Interview with Kathryn Knight
By Sharon Buchbinder
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Kathryn Knight writes books filled with steamy romance, dangerous secrets, and haunting mysteries. Her novels are award-winning #1 Amazon and B&N Bestsellers and RomCon Reader-Rated picks. When she’s not reading or writing, Kathryn spends her time exploring abandoned places and searching for ghosts. She lives on beautiful Cape Cod with her husband, their two sons, and a number of rescued pets.
Hi, Kathryn, thank you for taking the time to chat with me today about your writing and your books. I have a few questions to ask you and I’d like to start with my favorite one.
When did you realize or decide you wanted to be a writer?
First off, thanks for having me here! It’s hard to say exactly when I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I’ve always been a reader. My love for reading began early, and my father used to ask the local librarian to help him pick out books for me. He’d make several trips a week. When I got older, he’d bring me along so I could browse, and of course we were always buying paperbacks too. The book fairs at school were my favorite day, and “free reading” was my favorite subject! Growing up, if I didn’t have a book to entertain me, I made up my own stories. Some I wrote down, some just played out in my imagination. But I didn’t actually start trying to write a novel until 2007. That’s when I started writing Silver Lake…more on that below!
Can you pinpoint the moment when you came up with the idea for your first novel, Silver Lake?
I truly knew I wanted to try to write a book once I had the entire story arc of Silver Lake in my head. Scenes and dialog played out in my imagination and the characters had become fully developed, and I decided—with a push from my husband—to actually give it a shot. Silver Lake is a second-chance romance/ghost mystery involving a group of former friends who became estranged when one of their group disappeared their senior year of high school. Five years later, a mother’s deathbed plea for help—along with strange, shared dreams—brings them back together at Silver Lake for one last attempt to solve the mystery of Brandy’s disappearance. The inspiration for the characters came to me from my own group of high school friends, and the very crazy things we did.
Thankfully, we all survived, but I imagined a different group of friends with some dark secrets. The premise of the ghost mystery is the sudden spark I can remember, and that came from a plot hole in a ghost movie I was watching (as you can probably tell, I’m a fan of spooky stuff). In the movie, a woman trying to unravel a haunting mystery was trying to figure out the ghost’s message…and the ghost was writing clues in places, like on a fogged-up mirror in the bathroom. And I kept wondering: if the ghost can write, why can’t it just tell her where the bodies are? So, my premise was born. In Silver Lake, Brandy has a message to share, but she needs the energy of her former friends—those who knew her best—to help her communicate. They need to be together, despite the suspicions and betrayals. Rain and Jason get a second chance at first love, but someone holds a clue to what happened in the past…
Based on your stories, I suspect you may have had a few encounters with ghosts. Is that correct? Can you share an experience with us?
I’ll admit I do go looking for ghosts, and I often find inspiration in these excursions. I’ve snuck into an abandoned TB Hospital, taken a tour of the skeleton-filled Catacombs beneath Paris, and explored old graveyards. The best example of using one of these experiences as inspiration is probably my visit to the Old Jail House in Barnstable Village, MA. It’s the oldest wooden jailhouse in the country, built circa 1690, and it’s reputedly quite haunted, as many people died there due to poor and crowded conditions. A tour guide told a story about how a ghost followed her home, and the idea for my novel Haunted Souls was born. While Haunted Souls is also a romance, the mystery involves a lost spirit coming home from the Old Jail with the heroine’s son. I haven’t actually seen a ghost, but I’ve had several experiences with psychics who somehow knew things no one else could know, which had me convinced some type of communication is possible. Recently I had the opportunity to go along on an actual paranormal investigation, with all the equipment, and we caught some whispers on a recording! Still figuring out how to work that into a book.
I’m excited The Haunting of Hillwood Farm is now in Audible. I downloaded the story and can’t wait to listen to it. If your books were made into a TV series, who would you want to play your handsome leading men and women?
Here are some of the actors I envision as characters: Scott Eastwood, Paul Wesley, James Franco, Allison Williams, Emilia Clarke, and Phoebe Tonkin/
Finally, I swear this is my last question—tell us about your newest release, Ghost Moon, and where we can find it.
My 7th novel, Ghost Moon, is available for pre-orders, going live on 4/15! This is one of my signature combinations of steamy romance and spooky suspense. The main character, Lark, inherits an old home with a tragic history, and circumstances force her to live there while she attempts to get back on her feet. Frightening things start happening from the moment she arrives and sees a face in the window. Her very hot neighbor—a veterinarian in the small Cape Cod town—is soon involved, but they both know the relationship can’t go anywhere. And to the ghost of Holloway House, that means something very permanent…
Check out the blurb and pre-order Ghost Moon on Kindle!
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