“So what do you think about writing a book with me?”

Yeah, a simple enough question. That’s how it started, one evening back in early 2013. I was Skyping with Will Parkinson, who had fast become one of my closest friends on Facebook. We’d been chatting via FB since early November, just before the release of my first book–and then talking literally via Skype. (We even Skyped on Christmas Day while I was preparing the dinner for the oven. Yeah, not a good idea when one of you is a vegan. To quote Will – “Poor, poor turkey.”)

Will had been reading my first BDSM novel, An Unlocked Heart, as it was written, and it’s safe to say he’d fallen in love with Alex and Leo. And I’d been reading Pitch, Will’s first YA novel–and telling him to submit it to Harmony Ink. Wow – it seems like yesterday….

But I digress.

I’d casually mentioned to Will that if he ever wanted to collaborate on a book, I’d be okay with that. I got a quick No. Fair enough, I thought–it’s not everyone’s idea of fun.

But a week later, in the midst of a Skype conversation, Will askedTHE question.

“So what do you think about writing a book with me?”

Wow. Really? Hang on a minute… didn’t someone looking remarkably like me suggest this very thing really recently???

“I’ve had this idea…A young American man, Scott, leaves the US to fly to the UK to meet Jeff, a guy he’d met on the Internet… A tale where US meets UK–OOH! Now there’s an idea! Oh K.C!”

And of course I agreed in a heartbeat.

So there are over four thousand miles–and a six hour time difference–between us. I’d mentioned co-authoring with another author, who was doing the same thing, and not enjoying the experience. His response?

“NOOOOOOOO! Don’t do it!”

Yeah, I didn’t listen–thank goodness.

So we started planning. Will had recently helped me plan out the plot of my next BDSM novel, Trusting Thomas, and that had worked out really well. Skype was the obvious solution, but the timing would make interesting reading.

Will works nights in a hotel and usually got home about 11pm, stayed awake till 5am and then slept until it was time to get up for work again. I’m an early bird and tend to wake up about 5.30 – 6.00am. We’d often Skype then–him on his computer, me on my mobile phone. It wasn’t ideal for writing–especially as I was usually still in bed when he Skyped. But then in March Will had some time off and we got into a routine. I was teaching at the time and when school was done for the day I would Skype Will and we’d plan every day for a couple of hours. I was typing all our notes into our Dropbox folder. Now, it wasn’t the way we usually wrote–I didn’t make such detailed notes for my own books and Will definitely didn’t–but it worked for us. Once the whole book had been planned out like this, we started writing. We’d use the plan to see what was happening next, and highlight it once a part had been written. That way, we could see at a glance what was coming next.

Will, however, did something that really pushed the novel along in its latter stages. Whenever a scene occurred to him, he’d write it down and save it in the folder. By the time we were writing the novel, the folder contained over 9,000 words.

My life got…interesting around this point, and suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands. I finished Trusting Thomas, wrote Making it Personal, finished the first of the Island Tales, Waiting for a Prince–and at last I could commit lots of time to our project.By now we’d written about 32K words andI became a writing machine. All of a sudden I was free to write. I couldn’t believe how fast the book grew. And the reason for this?Will’s pre-written scenes. They slotted into place, and within the space of a couple of weeks we’d reached the end–and 82K words.

So toward the end of June, we were there. Finished. We sent it to three betas and the response we got from them was really encouraging. At last we were ready to submit our baby, Someone to Keep Me.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Dreamspinner Press gave us a contract and it will be released in January 2014. You should have seen the FB messages flying around the day I got the email from Elizabeth North. And what made it all the sweeter was that a week later, I was able to greet my co-author in person for the first time. Yeah, that was a good day.

And what does the future hold for Will Parkinson / Parker Williams and K.C.Wells?

Will doesn’t do things by halves. We had the idea for the next book, and shortly after that, Will came up with the idea for the third. Yeah, watch this space…

And only yesterday, Will messaged me with another book idea–and THAT one has me really excited.

