Welcome to Romantic Suspense Author - Kate Ryder

I’m delighted to welcome Romantic Suspense author Kate Ryder to my blog.

Kate Ryder - Author

Hello Kate - It’s lovely to have an opportunity to chit-chat with you and catch-up on all your news. Since you were last here, it seems a lot has happened in your ‘writerly’ life. But before we discover more about your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies, here are a few questions which will hopefully give your readers and followers an insight into some of the things that matter to you.

Hi Arabella - Thank you so much for inviting me to your Blog and Chit-Chat and for giving me the opportunity to let readers know about my latest novel, Beneath Cornish Skies.  Published on 7^th January, it is a heart-warming love story about taking a chance on a new beginning… and considering the year we’ve just come through, wouldn’t we all appreciate that chance?

 

Arabella: When writing a novel are there any key traits, such as virtuously good or shamelessly bad, you like to give your characters?

Kate:  Ha!  I tend to play around with this from book to book.  In my debut novel and its sequel, I gave the heroine a free-spirit and a God-given light that touched everyone she came into contact with.  However, one reader thought this was ridiculous and couldn’t possibly be in real life.  To her I would say, why not suspend disbelief and keep an open mind to the possibility?  After all, it’s fiction!

For me, each novel has to have characters you love to hate, adding to the emotional pull and keeping things moving forward with the possibility the story may not work out as the reader expects.  My books tend to fall into the romantic suspense or otherworldy/timeslip genres and, let’s face it; the course of true love never did run smooth!

 Arabella: A book has a beginning, middle, and an end. When penning your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies, which part did you find the hardest to write and why?

Kate:  To date, I’ve found that when starting to write a novel I have an idea of the story but not the full plot.  The ending comes to me around the middle of the book, and I have to get it down before I lose its essence.  Then, it’s a case of joining up the dots and, hopefully, the story concludes within the prerequisite word count!  If not, a fair amount of tweaking takes place.  With Beneath Cornish Skies, I was so eager for Cassandra to start her journey in Cornwall towards her authentic self that I felt she was inexplicably languishing in Sussex while I wrote her story there!  I had to take a deep breath and not rush that part, as I wanted to portray her life on the South Downs as fully as I could.

Arabella: We all have a long list of books we keep meaning to read but never have the time for --- which book is a must-read for you this season?

Kate:  My TBR list is growing by the minute (groan) but one book I have earmarked to read sooner rather than later is The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant; an enchanting dual-timeline historical novel about love and hope in dangerous times.  I believe it’s the author’s debut, published in August 2020, and already it has over 560 Amazon reviews (at the time of writing).

 

Arabella: Thinking and planning ahead… Your aim is to organise a two week holiday for you and your family. Given the possibility of global travel restrictions, do you:

a) Play safe and camp in the back garden?

b) Take the risk and book a hotel room and flight abroad?

c) Find another solution for a relaxing two-week break?

Kate:  I would choose option C.  I’m lucky in that I live in Cornwall, albeit at the top end, and atmospheric Bodmin Moor and the county’s stunning coastlines are not far away.  Therefore, I’d hire a camper van/mobile home (a few years ago that would have been a tent!) and take off with my husband for a nomadic two weeks in somewhere remote and beautiful, perhaps deepest West Penwith, seeking out various Poldark locations and discovering secret coves at that end of the county.  And if “live” theatre was once more up and running, we’d catch a performance at the gloriously positioned Minack Theatre perched high on the cliffs above Porthcurno, which featured in my novel, Summer in a Cornish Cove!

Minack Theatre

Arabella: Some authors cannot work without a business planner, others cannot write without an editing app…  Are there any “essentials” you need to help your writing move forward?

Kate:  I don’t have any “essentials” as such, apart from always creating a storyboard, which helps if the story starts to flounder.  When I first started writing I definitely fell into the pantser camp, but with time I’ve evolved into being a “plantser”.  I start with a basic plot outline and fill in along the way, or should I say my characters fill in along the way!  However much I try to plot, they definitely have their own ideas, which is the magic of writing IMHO.

 

Arabella:  You’re outside a florist and can’t resist the temptation to buy… Which floral arrangement do you choose?

