Welcome to Love Romances & More, Ms. Shay. We have the pleasure of chatting about your latest Firefighter book called Taking the Heat and finding out what is coming up with you in the future. 

Please introduce yourself and tell us what you like to do when not writing. 

Hi, there, readers and writers at Love Romances and More.  I’m Kathryn Shay and I write for Harlequin Superromance and The Berkley Publishing Group.  So far, I have 22 Supers out, with two more on the way, and 11 single titles.  I’m a former high school English teacher, married to my college sweetheart and have two grown children who live nearby.  When I’m not writing, I like to do several things. First, I feel giving back to the world is important so every Monday at noon, I go to a soup kitchen to help feed the poor and hungry. On Tuesdays, I answer the hotline phones at our local battered women’s shelter. Believe me, if you ever want to stop feeling sorry for yourself, work at a place like this. I also believe in staying healthy, so on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I take yoga classes, and try to squeeze one more in at home.  I walk almost every day.  I also love to read and my guilty pleasure is watching TV.  

Can you tell us a little about how you started writing; was it something you have always wanted to do? 

I always wanted to write, and began doing so at fifteen. At that tender age, I penned a short story about a female newspaper reporter who butts head with a very chauvinistic editor.  They fall in love, of course. I should have known then I’d end up writing romances.  I planned to take all the creative writing I could in college, and go to New York and “be a writer.”  But I also took teacher education and the moment I stepped in front of a class in my practice teaching, I fell in love with the job.  I choose to do that for my profession and loved my teaching experience.  However, when I turned forty, I decided if I was ever going to write a book, I had to do it then. I did, it was picked from a slush pile, published and the rest you know about. 

Who or what has been your biggest influence as a writer? 

I think Judith Guest, who wrote ORDINARY PEOPLE, was my biggest influence in writing a novel. I was so moved by that book, and taught it for several years to my seniors.  I think I really got to analyze the plot, character and other mechanics of writing. Then Carol Backus, who wrote for Harlequin as Suzanne Barclay, started an RWA chapter in my hometown and began reading and critiquing my work. She was very instrumental in my getting published and became one of my dearest friends. 

Your work is very popular with readers and reviewers; how does it feel to have such positive recognition for your work?  

It feels wonderful.  I write an emotional story, with lots of angst, and it seems to hit home with people. I get reader mail telling me the reader cried, or stayed up all night to finish the book. What grea compliment is there for an author? 

What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story? 

Characterization and a good, solid, almost impossible-to-work-out conflict.  The two go hand in hand.  Most reviewers and readers say they couldn’t figure out HOW I was going to get my hero and heroine together.  In my latest work, both main characters really hurt each other, and can’t take back what they did. In the end, like in real life, sometimes you just have to feel bad about your actions, ask forgiveness and go on from there.  

Now that we settled in, can you tell us about TAKING THE HEAT and what you think readers will get out of it? 

TAKING THE HEAT is about widower Liam O’Neil who lost his wife three years ago to cancer and is ready to date again. He meets Sophie Tyler, rough and tumble female firefighter from the FDNY, and is attracted to her. But his sons are still suffering over the loss of their mother and Liam feels he can’t risk getting involved with someone in a dangerous profession.  Too bad, though, because they can’t help themselves and sparks fly, emotionally, physically and on the line. 

It is a gritty, emotional read that keeps taking twists and turns you won’t expect because I didn’t expect them.  It’s so much fun when that happens. 

Could you tell us a little about how you develop your characters? Who has been your favorite character to write? The most challenging?  

You know, I can tell you my favorite TYPE of hero, and give examples, but I can’t pick one.  I really like the nice guy who’s a bit of a bad boy, sometimes gruff on the outside but is really sensitive on the inside.  A writer can achieve this kind of thing by making him do things that seem out of character: he’s nice to dogs and older people and kids, while he’s really giving the heroine a hard time.  Examples of this are Luke Ludzecky in PROMISES TO KEEP, Grady O’Connor in ON THE LINE, Dylan O’Roarke in THE MAN WHO LOVED CHRISTMAS, and the guy I’m just writing about in my new book.  I develop them with very broad strokes, then let them go in the pages and see how they turn out. I often have to go back to the first few chapters and change things because I didn’t really know who they were. 

Where can readers find out what's new and how can they contact you? 

www.kathrynshay.com 

Do you have a strict writing schedule? How do you balance your personal and writing time? 

On most days, I get up around seven or eight (this is late, in comparison to my teaching days I was up at five-thirty), watch some “Morning Joe,” take the dog for a walk and settle down to write.  At around noon, I go out to work at a Soup Kitchen, answer the phones at a battered women’s shelter, go to yoga class, or out to lunch with my friends.  Sometimes I work in the afternoon, depending on what my deadlines are.  I cook supper, eat with my family and relax with a book or TV if I don’t have a meeting at church.  I find it much easier to balance my personal and writing time now that I’m not teaching any more.  I believe you can balance anything by just doing it! 

 Which author(s) is your favorite? And who has most influenced you work? 

Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Judith Guest, Margaret Atwood and John Irving.  As I said above, I think Judith Guest influenced my style the most. 