Becky Condit has loved watching our collaboration. She sees virtually all of our conversations on Facebook, because she is a brilliant sounding board and we love sharing our ideas with her. And she loves being able to watch our writing evolve. She is our greatest supporter. :waves hi to Becky:

It’s been a wonderful experience, writing with Will. And the best part? It’s not over yet….

:grins:

SEPTEMBER’S TIDE

Reviewed by Danielle

SERIES: Island Tales #2
LENGTH: 146 pages
BLURB: David Hannon hasn’t written a word of his latest detective thriller since he threw out his lover Clark five months ago after he caught Clark cheating on him. So when his agent informs him that he’s about to leave New York to take a little trip to an island off the south coast of England, David is torn. It could be just what he needs—or the vacation from hell. Once he arrives there, David quickly falls in love with the beautiful, tranquil Steephill Cove. The quiet little bay has everything David needs, including the opportunity to get laid regularly, in the gorgeous shape of Taylor Monroe, who runs a water sports equipment hire business. David’s a happy man. He always writes better when there is a plentiful supply of good sex.

When Taylor first meets the Lighthouse’s newest occupant, he can almost hear the click. David is just what Taylor needs—an older, sexy guy who is willing to share his bed, no strings, no promises. At least, that was the plan. As the two men spend more time together, Taylor finds himself growing to like the confident writer more and more. Taylor’s family like him. Taylor’s friends like him. And then there comes the moment when Taylor realizes that maybe it’s no longer a matter of liking David, but something a whole lot stronger.

Unfortunately, his epiphany occurs a little too late, when a visitor to the bay forces Taylor to accept that David might be spoken for. In any case, David is leaving at the end of September—and it looks like he’ll be taking Taylor’s heart with him…

REVIEW:

There are times when you enjoy reading a story but then you have to review it, and on occasion I find that hard to do. This is one of those occasions.

I won’t deny I’m a fan of the writing of K.c Wells. I think she is refreshing and sexy (if you get what I mean by that), and always captivating. I personally always look forward to reading a new release of hers. Having reviewed a few books of hers before and after reading all of them, I am trying to keep my opinions clear and objective .

I cannot deny I liked the story, but why did I like it? It’s easy reading with no major drama and great characters, but I didn’t expect any less.

You get introduced to David, a popular writer who suffers from writer’s block and a broken heart. He is forced by his PA to travel to the isle of Where, to stay in the lighthouse she rented for him for a month. How could he have known his life would be changed by that decision?

As a reader you know that and you can sense more things in this story, but it doesn’t distract or bore at any level.

Then we meet Taylor, the sexy younger island hottie who loves to swim. The instant attraction is there from the minute they meet. You can feel it in the way the author writes their coming together over the whole story. Right up to the perfectly sweet epilogue.

A special note I need to make about Taylor’s friends. What a supportive crowd and an awesome bunch of guys! And let’s not forget Taylor’s family who take David in and give him the family he surely desired by being warm and welcome.

This story is number two in the Island Tale series but is a standalone and I kind of think that is a shame. I would have loved to have snippets of the main characters from the first one (Mark and Sam) but I also have to admit that it’s possible that is just my own preference 🙂

Overall I still am wondering what I liked, and again I liked it a lot. So much that I didn’t want to put it down and that I read it in one go. Perhaps what’s said above gives the right impression though. I am very curious to see the new part and if I’m honest, I hope we will get snippets of the main characters from this book and the first book as well in the new part 🙂

Danielle’s Rating:

BUY LINK: AMAZON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and raised in the north-west of England, K.C.Wells always loved writing. Words were important. Full stop. However, when childhood gave way to adulthood, the writing ceased, as life got in the way.

K.C. discovered erotic fiction in 2009, where the purchase of a ménage storyline led to the startling discovery that reading about men in love was damn hot. In 2012, arriving at a really low point in life led to the desperate need to do something creative. An even bigger discovery waited in the wings – writing about men in love was even hotter…

The laptop still has no idea of what hit it… it only knows that it wants a rest, please.

K.C. can be reached via email (k.c.wells@btinternet.com), on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/KCWellsWorld), on Twitter (www.twitter.com/kcwellsworld) or through comments at the K.C.Wells website (http://www.kcwellsworld.com ) K.C. loves to hear from readers.

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