Kristen Ashley was born in Gary, Indiana, USA and nearly killed her mother and herself making it into the world, seeing as she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck (already attempting to accessorise and she hadn't taken her first breath!). Her mother said they took Kristen away, put her Mom back in her room, her mother looked out the window, and Gary was on fire (Dr. King had been assassinated four days before). Kristen's Mom remembered thinking it was the end of the world. Quite the dramatic beginning.
Nothing's changed.
Kristen grew up in Brownsburg, Indiana and has lived in Denver, Colorado and the West Country of England. Thus, she's blessed to have friends and family around the globe. Her family was (is) loopy (to say the least) but loopy is good when you want to write. They all lived together on a very small farm in a small farm town in the heartland. She grew up with Glenn Miller, The Everly Brothers, REO Speedwagon and Whitesnake (and the wardrobes that matched).
Needless to say, growing up in a house full of music, clothes and love was a good way to grow up.
And as she keeps growing, it keeps getting better.
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Exclusive Q & A with Author Kristen Ashley
Does any music/situations/media inspire your writing process? If so, what?
Anything inspires me, television, films. Seeing a man walk down the street. Seeing a woman use her hands while she’s speaking. I even saw a shooting star once, and for some unknown reason, an entire book came to me (RAID in my Unfinished Heroes series). I don’t know how that happened, I’m just glad it did!
But of all the things that inspire me, music is what inspires me the most. It can even serve to be the catalyst for a whole book, as was the case of hearing “Say Something” by Great Big World. This beautiful song was what led me to writing Deacon (also in my Unfinished Heroes series).
Or it could be that a song fits so utterly perfectly into a story I’m writing, it has to find its way into that story to help share where the characters are and what they’re feeling. An example of this was when Hop sang Candlebox’s “Far Behind” at (and it as definite at not to) Millie in Walk Through Fire. He used the lyrics to share his and his brothers’ (in the Chaos Motorcycle Club) anger at Millie for hurting their brother, High. The lyrics really did say it all and what I love particularly about this is how many meanings you can get from the lyrics depending on which character’s perspective is in your head at the time—High, Millie or the Chaos boys.
Then there’s music that shows me the path in a book. When I was writing Rock Chick Revolution, my heroine, who is starting her career as a private investigator, needs to take a job to uncover what’s behind some unusual behavior of the staff of a strip club. As I was writing the story, I had no idea if she would go to the wall and give her all by actually stripping when she was undercover in order to get what she needed, or if she wouldn’t take it that far. I was in my car on my way to the grocery store and I heard ZZ Top’s “Tush.” The minute I did, I started laughing and then singing at the top of my lungs, understanding to my soul that Ally has no fear and she would do whatever it took to get the job done and done right. She would strip, she would do her routine to “Tush” and she’d kill it because she can do anything.
I could give you a dozen more examples of how such songs as “Crash into Me” by the Dave Matthews Band, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, “Black” by Pearl Jam, “Beautiful War” by the Kings of Leon, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns ‘N’ Roses, “You’ll Accomp’ny Me” by Bob Seger, “Holding Out for a Hero,” the Ella Mae Bowen version, “Colder Weather” by the Zac Brown Band, “Work Song” by Hozier and “Stay Alive” by Jose Gonzalez (and much more) inspired and informed my writing. It means so much to me I have every song noted in every book I’ve written listed on my website.
But in the end, you have to read the books, and I hope queue up the songs when you do, to see how it influences my characters, serves to describe them and accompanies the action.
Will we see any new works from you soon? What will they be?
I’ve decided that 2017 is the year of writing and releasing, baby! I’ve been spending a lot of time the last few years traveling around to meet my Rock Chicks, doing events, signings and appearances. I’m cutting way back this year (and perhaps in 2018) in order to focus on writing and getting books out there.
When I started releasing, I had a number of series running, and new books coming to me all the time. But as my readership increased, I realized that for some series, I was asking readers to wait sometimes for over a year to see the next book in the series. I’ve needed to buckle down and wrap up some of those series so that I wouldn’t be doing that to my readers anymore. I know just how frustrating it can be to want something and to have to wait and I had to get my writing to a place where I only had a few series running (not eight!) so the wait would not be so bad.
It also has a lot to do with diving into new things to keep my mind expanding and shaking things up not only for me but to offer something exciting and juicy to my readers.