Do you feel your writing is character driven or plot driven? How do you balance these two elements? 

It’s definitely character driven. Often I start out with a profession, and say, “Hmm, this kind of person would really work as a teacher, doctor, firefighter. Oh, and the hero could be….”  I go from there for the plot. It’s organic and I don’t really see it as balancing anything. 

In Taking the Heat, you introduce a female firefighter named Sophie Taylor and she is one intriguing character. How did she evolve when writing this story? What inspired you to write about a female firefighter instead of the traditional male one? 

I’ve done many stories about male firefighters and female firefighters.  I picked female this time because I wanted to pair her up with one of the O’Neil brothers.   But one of my favorite things to do is to reverse roles in books, and write strong women that the heroes just have to contend with.   

Your books are very popular, emotional and realistic. How much research do you put in for each book and is it the same for each one? 

No, it’s not the same for each one.  The firefighter books took the most research.  As you probably know, I worked with my local fire department for years, riding the trucks, going to the firehouses, wearing their gear.  I also read unendingly about them. Some books just require online research: female gangs, how a building goes up, what causes amnesia. 

I really enjoyed the O’Neil brothers. What inspired you to write a series around them and the loves of their lives? Will there be more about the O’Neil’s in the future? 

When SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN came out, Bailey’s brothers simply jumped off the pages.  My editor and I agreed to do their stories.  I LOVE those guys and hope to do the last two brothers soon.  Notice in these books how strong all the women are.  And the O’Neil brothers are always having fits over this. It’s so cool. 

What would we find on your bookcase if we looked? What is one of your favorite authors? 

You’d find many classics, art books, research books, volumes of Shakespeare and poetry, current fiction read in my book club and of course, a whole collection of romance novels.  All his life, my son has come into my office while I’m writing and lay on the floor and perused my books. He’s still doing it at 24. 

How much does reader feedback matter to you? 

This matters more to me than reviews. I love to hear from readers and try to respond back (unless the letters are from prison, which authors get, and don’t answer, no matter how sad they are.) I can often get a feel for what went right and what went wrong in a book from these readers. 

Are you ever nervous when a new book comes out? 

Not anymore. I get mostly good reviews, but if a bad one comes along, I just roll with it.  I get very excited when each one comes out, though.  I always reread it. 

How did you discover your passion for writing? 

As I said earlier, I seemed to always have this passion. My adolescent and college friends will tell you how I used to write stories and read them aloud to them. I was probably pretty obnoxious about it. 

Out of all your books, do you have a favorite? If so, which one and why? 

COP OF THE YEAR from Superromance is my favorite because everything just clicked in that book.  I simply loved the hero and the young boy in a teenage gang.  I also think TRUST IN ME is my best single title. Again, everything just worked, and it’s very emotional. 

If you had not chosen to share your gift of writing, what else would you have done?

Teaching, which I did! 

Are there any dreams or goals you have yet to fulfill? 

I’d like to make the New York Times bestseller list. 

Is there another genre you haven’t tried but would like to in the future? If so, which one and why?

I’d really like to do some science fiction romance.  I love futuristic scenarios, and OUTER LIMITS in one of my favorite shows.  It’s fun to dream up things like that. I have a time travel/futuristic proposal that my agent’s trying to sell now. Keep your fingers crossed J. 

If you could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything for 24 hours, what would it be? 

I’d be myself, and go back to Positano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast.   I’d take my husband with me and just bask in the ambience and romance of the coast, as we did a few years. 

Do you have any indulgent behaviors one might find surprising?  

I like political talk shows. It should surprise everyone because up until this election, I’ve never taken an interest. 

Please tell us about the projects you are currently working on; what can readers expect to see in the coming months? 

I have two Supers scheduled for January and August of 2009, both in various stages of completion. The first is newly titled A MAN SHE COULDN’T FORGET:  Claire Boneli doesn't remember the two men in her life, her best friend, Brady Langston and the guy she dates, Jonathan Harris. But both know her, and are there when she wakes up in the hospital with amnesia.  In the weeks to come, Claire begins to regain her memory, and what she's finding out makes her see both men in a new light.  The problem is, can she trust either one of them?

The next, tentatively titled AFTER THE FALL:  Jayne Logan's carefully built life falls apart when a walkway in an antiquities gallery she designed collapses. Under investigation by the Architectural Review Board, Jayne goes to stay with her college roommate. There she meets Luke Martino. He's a confident, cocky contractor and Jayne can't bear to be around him and his success while she's waiting for her life to fall apart. When it does, she never expected Luke to be there to pick up the pieces.

I’m also hoping to contract for the next O’Neil book.

Thanks Ms. Shay for coming by Love Romances and More Reviews and chatting with us on your latest O’Neil book, Taking The Heat.I thoroughly enjoyed this latest by you and look forward to reading more of the O’Neil’s and the women who find them utterly charming! Please add anything else you think the readers would enjoy knowing about your work and anything else. 

I would like to say that my philosophy on life is to go after what you want. You miss one hundred percent of the shot you don’t take!