Kate
Dolan began her writing career as a legal editor and then newspaper columnist
before she decided she was finally ready to tackle fiction. As the author of more than a dozen novels and
novellas, she writes historical fiction and romance under her own name and
contemporary mysteries and children's books under the name K.D. Hays. When not writing, she enjoys volunteering as
a living history interpreter and riding roller coasters with her daughter.
Her
latest book is the cozy mystery, Roped In.
For
More Information
- Visit Kate Dolan’s website.
- Connect with Kate on Facebook and Twitter.
- Find out more about Kate at Goodreads.
- Contact Kate.
Title:
Roped In
Author: K.D. Hays
Publisher: K.D. Hays
Pages: 140
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Author: K.D. Hays
Publisher: K.D. Hays
Pages: 140
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Life has settled into a more stable pattern for fledgling
investigator Karen Maxwell of DS Investigations, but that stability is
precarious. At work, she has an uneasy truce with Rodney, the “office
maximizer” hired by her brother to do some of the administrative work she used
to do. Her brother has not assigned her any real cases and she thinks it's
because he doesn’t trust her after she was fired from her last major
assignment.
But she soon gets her chance. The firm's insurance agent calls
in a favor and asks them to investigate whether a valuable parrot was killed as
a result of snowfall damage to a house. Karen is pretty sure Dave will assign
this to her, since the investigation will involve no money or prestige. But it
may help earn back his confidence.
Then Gina Callaghan hires DS Investigations to find out who
sabotaged her daughter Hayley’s rope at a jump rope competition. Hayley
competes in power jumping events, and she failed to make the top four in the
regional tournament. If Karen can prove that one of those top four jumpers
behaved unethically, then Hayley, (who was fifth) will have a spot at the
national competition, and a chance to go to the World tournament. Dave assigns
Karen the lead role in this case, so now she has a chance to prove to her
brother that she can conclude an investigation before the client is ready to
pull the plug.
Karen bribes her son to take a jump rope class on the day
when the jumpers she needs to watch have their practices. Initially, Hayley
Callaghan does not want the matter investigated so Karen has to be a subtle as
possible. Meanwhile, in the parrot case, Karen's investigation seems to
indicate that the parrot's owners are telling the truth and not trying to
defraud the insurance company. But the picture they offer as proof somehow
arouses Karen's suspicion.
At jump rope practice, she finds a lot of masked hostility
and a host of possible suspects, but no one who saw anything. Then Hayley's
sister steps forward and admits that she saw someone rummaging through her
sister's rope bag. Circumstances point to two possible suspects, in addition to
the sister herself. But Karen can find no proof of wrongdoing and thinks the
break was most likely an accident. Then Hayley changes her position and urges
Karen to follow through with her initial suspicions. She immediately wonders
why.
But she doesn't have time to wonder. Her brother insists
that she stop working on the insurance case and her client insists that she
write up suspicions against one of the other jumpers so they can file a
complaint with the national sanctioning commission. Working against the clock,
Karen finds proof that the picture is fake, proving that the insurance clients
were trying to defraud the agency. But time runs out on the jump rope
investigation—once again the dissatisfied client fires Karen before she solves
the case. This time, she knows an innocent girl is going to face blame and
could be banned from the sport she loves. So she digs on until she uncovers the
truth —and possible destroys a family in the process.
For More Information
Thank you for this
interview! I’d like to know more about
you as a person first. What do you do
when you’re not writing?
Thanks for inviting me to your site! I’m a history nut so I
love to explore historic sites and participate in living history events. I also
like to keep moving with activities like karate or taking long walks with my
dogs. But over the past ten years, I’ve probably spent most of my free time in
the world of my kids. When they were really young, I had to take time to care
for them and basically make sure they didn’t burn down the house or break their
necks jumping off the top of the slide. I took time to write or participate in
living history activities to get a break from the caretaker role and to spend
time with adults. As my kids grew older and more independent, however, I found
that I seemed to be devoting even more time and attention to them—probably
because I didn’t have to. I knew my time with them would be so short and it
absolutely could not be repeated. So instead of dressing up in 18th
clothing and cooking over an open hearth, I found myself watching baseball
doubleheaders and coaching jump rope shows. My son is in college now and my
daughter is a senior in high school, so that phase of life is drawing to a
close and I’m starting to delve back into my own hobbies more. But the very
best of times is when I get to combine my interests with family time, such as
when we all camp together at a historical reenactment. And of course, there are
roller coasters….
