Kate L. Mary Interview,with a little romance sprinkled in
Hello and welcome, in this post, we are going all out girl power with a little added with a little romance sprinkled in, with an interview with Kate L. Mary,
Kate L. Mary is an award-winning author of Adult, New Adult, and Young Adult fiction, ranging from Post-apocalyptic tales of the undead to Speculative Fiction and Contemporary Romance! ,Her YA book, When We Were Human, was a 2015 Children’s Moonbeam Book Awards Silver Medal winner for Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi Fiction, and a 2016 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal winner for Young Adult Science Fiction. And Tribe of Daughters was an Honorable Mention in the 2018 SPR Book Awards, a 2019 Readers’ Favorite Bronze Medal winner for Science Fiction and a Semi-finalist in the 2019 Kindle Book Awards for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction
Q How long have you been writing for?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I got married young and started having kids, so I kept putting it off. I always told myself I’d do when my kids were finally in school full time, but it didn’t take that long. After years of starting projects that I ever finished, I finally got an idea and completed my first book in 2012 while my husband was deployed. My kids were still little but I had a lot of free time since we were living in California and I didn’t know a lot of people—our families were in Ohio, so we were far from home. After that, the books just poured out of me, and I finally published my first book—not the first one I wrote, which is still unpublished and needs A LOT of work—in 2014. I now have 38 books (and novellas out) with number 39 being released in October. Currently, only 19 of them are available on audiobook but I’m working on it. I just approved one yesterday, (now waiting on audible) and I have 7 others in production at the moment.
Q Where did the idea for your Apocalyptic book series come from?
I have several series that take place in apocalyptic settings, and while the inspiration for all of them came from different places, I started off writing about zombies. I’d always loved apocalyptic stories and having the undead to worry about adds a little more tension to the story, which makes for some fun settings. The Walking Dead was on season two when I wrote my first zombie book, Broken World, and it was definitely a huge inspiration for my writing.
Q How do you think up the plot-lines for your Oklahoma Wastelands zombie series of books, with a little romance sprinkled in?
While I rarely read books that are centered solely on romance, I think having romance in a novel is only natural. People fall in love and the end of society wouldn’t change that—it might even speed up the process since there’s so much at stake. Having said that, when I start writing most of my books, I don’t know where they’re going to go because I’m not much of a plotter. I have a general idea of what I want to happen and let the characters make their own decisions from there. Sometimes the romance becomes a bigger part of the plot than I thought it would, sometimes it doesn’t. In Broken World, which is a fan favorite, the romance isn’t necessarily essential to the plot, which makes it enjoyable for non-romance readers, but it became a big deal to fans because they fell in love with the characters so much. That’s typically the key to how I try to build my stories. I want to make them accessible to everyone but develop the characters enough that even people who don’t usually like a romantic element to a story still find themselves rooting for it because it begins to feel real to them.
Q Who's been your favorite character in your Apocalyptic Books series?
It’s so strange how it turned out because he was not a nice person at the beginning of the Broken World series, but Angus James has become my all-time favorite character and a big fan favorite. Between the 7 books in the Broken World series and the 4 in the Twisted World series, he went through quite a transformation—one that I never saw coming. He’s definitely a character that has layers upon layers, and while I don’t want to promise anything, I will admit that I don’t think I’m quite done with Angus James just yet.
Q Have you killed off a character and then regretted it?
No. I don’t have a problem killing off characters when it fits the plot, and unfortunately, that happens a lot in apocalyptic books, and while I’ve had some readers get VERY angry at me, every one of those deaths moved the plot where I needed it to go or added another layer to a character. There have been times when I thought I was going to kill someone off but as the plot moved forward I realized it wasn’t going to be the catalyst I’d originally thought it would be, so I changed my mind.
Q Please explain the Zombie Apocalypse Love Story Novellas, they look a lot of fun to listen to?
I started writing these because I enjoy reading romance from time to time, but not only do I get bored with an entire novel, I prefer for them to be in an apocalyptic or dystopian setting rather than a contemporary one, which isn’t easy to find. I also write pretty fast and can usually finish one in 3 days when I’m on a roll. Typically, I do a surprise release with them, and I feel like it’s a nice, fun surprise for readers if I throw one out every now and then. They are all set in the same world as the Broken/Twisted series’ (Alone and The Oklahoma Wastelands series are also set in that world, and there’s a nod to it in Tribe of Daughters as well.) and take place at different times during the apocalypse—sometimes in the beginning, sometimes a few years in—but focus on people finding love during the apocalypse.
