Kelly Moran, a gifted storyteller, captivates readers with her enchanting tales that draw inspiration from the world around her. Her literary accomplishments are numerous, including being a RITA® Finalist, RONE Award-Winner, Catherine Award-Winner, Readers Choice Finalist, and Holt Medallion Finalist, as well as earning spots on USA TODAY’s “Must Read” and “10 Best Reads” lists. Kelly’s novels have been translated into multiple languages, including German, Czech, Romanian, and Dutch. When not writing, she enjoys indulging in sentimental movies, various forms of art, and catching up on sleep. Though she keeps it a secret, Kelly has a soft spot for coffee and chocolate. She currently lives in South Carolina with her partner, three sons, a mischievous dog, and sassy cats. Kelly values feedback from her readers and always looks forward to hearing from them.
What inspired you to write the “Redwood Ridge” series, and what draws you to the small-town romance genre?
There was a lot of inspiration for “Redwood Ridge.” I had a black lab at the time, Willow, who has since crossed the rainbow bridge. She was like another extension of my being, and she had the best personality. It got me thinking about incorporating that aspect more into my writing, which led to veterinarians (the heroes of books 1-3). Pets are such an important part of our families. I’d also played around with the idea of matchmakers, since it’s such a fun and uncanny way of introducing love interests, thus the Battleaxes (three meddling women who play Cupid) were written into existence. In past books, I often added real life conditions such as depression, PTSD, and social anxiety, but I wanted to expand on those types of underrepresented elements. It came naturally in the scripts for “Redwood Ridge,” featuring characters or topics like autism, the deaf community, dementia, physical scars, and homelessness.
Small towns are such an idyllic setting. They come with their own set of rules and challenges, but stepping inside the pages of a small town romance is like coming home. It gives you warm fuzzies. Everything will be okay. I think in what is sometimes an ugly and cruel world, the small town vibe lets you escape to a place where everyone knows your name, there’s always a helping hand, and you can’t dissolve into mediocrity.
Each book in the series features a different couple. Can you talk about how you approach developing characters and their relationships over the course of a series?
All series are different, but the general rule of thumb is to build interest from the start, especially with regards to small towns. The first book really needs to be strong. Readers get hooked by falling in love with the characters, the writing style, and the setting. Besides great storytelling, I think the key is to describe the setting in a way that makes the reader want to visit or live there, and while focusing on the main characters’ story, drop tidbits about future characters.
Books 1-3 in Redwood are brothers who run a veterinary clinic called Animal Instincts. The heroines from those books work there. It made things quite easy in “Puppy Love,” the series opener, to have the four remaining characters in the series for books 2 and 3 not only be present on the page in the background, but to feed them to the readers in a way where they can’t wait to read what happens to them. For books 4 and 5, the heroes are a fireman and the sheriff, who play on Redwood’s baseball team against the clinic. They, too, were dribbled into the background of the books so that readers would recognize them later and be invested. Thus, by the time book 2 releases, and so on down the series, it’s like having dinner with an old friend and returning to warm, comfortable surroundings. Readers will want to come back again and again.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a writer, and how did you overcome it?
I think the biggest challenge is the stigma and ridicule that romance authors often face. There are some incredibly ignorant phrases used to describe our genre such as: trashy, fluff, cheap, smut, mommy porn, and bodice rippers. Some of those we’ve taken back through time, yet a lot of us still cringe. Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Brontë all wrote forms of romance, not to mention other greats like Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway, whose works were inspired and driven by love. Yet, the stereotypes of modern romances make it so they are not considered true literature. We’re laughed at and shunned.
Large review syndications and newspapers often don’t read or write articles about romance unless the author is a household name, and even then, it’s selective. We’ve had to struggle for many years for credibility or to get noticed outside of blogs. Most people who turn their noses up have never read a romance, or they’re basing their opinions on outdated and archaic formulas of publishing models from over 30 or 40 years ago.
The thing is, romance is the highest selling fiction genre, and has been for decades. It outsells mystery, fantasy, science fiction, crime, and horror. There’s a reason why some of the largest TikTok and Insta trends or influencers are romance reviewers. That’s insulting a lot of authors and readers when book-shaming is involved. I think the only way to overcome these obstacles is through open-ended and honest educational conversations.
You have written both contemporary romance and paranormal romance. Do you have a preference for one genre over the other, and how do you approach writing each type of story differently?
I don’t necessarily have a favorite. Both are satisfying and pique my interest. They’re also what I’m most comfortable with or what I know. I will say I’m very selective in what paranormal subjects I broach or choose to write. Which is why I have twice as many contemporary titles as I do paranormal.
With my contemporaries, I’ve delved into sub-tropes such as western, small town, romcom, beach reads, and tear-jerkers, though I’m mostly branded for small-town romantic comedies. My paranormals lean toward ghosts and witches, and I don’t see myself veering from those 2 subjects. I also write horror/haunting stories under a different pen name, Kelly Covic.
Approaching the actual writing isn’t very different. Research of setting, careers, and psychology of personalities is key. I often start a lucid timeline to watch for plot, pacing, and conflict issues. Contemporaries tend to lean more toward realistic areas of research and writing, focusing hard on developmental relationships, internal and external conflicts, and reasoning. Paranormals are similar, but there are added facets. And they have to be written to be believable. With ghosts, digging into what types of hauntings, the backstory, and how it pertains to the characters reiterate realism in world-building. With witches, investigating magic, herbs, spells, potions, and wiccan calendars is detrimental to the dimension of the whole arc. Contemporaries are everyday life and struggles. Paranormals tend to have more action or urgency threaded throughout. Either way, both have to be accurate and representative of human nature for connectivity.
Can you share any teasers or hints about what readers can expect from future books in the “Redwood Ridge” series? Or perhaps you have a new series in the works?
I’m currently writing a small town southern romance series called “Heart of Vallantine,” which is about three friends who inherit a historical library. I absolutely love the concept, and I’m having a blast writing. Think southern drawls and y’alls, with bookish fun. It opens with a novella (which is available now) about the library’s owner, how he fell in love, and why they bestowed the library to the women. Books 1-3 (full-length novels) will center on each of them and their love story. “In This Moment” is the first book, and it’ll be released sometime in summer 2023. I’m also working on the 3rd book to close out my witchy “Fated” trilogy.
As for “Redwood Ridge,” there are five full-length books (which are the ones in the anthology) and then a closing novella that has a holiday theme. The plan was to leave Redwood as a finished series. However, the books have gained much popularity and have foreign translation rights in Germany (where it’s a Spiegel bestseller), The Netherlands, The Czech Republic, and Romania. Russia just picked up rights, too. With that being said, I’m in negotiations for possibly writing more books in the near future. Time will tell.
For more information on Kelly, visit authorkellymoran.com.