When did you start
writing?
I have been writing stories since I was in grade school, but
I always used to get tired of my stories and ended up cutting them short or
just never finishing. When I was in my late 20s, I began to conceive ideas for
full length novels and plays and thought I was ready to write. I wasn’t. I
still kept ending up with characters I hated. Finally, when I was in my early
30s (with two very young children) I finally felt like it was time – I was
ready to commit to writing a whole novel.
As a published
author, what would you say was the most pivotal point of your writing life?
Because of all the years of “dropped” stories, it was a huge
deal when I finally finished the first draft of my first novel, Langley’s Choice . It took two years, and of
course at some point I gave up on that story, too. But it was actually my
characters that forced me to come back and finish. They wanted to know how
their story ended. (And this is where non-writers start to look at me like I’m
a little scary…)
If you could go
anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would that be and
why?
This is really tough question. I love to travel and
different places usually give me ideas for situations that turn into stories.
So to pick one place is really difficult. But I’m going to choose Pitcairn
Island, where the mutineers from The H.M.S. Bounty settled after they left Tahiti.
Like so many others, I’ve been fascinated by the story of the ill-fated voyage.
I also think I would find it interesting to write about people living on the
island now – trapped in the legend of their past, dependent on tourists and
scholars that they despise.
If you had 4 hours of
extra time today, what would you do?
I would grab my daughter and head to the nearest amusement
park for some coaster time. We both love roller coasters. If I could be a
professional coaster rider I would be in heaven!
Where would you like
to set a story that you haven’t done yet?
Ireland.
I think it would be fun to set a story during one of the many time periods when
Dublin was inhabited by one culture (Vikings, the British, etc.) and the area
beyond the pale was home to entirely different (and resentful) culture.
Back to your present
book, Roped In, how did you publish
it?
Roped In is my
tenth full-length novel and the first one that I have published myself. It was
originally proposed as the third book in a mystery series that was part of the
Heartsong Presents – Mysteries series from Christian publisher Barbour Books.
But Barbour cancelled the series before I had written any more than the first
three chapters and the synopsis. I went on to other projects. But when an agent
proposed re-releasing the mysteries as an ebook series, I considered going back
to write the third book. I knew I’d be on my own with this one – so it took me a
little while to commit. I don’t know if I was scared or lazy. Maybe both!
Reverse order next questions
Why was writing Roped In so important to you?
Eventually I realized it was important to finish Roped In because jump rope had become
such an integral part of my life. My daughter first saw a precision jump rope
performance in 2006, and she was entranced. She came home and immediately tried
to jump rope on a ball in the living room. I took away the ball and insisted
that she learn to jump without the ball – and outside –first. But that was the
start of ten year journey through the world of a sport most of the world has
never heard of. Within a couple of years, my daughter was performing and I was
coaching jump rope. It was at that point that I pitched the idea of a jump rope
mystery to my editor at Barbour. But it wasn’t until a few years later that she
actually started competing and I began judging competitions. We started living
the experiences of the characters I had proposed! So I had to go back and finish
the story.
In writing your book,
did you travel anywhere for research?
Over the years, we have traveled to a number of places for
jump rope workshops and competitions so of course those experiences added to
the knowledge I drew on when writing Roped
In. I wrote part of the first draft while we were at the USA National
Competition in Long Beach, California.
Where do you get your
best ideas and why do you think that is?
Well of course I’m not at all sure what my best ideas are.
But I tend to get “hit” by ideas when I’m traveling and a place evokes a
situation in my mind. I think my
subconscious does a lot of the work in developing stories. Now I just need to
train it to type, because it still boils down to how much time I put in the
chair and focus on my story rather than reading email or watching cute penguin
videos on Facebook.
Any final words?
Thanks to modern technology, the dream of seeing your own
book in print is within reach for any writer who puts in enough time to finish
a manuscript. But you will be much more satisfied with your book if you force
yourself to expose your words to criticism from peer reviewers and editors.
Often the advice we don’t want to hear is exactly what we need to hear to make
a story stronger. Be willing to step away from your project for a while and
consider proposed changes.
Thanks for reading this far! I’m honored that you’ve given
up some of your very precious time to learn a little about me and my book. If
you read Roped In, I’d love to know
what you think of it!
Thanks for having me on your site today!
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ReplyDeleteHmmn now it looks like I said something embarrassing so I had to delete it. But actually for some reason my first comment posted twice so I just removed the second one.
DeleteThanks for hosting Kate today!
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