Today’s guest is Kwen D. Griffith, author of Jane Austen fanfiction / romance “Kellynch”. Welcome!
Guest Post
I grew up in a part of the country where television coverage was rare. In order to get a television signal, a hookup to a line, much like a telephone line, was required. In my childhood home, books were the primary form of relaxation. Long before I was inspired to write, I was inspired to read.
Reading allowed me to go places and do things that would not otherwise be possible for a kid raised on a ranch in Idaho. I was old enough to understand wordsmithing when I read my first book by Ernest Hemingway and he became my hero. He not only provided a pastime for me, but he set free an enthusiasm that allowed me to almost become a part of the story. I was no longer just a reader; I was a witness to the happenings on the pages. His knock-about, no holds barred, damn the rules style of storytelling excited me and awakened in me the desire to write.
My obligation to anyone who chooses to read one of my books is primarily to entertain them. I want reading one of my books to simulate a rollercoaster ride. Allow me the first chapter to buckle you in and start the car in motion. I view the first chapter to simulate the coaster slowly crawling up the big climb. I don’t mean to say it’s boring or slow-moving but it starts the adrenalin flowing and the butterflies churning.
Once the top is crested, the story, just like the coaster picks up speed and the rush is on. The story is laid out just like the track. It is connected and continuous but it contains surprises and unexpected twists and turns. A common compliment I receive is, “I gave up trying to outsmart the writer and just set back and enjoyed the book.”
As the story comes to a close, just like on a coaster the momentum is spent and bumpers help the cars come to a stop. I want the reader to close the book, take a deep breath, and say “Wow that was fun.”
I am a history nut and so I like to put tidbits of history in my stories. Not enough to get bogged down, just enough to tack the story in place. In one story, for example, I talked about the first game played by the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field. Doing this also feeds my need to do research.
I invite you to give “Kellynch” a try. I think you will enjoy it, but if regency era fan fiction is not your genre of choice, check out my other books on Amazon.com. Drop me a line; let me know what you think.
About the Book
Title: Kellynch
Author: Kwen D. Griffeth
Genre: Jane Austen Fanfiction / Romance
Jane Austen completed “Persuasion” in August 1816. It was to be her last book. She left us with the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth and she left them approaching “happily ever after.” What happens the day following “happily ever after?”
The story of Kellynch picks up three years after the couple married and were able to secure the Kellynch estate from Sir Walter and Cousin William Elliot agreed to waive the entailment.
It would seem all is well with the young couple, but all is not as it seems.
Kellynch is a story of deceit and treachery as well as courage and overcoming the odds. It is a story in which those who were assumed to be friends are not and where support comes from unexpected places. Love again, will, be tested in a story set against the backdrop of historical events.
Throughout the book, I have tried to remain true to the characters as Miss Austen created them. I sought to develop and introduce new characters that would meet with her approval.
Author Bio
When describing my life, I think Douglas Adams said it best, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Books have always been a large part of my meandering.
I grew up on a ranch in southeastern Idaho and my friends were a mixed and rowdy bunch. Louis L’Amour told me tales of the west, but Edgar Rice Burroughs took me to the jungles of Africa. Sir Author Conan Doyle walked with me through the fog-covered streets of London, and Jane Austen taught me to be a gentleman.
I read several other authors but I was fourteen when I met the man. Sitting in an English class, I chose a book from a required reading list and I was introduced to Ernest Hemingway. His book, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” allowed Mister Hemingway, Robert Jordan, and I to fight in the Spanish Civil War and I never left Idaho. When I closed the back cover, I knew that no matter whatever else I did, I would be a writer. Even today, when I think back, I am still in awe of how Hemingway’s words touched the soul of an adolescent boy.
I entered the Army a year after high school and stayed in uniform for the next two decades. The military offered me the opportunity to live my own adventures separate from the ones I lived vicariously in books. While in uniform, I worked in a variety of fields, Infantry, Military Police, and Military Intelligence. I worked on a psychiatric ward and later at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. I took trips to Mexico, Canada, and twice to Germany. I have visited the forty-eight contiguous states and desperately want to see the other two.
Along the way, I met and kept printed friends Allister Maclean, Robert Ludlow, John Grisham, and Tom Clancy. I had flings with several others, Joseph Wambaugh, Clive Cussler, and Stephen King.
I started to write and failed. Repeatedly, I would start a story, only to end it and discard it as it sounded too much like the works of one of my friends. I went through periods when I refused to read, because I was frustrated and angry with those friends. Those friends who were what I wanted to be.
Fifteen years ago, I got sick. I got sick and it was misdiagnosed. I almost died, but then I met the doctor who figured out the riddle and, with his help, I started working my way back. As I got better and my brain got stronger, stories, characters, and plots started to form. I found my voice and I published my first book, a novella called “Dear Emma,” in February 2012.
I used to feel strange telling people, “I got better and now I hear voices,” but the statement is accurate. I feel I am in good company as several authors have made such references. As I said at the beginning, I am exactly where I need to be.
Links
kwendgriffeth.wordpress.com
Giveaway
Win an eBook copy of Kellynch by commenting below!
Title: Until Ray
Cheryl Robinson was born in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest in a family of five. She grew up in Palmer Woods, a residential historic district that is now one of the settings in her forthcoming novel, Until Ray. For the past fifteen years, she has been busy writing contemporary women’s fiction. For Penguin/NAL, Cheryl wrote six novels: If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Like That, Sweet Georgia Brown, In Love with a Younger Man, When I Get Where I’m Going, and Remember Me. Cheryl is now an independent author and the owner of Rose Colored Books. With her company, she has published The One, Like Mom, and the forthcoming Until Ray Trilogy.
Editor Charlene 