INTRODUCING …

Hello, I am Kimila Kay and am so honored to be included in this wonderful group. Thanks, Paty Jager for inviting me!

A little bit about me … I’m turning sixty-six in July and very excited to begin collecting my Social Security benefits in January 2024 before they morph into an elusive unicorn. When I turned sixty-five, I discovered regardless of whether you draw SS benefits you’re required to sign up for Medicare. Something I was reluctant to do because, well, the name for me symbolizes “Old Age”, which is hard to wrap my younger thinking brain around.

Of course, there are perks that come with age, primarily life experiences which help form storylines and character development. A reader recently complimented me, saying, “When I read your books, I always see a little bit of you in your characters.” A lovely kudos considering my characters are much younger than me, but what I focused on was she can “see” my characters.

Creating interesting characters is important to me and I tend to bring a fictional someone to life, by using attributes of my family and friends. My husband’s love for me. My oldest son’s handsome smile. My youngest son’s height. A friends laugh or gesture or favorite saying. As for my villains … what I haven’t experienced, my dark mind has no trouble creating.

I began writing in 2004 and was fortunate enough to have three short stories published in the “Cup of Comfort” anthology series. And while I wish I’d followed through sooner with my first novel, “Peril in Paradise”, am thankful for those life experiences along the way which I feel improved “Peril in Paradise’s” storyline and also made me a better writer.

My Mexico Mayhem Series is more suspense/thriller, than mystery, but I recently began writing a mystery series set in Oregon. “Redneck Ranch”, the first novel in the Stoneybrook Mystery Series, takes place in a fictional town and features an autistic deputy sheriff named Derrick Stone. One of life’s tragic experiences took my autistic son, Derrick, at the age of thirty-six when he suffered a heart attack in 2017. Derrick and I spent a lot of time together and I found myself lost without our lunches, shopping days, and movie outings. Then, to be slightly overdramatic, my writing rose like a Phoenix in my mind giving me somewhere to go when my broken heart needed soothing.

As you all know, life goes on, and for me every day now includes writing. My husband Randy and I are also planning for the future, one hopefully, that finds us living somewhere in a quaint costal town in Mexico. But for now, I enjoy our small home in Donald, Oregon, our fishing cabin on the Siletz River, Randy’s feisty, black cat, Halle, and as many adventures as we can experience before life causes us to slow down.

Happy writing, Ladies of Mystery!!!

Amazon.com: Peril in Paradise (Mexico Mayhem): 9781794052451

Amazon.com: MALICE IN MAZATLAN (Mexico Mayhem): 9781957638256