romantic spark was certainly there between Simon and Tesla and another couple, but it didn’t overwhelm the story. How did you achieve the balance?
My editor says my specialty is strong secondary characters. A lot of that has to do with how I am in real life, I think. My friends are extremely important to me, I’ve had them my whole life and we’re all very close. I can’t imagine my characters going through some of the things they do without a good friend at their side.
There were certainly strong secondary characters in the story, not all of them very nice. Poly Tech Acquisitions (PT) was a really scary company. As I read the story, I wondered if a company like that could really exist. Is PT a totally fictional creation or does it have some basis in reality?
It’s very interesting for you to ask that, because this is the one thing I hear most about this story! As you know, Tess was named after the scientist Nikola Tesla. In the late 1800s he enrolled in a university in Austria called Polytechnic. It was a tip of the hat to Nikola and his past.
Cleverly done, Kimberly. I believe you have another recent release that will definitely make it onto my TBR list. Tell us about it.
Yes, I recently had a wolf shifter book released called Hart’s Destiny. It’s the story of Jackson Hart and his close-knit clan of wolf shifters. I loved the characters in this book and became very close to them. The family loses their patriarch and struggles to stay together while being attacked by a renegade pack. Jackson Hart must step into his father’s shoes to keep them united, even though he’s fallen in love with a human woman. The truth of his feelings could undermine his newfound authority and hurt the clan.
Love those shifter stories. What are you writing now?
I am working on the second book in the Imprint series. I can’t say anything about it, without giving away the ending of the first book!
Tesla’s Imprint had a happily ever after, but I suspected that there might be another fascinating story there. What are your plans for the future ?
I plan on discovering wormholes so that I can go back in time and enter the Star Gate “Get in the Gate” sweepstakes as many times as it take until I win.
Didn’t see that coming – so much for open-ended questions. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
That’s an easy one. You need to write. I know some people that talk about their novels all day long, and when you get down to it, they’ve never written anything down. Not even a paragraph. Make a deal with yourself to sit down and write one page every day. That builds amazing momentum and you’ll find you often get more down than you planned. Once you’ve written a great story, get a critique partner. My partner, Angela Steed, has been a life saver more times than I can count, as well as an excellent friend!
Critique partners are invaluable when they’re well-matched. How can readers contact or follow you?
Website | Twitter | Facebook
Loved how your website was laid out–very easy to follow. Well worth dropping by, gentle readers. Thank you, Kimberly, for visiting.
Thank you for having me over. This is the coziest coffee corner in the galaxy! I’ve had such a great time chatting with you, Rita. I’d love to talk more with the readers out there, too. My virtual door is always open – I’d love a visit.
You are welcome, Kimberly. Drop by and visit anytime. The door to Rita’s Bower is always open also. Happy reading, dear readers, until our next gathering,
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