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Guest Author Q&A with Linda Kage

Monster Among the Roses and Kissing the Boss
Hi Linda!
And Welcome to my Blog 😊 I am very excited to have you here! I just finished Monster Among the Roses and LOVED it (review here). The next book is bound to be epic!

Tell us a little about you… Where are you from? And what got you into reading?
Was it a hobby at first or did you always want to be a writer?

Hey there!  I’m Linda.  I grew up in rural southeast Kansas, the eighth child of farmers who also operated a dairy business, milking cows. Most of my older siblings had grown up and either moved out or were gone so much, I mostly only remember trailing around my next older sister all the time.  Except she was an avid reader, you see, so I twiddled my thumbs and played with the cats at the barn many times while I waited for her to finish “just one more chapter.” Then I started school, and the girl I sat with on the bus loved to read too, so most days, I sat quietly by her while she buried her nose in a book, absorbed in her story. Finally, I was kind of like, “okay, I’m going to find out what the big deal with all these books is about.”  So I started with the Baby-Sitters Club, and wow. I decided I loved the world of fiction so much more than reality.  It didn’t take me long until I became that girl on the bus with her nose in a book. And now, my kids are like, “Mom, how many more pages until you finish that chapter?” I veered my love for reading toward the romance genre in high school after I listened to a couple of my older sisters rave about their favorite romance authors. So I tried my first romance story at sixteen. It was by Sandra Brown. After that, my niche was totally anything with a happily ever after in it. I had always created stories in my head, and I have notebooks somewhere, full of things I wrote when I was little. I finished writing my first full length romance novel before I graduated from high school, but it was so awful, I might have accidentally, on-purpose lost it.  But I was so addicted to writing the kinds of books I loved reading the most that I just keep playing around, coming up with story after story, until about the fifteenth book I wrote felt good enough that I thought someone else might like to read it too.  I ended up selling my first book—a young adult romance—when I was thirty to a small ebook publisher named The Wild Rose Press. And now, eight years later, I’m ready to share my twenty-sixth published story with the world! Eek!  It’s my dream come true.


When you are not writing what genre do you enjoy reading? And do you have a ’go-to’ author?
Wait. Did you just say say A go-to author, as if there could only be one?  Gasp! Is that even possible?  There are so many amazing, talented story-tellers out there, I’m not sure I could only pick one go-to. I might be able to narrow it down to a couple per romance sub-genre, but that’s as close as I could come to one!  LOL! Growing up, I had to have everything there was by Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, Julie Garwood, Judith McNaught and LaVyrle Spencer.  Then I went through a heavy romantic suspense phase and devoured all things Suzanne Brockmann, Karen Robards, Cherry Adair, Gennita Low, Tara Janzen, Cindy Gerard, and Roxanne St. Claire.  If I’m in a historical romance mood, I have to have either Julia Quinn, Suzanne Enoch, Lisa Kleypas, Elizabeth Hoyt, Laura Guhrke, or Sabrina Jeffries. Some of my favorite paranormal authors include Gena Showalter, JR Ward, Eve Langlais, and Lara Adrian.  Then, if I want something young adult, I look into Chelsea Fine, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Katie McGarry, Huntley Fitzpatrick, Simone Elkeles, or Jay McLean.  Or if I want new adult, I’m all over Colleen Hoover, Tammara Webber, Kristen Callihan, Elle Kennedy or Aly Martinez. I’m also in love with all things Mia Sheridan, Brittainy Cherry, Everly Lucas, and Ada Frost!

Monster Among the Roses was the first book I read by you and I loved it. It is not easy to find a good Adult Fairytale retelling (well, I don’t think it is). What inspired you to write this amazing Beauty and the Beast Story?
I’ll blame my sister Sandra.  She loves fairy tale retellings, so I came up with a series I hoped she would enjoy.

The next book in the Fairy Tale Quartet is based on Cinderella (Kissing the Boss come out March 2nd, the review will be up on the 6th). What can you tell us about it?
I tried to make it fun!  So hopefully some of the oddball twists I came up with that deviate from the original Cinderella plot will make you laugh…or maybe just get your lip to twitch into something that could pass for a smile! And if you’ve read Monster Among the Roses, like Anne, then you’ll recognize a few familiar faces!

What other books do you have coming out this year that we should keep an eye on?
Oh goodness. I’m not sure which one will be my next release.  I know I have to work on the third book in the Fairy Tale series. And I have to finish my Forbidden Men series with Mason’s book, but the procrastination in that one is so strong I’ve found myself going totally off my usual contemporary romance track and writing something that resembles a fantasy from like medieval times or something.  It’s all just so strange, maybe I have a fever, I don’t know, but I keep working on the fantasy story the most, and I have a bad feeling it maybe be the next book I release. It just seems like I have to get that story out of my head before I can get back to work on the contemporary books I usually put out!  So I’m mostly hoping people will forgive me if I take a slight detour from my usual!  Fingers crossed. Sorry, that probably doesn’t answer your question, but I’m mostly at a “I’ll have to just see what comes out of me next” stage right now.

And for the fun of it… if you were to turn any of your books into a movie or TV show which one would it be? And can you think of a dream cast for the two main characters?
Oh!  It would totally have to be my Forbidden Men series. I think they’d make an interesting TV show, but I’m not sure who would play who. I mean, I’m not picky, as long as all the guys are totally gorgeous and awesome actors!  LOL! 

Thank you so very much for taking part of a Glimpses of my Books Q&A! I absolutely loved having you here and getting to know you better. I think we totally would be friends if we lived closer 😉
Thank you so much for having me here and letting me ramble on…and on. This was fun!  Big hugs!


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