Today I’m pleased to welcome author Kelly Martin to the blog. I hope you enjoy getting to meet Kelly! Don’t forget to check out her new series, Dark Things.
1. What made you decide to start writing?
I’ve always loved writing, but I never started it professionally until I was 29. I had 3 small kids at the time (6,4, and 1), and it wasn’t easy to get to go places– or disappear inside my head. My husband bought me a laptop in August of 2011 and when I heard about Nanowrimo in September I figured I wanted to try to write a book. I’d always wanted to. At the end of November, I had the first draft of what eventually became my first published book. I haven’t looked back.
2. Your novels feature great supernatural twists with ghosts and demons. What is your favorite thing about supernatural stories?
I think they are just fun. My favorite TV shows are Buffy, Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow, things like that, so I’ve always been really big into supernatural things. Sometimes they show the most human of emotions when dealing with scary things (and sometimes even the scary things are misunderstood). I love how many different ways stories can go.
3. Can you share with us one of your adventures taking pictures of abandoned houses?
Abandoned house ‘hunting’ is my favorite thing to do (besides writing). It’s so much fun to drive around and find old houses, imagine their stories, take pictures…maybe someday catch a ghost in one of them 😉 I think one of the scariest stories I can tell is when I was way down in a hollow (like WAY down…I live in TN) and I found this really old abandoned house. I stopped to take a picture of it and just as I did, a gunshot rang out and echoed through the valley. Now, I’m not sure if that gunshot was for me…but I didn’t wait around to find out lol. Believe it or not, I have gone back down there, but I haven’t stopped at that house again.
4. If you could go on an adventure with one fictional character who would it be?
Abel from Dark and Deadly Things (I hope it isn’t rude to pick my own book). He has a certain quality about him that would be really nice to have around…if I knew it was being used (I know that’s totally vague).
Also, I’d love to go on an adventure with Eddie from Jennifer Donnelly’s These Shallow Graves. I do so love him.
And if I have to pick from way back (I realize I’m giving you three answers lol), I think it would have been fun to go on an adventure with Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula…you know, at the beginning of the book 😉 Though I don’t think ‘fun’ is the word he’d use for it.
5. If you could make everyone read one book and one book only by an author other than yourself, what book would it be and why?
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’m reading it now for the first time. It is so good! A current book would be These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly. It was nothing like I expected, but oh so good!
6. What are your favorite ways to connect with readers?
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube…anywhere really. You can find all my links at my website: www.kellymartinbooks.com.
7. What is the best advice you would give to young writers?
I think the cliche thing to say is not to give up. And it is hard to hear– but it is true. Also, your first draft is in no way supposed to be perfect. It is a draft. Have fun with it. Everything can be fixed in editing. Don’t get so distracted or focused on the small things that you lose sight of finishing the story.
About the Author:
Kelly Martin writes paranormal, contemporary, historical, and YA fiction. She has been married for over ten years and has three rowdy, angelic daughters. When she’s not writing, she loves taking picture of abandoned houses, watching horror gamers on YouTube– even though she’s a huge wimp– and drinking decaf white chocolate mochas. She’s a total fangirl, loves the 80s and 90s, and has a sad addiction to paranormal TV shows. {Basically, she likes creepy stuff.} Her favorite characters are the very flawed ‘good guys’–and ‘bad guys’ who don’t know they are evil. She loves giving her readers books with unexpected twists and turns, but (here’s a hint) most of her books have the ending spelled out in the first chapter. See if you can figure it out. Visit her on her website.
About the Book:
Darkness is devious.
Now that Abel Hale and Elise Morgan have been forced to hunt ghosts for Silas Ford’s television show, things are about to get all kinds of freaky.
Their first case involves Shonda King, a mother in Kentucky whose friendly childhood ghost has turned into an adult nightmare. Shonda, terrified for the safety of her family, wants Abel and Elise to get rid of the ghost– by any means necessary.
Sarah, though, is much more powerful than Abel and Elise realize. She’s a doppelganger who can make herself into anyone– anything.
When you have as much baggage as Abel and Elise have, that is not a good thing.
Locked down for forty-eight hours, can Abel and Elise fight through all of Sarah’s tricks? Or will their two days of terror be enough to end their partnership– and their lives– forever?
Book 2 in the series:
Dark and Deadly Things (book 1)
Dark and Devious Things (book 2)
Dark and Dreadful Things (book 3– April 2017)
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