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Welcome to our New Faces column, where we are pleased to introduce debut authors to our readers! This time we're visiting with Kyra Davis, whose debut romantic suspense is Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte from Red Dress Ink. Kyra, welcome to TRR! Tell us about yourself. I’m from The San Francisco Bay area and have lived here most of my life (with the exception of a brief stint in New York). I graduated from The Fashion Institute of Technology with a Merchandise Marketing degree and I received a degree in both Business and Humanities from Golden Gate University. I am a single mom of a wonderful six-year-old boy who I am currently home schooling.
Are you coming to writing from another job? I worked within the world of retail fashion for several years. My last job in that industry was as a department manager for Nordstrom’s Savvy department. I took some time off when my son was born and when I returned to the workplace I took a job as a marketing manager for a sports club. In this case “marketing manager” was a euphemism for glorified salesperson but the schedule they offered me was fairly flexible and they had childcare so it seemed like a good place for me to be for a while. I am now fortunate enough to be able to make a living as a fulltime writer. What led you to start your career with "chick lit"? When I started writing Sex, Murder And A Double Latte I didn’t know what chick lit was. In fact I didn’t know that was what I wrote until I landed an agent and she told me as much. I just wanted to write a fun mystery with a lot of humor and a likable protagonist that people could easily relate to. I also wanted the book to contain a healthy dose of both suspense and sexual tension. Apparently those are all the ingredients of a chick lit mystery. Tell us about your road to publication. I started writing when I was going through my divorce. I was at a major low point in my life for both emotional and financial reasons. For me writing was an escape, a chance for me to forget about the chaos of my life and lose myself in the chaos of somebody else’s life. After I had written the first 50 pages of a manuscript I realized that for me writing could be more than a cheap form of therapy. It could be a career. I knew it was a long shot but I decided to go for it. I went out and got Sue Grafton’s book, Writing Mysteries and a few other writing-how-to books, joined a critique group and eventually went to the Willamette Writer’s Conference in Oregon where I pitched my manuscript. I got eight requests to send in the first three chapters. From there I got four requests for the completed manuscript. I was thrilled to have a choice of agents and ended up signing with the Kraas literary agency. Less than six months after signing with them I had offers from two New York Publishers. I ended up with a four book deal with Red Dress Ink. To be honest I’m still trying to figure out how my life could have done such an incredible 180. I guess someone up there likes me. What kind of research was involved for your first book? I contacted a few police officers and correctional officers to help me with some of the details of the crime scenes but the nice thing about amateur sleuth novels is that the protagonists are often as clueless about the legal system as the writer so they can make all sorts of mistakes and unwittingly break a plethora of rules. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do research but it does mean that if you do too much research your novel may start reading like a detective novel instead of a cozy and that’s not what I wanted for Sex, Murder And A Double Latte. Tell us about your debut book. Sex, Murder And A Double Latte is about a San Francisco murder mystery novelist (Sophie Katz) who discovers that things are happening in her life that are disturbingly similar to things that happened to a characters in one of her own novels. The problem is that in the novel the character is killed and Sophie is concerned that someone has that precise fate in mind for her. When the police aren’t able to help her she turns to her friends. They consist of Dena, the sole proprietor of an upscale sex shop, Mary Ann, a make-up artist at Neiman Marcus and Marcus, her gay male hairstylist. It’s not exactly the Dream Team but they are loyal and willing to do whatever it takes to help Sophie ditch the victim role for the much more desirable role of heroine. While this is going on Sophie meets a very mysterious and very sexy Russian named Anatoly Darinsky. Sophie is inexplicably drawn to him but she’s unsure if he’s a dream come true or the creator of her worst nightmare. Who are your influences as a writer? I love Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels and I’m a big fan of Susan Isaacs and Jennifer Weiner. I also enjoyed Linda Howard’s Mr. Perfect (in fact I think that was the last novel that I read before starting Sex, Murder And A Double Latte). I also love David Sedaris’ humor and often read his essays before sitting down to write. What does your family think of having a published author in their midst? They still can’t believe it. Every time they watch one of my televised interviews or see my book reviewed in a national publication they freak out and call all their friends. They’re the best publicists anyone could ever want. Tell us about plans for future books. I have written two books since Sex, Murder And A Double Latte. One of them is a sequel (Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights) and will be released in May 2006. The other will most likely be published in the fall of 2006 but the powers that be are still trying to figure out an exact release date. I’m working on the third Sophie book now and that should be available in May of 2007. How can readers get in touch with you? I love to hear from readers. They can email me at kd@kyradavis.com (just give me a week or so to get back to you). Kyra, thank you for joining us, and best of luck! Readers we have a review of Sex, Murder, and a Double Latte in our Contemporary section. |