Q Is any more Novellas Planned for your Apocalyptic series? Are you working on any new stories?
Definitely. They’re fun to write in between full novels and pretty easy to put out, and I have certain readers that love them because novellas are a quick and fun read.
Q Do you use the same narrator for each book, I have only listened to Twisted World: A Broken World Novel Twisted, Book 1, and I must say Heather Firth was an excellent choice for the narrator for the audiobook
Heather is fantastic and she narrates the Twisted series as well as The Oklahoma Wastelands series for me. When it comes to narrators, I like to mix it up because my books are all in the first person and I think it would be strange if they all sounded the same, but I try my best to keep the same narrator for the entire series so it’s consistent.
Q Not only have you written an Apocalyptic book series, but you have also written two other series of books Young Adult Crossover Books, Adult Romance Books, Does it help as a writer to write in new styles and could you introduce their worlds and some of the main characters?
Oh, I have A LOT more books, many of which are not yet on audio (something I’m working on).
Moonchild is an upper young adult series, meaning it’s clean (no sex) but has some situations that people might find adult and would prefer their children to be older before they read it. (I have a 10, 12, & 15 years old and would have no problem letting my kids read it, but everyone is different.) It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world more than a hundred years after the fall of technology, (the main character doesn’t know a lot of details about WHAT happened), and is a fun mix of dystopian, science fiction, and steampunk. I love this world and the characters, and so far I’ve written three books but definitely plan to write more.
Asher Kimura and Scarlett Moon are the main characters in the series and they are without a doubt some of my favorite characters to write about. This world is dark and corrupt, meaning not many people make it through childhood without some baggage, and in this series that baggage pops back up, creating a situation the characters can’t ignore. The great thing about this series is that it’s appropriate for teens, but has adult appeal as well because the world is so complex. The first two books in this series are available on audiobook and the third is being recorded now.
When We Were Human is a standalone novel set in a post-apocalyptic world after an alien invasion. It’s also a young adult but adults will enjoy it too, and the aliens are very creepy! I won two awards for this one, and I’m very proud of it. Hopefully one day I continue the series. (This book is available on audiobook!)
The Outliers Saga is my dystopian series, and it’s blown me away by the attention. I’ve won several awards and have been nominated for two more, and I absolutely adore this complex world and the multiple societies I’ve created. It’s technically adult but can be read by teens with caution, as there are some mature themes in the story. In this novel, there are three casts or tiers of people. The Sovereign, who rule, the Fortis, who are the muscle for the Sovereign. and the Outliers, who are outcasts and are basically slaves. Indra is an Outlier, and like her people, she starts off weak and scared, but through the course of some pretty horrible events, she discovers that she’s not as weak as the Sovereign and Fortis want her to believe, and she becomes determined to fight back. All three of these books are available on audiobook.
Also available on audiobook is my alien apocalypse romance novel, The Blood Will Dry and the first book in my Oklahoma Wastelands zombie series, The Loudest Silence, (Book 2 is being recorded and hopefully book 3 won’t be far behind!), my new adult romantic mystery, Collision, and just out is the first book in my new adult contemporary romance series, The List.
Like I said, I have a lot more books—I’m working on getting them on audiobook now and currently have 8 in production—but my favorite is Tribe of Daughters, which is a set in a post-apocalyptic world and features a secluded matriarchal society. The ancestors of these women chose to live away from society after some horrible things happened to them, but 70 years later things have come full circle in the village.
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Kate L. Mary is an award-winning author of Adult, New Adult, and Young Adult fiction, ranging from Post-apocalyptic tales of the undead to Speculative Fiction and Contemporary Romance! Her YA book, When We Were Human, was a 2015 Children’s Moonbeam Book Awards Silver Medal winner for Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi Fiction, and a 2016 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal winner for Young Adult Science Fiction. Her book Outliers was a Top 10 Finalist in the 2018 Author Academy Awards for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction, a Finalist in the 2018 Wishing Shelf Book Awards, First Place Winner in the 2018 Kindle Book Awards for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction, Cover Finalist in the 2019 RONE Awards from InD’tale Magazine, and a Nominee in the 2020 TopShelf Book Awards. Tribe of Daughters was an Honorable Mention in the 2018 SPR Book Awards, a 2019 Readers’ Favorite Bronze Medal winner for Science Fiction and a Semi-finalist in the 2019 Kindle Book Awards for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction.
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