Kate:  My niece is a talented florist and she uses social media very well to advertise her beautiful displays.  She creates too many glorious creations to choose just one and I often find myself drooling over the various bouquets of locally sourced flowers, many grown in her Devon allotment, which are sold in upcycled jam jars.  For Christmas just gone, she offered the most stunning wreaths using foraged and natural materials, including feathers, silver and gold pepper berries, lichen covered branches, pinecones and local fir.  I will definitely be tempted to have one of these gracing my home during the 2021 festive season.  For more information visit: https://www.facebook.com/wildflowerdevon

 

Arabella: What about your future plans? Any books or series in the making?

Kate:  Beneath Cornish Skies fulfils my four-book contract with Aria and I now have to make the decision whether to return to self-publishing or start the process over again and submit a manuscript to agents and publishers.  I’ve juggled being an author with full-time employment, but in late 2019 I gave up my career selling country property to dedicate more time to writing.  Aria is a digital first publisher and Beneath Cornish Skies was released on 7^th January as an eBook.  However, on 1st April it will be published as a traditional paperback and available through Waterstones, W H Smith, Foyles and other major bookshops.  So, if Covid rules allow, I will put on my “marketing hat”, travel throughout Cornwall and Devon visiting independent bookshops and see if I can persuade them to have the novel on their shelves.

Thank you for being a super sharer on Arabella’s Blog and Chit-Chat, Kate. .It was a treat to learn something about your writing journey. Plantser??? J

Good luck with your latest release, Beneath Cornish Skies

Best wishes and happy-writing…

Arabella

www.arabellasheen.co.uk

 

About   Kate Ryder

Kate Ryder - Author

Kate Ryder is an Amazon Kindle international best seller who writes timeslip and romantic suspense in a true-to-life narrative.  On leaving school she studied drama but soon discovered her preference for writing rather than performing.  Since then, she has worked in the publishing, tour operating and property industries, and has travelled widely.

A member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and The Society of Authors, in 2017 Kate signed a four-book contract with Aria (digital imprint of award-winning independent publisher, Head of Zeus).

 

Keep in touch with Kate:

Website: http://www.kateryder.me

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KateRyder_Books

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kateryder.author

Instagram: @kateryder_author

 

Book Blurb    Beneath Cornish Skies

 

To an outsider, Cassandra Shaw's life looks perfect.  She lives in a beautiful, luxurious house in the English countryside, with a handsome, wealthy boyfriend who insists she needn't do a day's work in her life.  But Cassie knows that something is not right.  Her boyfriend has grown colder, treating her more like a housekeeper than a future wife.  And her time feels empty and purposeless.

Cassandra has always been riddled with insecurities and self-doubt, but, just for once, she decides to take a chance on a new beginning.  She answers an advert for a live-in nanny, horse trainer and dog walker, cook and all-round 'Superhuman' for a family living in a rambling manor house on the rugged North Cornish coast.  The work is hard and tiring, but Cassie has never felt so fulfilled.

As Cassie learns to connect with the natural beauty unfolding around her, Cornwall starts to offer up its secrets.  Soon, Cassie starts wondering if she was drawn to this isolated part of the coast for a reason.  Why was she guided to Foxcombe Manor?  What are the flashes of light she sees in the valley?  Is it her imagination or does someone brush past her?  And who is the mysterious man living deep in the woods?

A beautiful romance with a hint of ghostliness, Beneath Cornish Skies is for anyone who has ever longed to start their lives again.

 

Buy Links

Universal Buy Links: https://books2read.com/u/bMXz1G

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/3mNBzVG

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3gmo1OC

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1530362999

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2JYZV03

 

Summer in a Cornish Cove, a contemporary romantic suspense set on the Lizard Peninsula, saw her nominated for the RNA’s 2018 Joan Hessayon award, while its standalone sequel, Cottage on a Cornish Cliff, reached the heady heights of #2 in Kindle Literary Sagas.

Secrets of the Mist, a mysterious timeslip romance, not only reached #49 on Amazon UK Paid Kindle but also achieved #1 Kindle best-seller in Time Travel Romance in the UK, Canada and Australia.  In its original, self-published version as The Forgotten Promise it was awarded the first Chill with a Book "Book of the Month".

Her fourth book with Aria, Beneath Cornish Skies, is set on the dramatically rugged North Cornish coast.

Originally hailing from the South East of England, today Kate lives on the Cornish side of the beautiful Tamar Valley with her husband and a collection of animals.