So I’ll be introducing my new erotica series, a trilogy, with The Deep End and The Farthest Edge coming out in the first half of 2017. I’m also doing something fun and unusual with an audio-exclusive standalone, Complicated, coming out in May (to be released in print and digital in November). And I’ll be finishing up my Magdalene series with The Time in Between (working title) coming out hopefully late summer (keep fingers crossed).
I don’t know where things will take me from there but I have to get back to my Chaos and Colorado Mountain series as well as tie up some loose ends with a possible anthology of short stories and novellas. We’ll just see which characters shout loud enough to get their HEA!
Favorite wine and favorite chocolate :)
Favorite wine: Wine. Favorite chocolate: Chocolate. ☺ Okay, this isn’t strictly true. I don’t like sweet wines and I don’t like white chocolate. But other than that, I’m pretty much an equal opportunity wine and chocolate lover!
What are your favorite foods/recipes.
I loooooove to cook, totally dig trying out new recipes and used to both cook and experiment a lot. I’ve fallen out of doing this in the last few years due to life (and writing) getting in the way but I’ve begun to take it up again due to life (and writing and my need to include fabulous dishes in my stories) requiring me to branch out.
Case in point, I tried out Guy Fieri’s Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe, serving this up with my awesome chili (two bowls of goodness to snarf up while watching glamorous people be glamorous at my Oscar party – what’s better than that?). And by the way, I can totally recommend this recipe. It’s fiddly and takes a long time but I figure once you get it down and add/subtract to make it your own (something I intend to do for sure!), it’ll be even more fabulous than it already is!
But my all-time go-tos that I (and my guests) never get sick of are my fried chicken, my grandmother’s baked beans and this delicious Mexican casserole I discovered through a friend. All the recipes for these are on my website. I didn’t make any of these up, including “my” fried chicken, which is really the tried and tested Southern way to do it. And even though people freak every time I make my chicken or the Mexican casserole, the surprise winner is my grandmother’s baked beans. If you like baked beans (and you’re not a vegetarian), you have to try to make these. Whenever people glob a big spoonful of these on their plate and tuck in, they lose their minds. It takes a lot of cooking (hours), but not much preparing, so that makes it even better – delicious and easy!
Will you be attending any signings or conventions? Where and when?
Even though I cut back on travel and appearances this year, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be a hermit! I’ll be with Kylie Scott and Joanna Wylde at The Ripped Bodice in Culver City, CA in March and I’ll be all over the place at the RT Booklovers Convention in Atlanta in May. And I’ll mention something further on that as, at the RT Convention, we’ll be unveiling a new arm of the Rock Chick Nation (which right now includes our Rock Chick Rendezvous events and our Rock Chick Rewards donations for women’s charities). It will be something special for my readers that, if it works, we’ll begin to do it on a regular basis as scheduling allows. We’ll be unveiling details on this soon!
I’ll also be at Fictionally Yours in Melbourne, Australia in September and taking the 1,001 Dark Nights cruise in January of 2018.
As I refer to often in these answers, my website is a treasure trove of not just news and book buy links, but other goodies. And on my website, a Schedule of Appearances is always kept up to date on the main page: www.KristenAshley.net. So if anyone is ever wondering where I’m going to be, they can find it there!
Coming March 7th!
✮✮✮ A delicious world of erotica, BDSM with alpha-subs and their Dommes,
and a gripping love story… Welcome to The Bee’s Honey!
The first book in New York Times bestselling author Kristen Ashley’s Honey Series,
THE DEEP END is a seductive and rich love story. Order your copy today! ✮✮✮
Enter a decadent sensual world where gorgeous alpha males are committed to fulfilling a woman's every desire…
Olivier isn’t sure what he’s gotten himself into when he joins the Honey Club, only that a dark part of him hungers for the lifestyle offered by this exclusive club. Here, no boundary will be left untested…and one's deepest fantasies will become an exquisite reality.
When Amélie invites Olivier to surrender, she gives the alpha submissive what he craves. Soon they both find themselves falling harder than they ever anticipated—but as their connection deepens, the truth about Olivier’s past could destroy everything…
Gripping and seductive, The Deep End is the first book in a sensational new series from bestselling author Kristen Ashley.
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lLPRu5
Kindle: http://amzn.to/2l8NMoM
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BAM: http://bit.ly/2lLMRxK
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