Family Reunions with Kate Walker

I’ve just come back from a family reunion that was a very special event.  I come from a family of five sisters.   (I come right in the middle of them if you’re wondering.)  My eldest sister is living in Australia  so she’s sadly thousands of miles away, but the next eldest sister – the one between her and me – is having a big birthday this year.   And she invited all the rest of us -  and the next generation – and the one after that – to come together for a very special family  party and overnight stay.

W

e had a wonderful time. We all live in different parts of the country, have different lives, but it was as if time and distance hadn’t existed.  So there were my other sisters, two husbands, one sister’s daughter, and the birthday girl’s son, his wife and two daughters. So that’s  three generations. And to add to the celebrations, there were two more about-to-be members of the family as my niece and my nephews wife were both expecting babies due to arrive in September.

Since I came home and I looked at all the photographs – specially one that had all of us, each generation, arranged on a flight of steps, it made me think about families both in reality and in books.  And it got me wondering about the families in some of my books.

I’ve now been published for over thirty years, so some of the babies  conceived by or born to past heroes and heroines will be about the age to become heroes and heroines themselves.   The b

aby that pushes Pierce and Natalie into marriage in  The Unexpected Child would be twenty years old now – just old enough to have her own story. And so will the little girl   Rosie who appeared in His Miracle Baby.

Sometimes I create characters who are connected by family or place and  then if I revisit that place, that family,  there is a chance to catch up with the story of the original couple and see how their life has progressed. I did this with  A Question of Honour where the hero and heroine  - Karim and Clemmie  later appeared – with their children -  in Destined For The Desert King .   And  Nabil, who was to have been Clemmie’s original bridegroom in that story, is the hero of this second book, with his new bride Aziza.  I remembered these books particularly as the story I’m working on will  take my new hero and heroine from their homes in Ireland to the kingdom of Rhastaan  where they may well meet up with Karim and Clemmie, Nabil and Aziza . . .and who knows how many children now?

So that made me wonder.  Do you like books were past characters appear, and you learn about their lives later on? Do you enjoy finding out about what has happened to them since their ‘happy ever after’ ending? Are they in fact ‘happy ever after’?  (I should hope so as I try to write characters who are just made for each other.)

Thinking about these earlier books has made me wonder whether it might be interesting to revisit

What do you think?  Do you like to read books like this? Are there any books - mine  or any other  author’s  where you’d like to know what happened to a younger character – or just another person – in the future?

families and give them their own family reunion  and a story for the next generation.

I  know I’m looking forward to revisiting old friends in Rhastaan as I take Adnan and Ciara out to that country on their rather unusual honeymoon.

I don't have a new book out until January next year but you can  keep up to date with all my news on my web site blog page  or my Facebook page   where you can find out when I have new books appearing in the shops.

Escapism - Kate Walker

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks.

Ok,  who am I kidding – it’s been a tough  couple of months  - and the last two weeks have been particularly hard. One of those times when life  gets up and bites you and turns the peace and quiet you’d been hoping for upside down.

My dearest friend – we’ve been friends for over 33 years  and we met when our sons were both in playgroup -  has been fighting breast cancer for  almost 3 years.  But she’s  been losing that fight recently and  3 weeks ago she had to go in to hospice care where she could get the best possible help. At the same time I was called up for jury  service . This meant a long train journey  to travel to the court – sometimes with a long wait between trains if the timings were wrong. Then there were  long difficult hours  in the court.

Sometimes these were spent  waiting and waiting for something to happen. And at other times the jury was actually in the court – and that was not exactly fun by anyone’s description.

Rarely, if ever, have I been so grateful for a good book.  There was all that extra travelling. When I’m used to getting dressed, making a cup of coffee and walking through a door into my office, the trip to the railway station,  train journey, walk to the court – and back at the end of the day, seemed  really long and tiring ion contrast.  The sitting about waiting for something to happen  - well, I’d been warned, so I had preloaded my kindle with plenty to read.

And then at the weekend I was warned that my friend had taken a turn for the worse.  Sadly she died two days later.  I’ve been  feeling lost as so so sad at this and once again I found that the only way to escape from the miserable day was  to bury myself in a book.

So I’ve read plenty -  Last Year’s Bride by Anne McAllister and  Second Chance Bride by Trish Morey were great company in the jury room.  Liz Fielding’s  For His Eyes Only and  This House is Haunted by John Boyne   helped those train journeys  pass. And  a great psychological thriller Precious Thing by Colette McBeth  kept me focusing on its mystery and tension when I couldn’t cope with much else.

If ever I wanted a classic example of why ‘escapist’ books are so valuable – contrary to the opinions of those who  might look down their noses at ‘light reads’.   These books were friends when I needed them, distractions when I needed distraction, and fillers of empty spaces of time when I wanted  that.

Some years ago I received an email from a reader  who wrote to tell me how much she had enjoyed one of my older books – His Miracle Baby. That’s always a welcome event but this time it was particularly lovely to read this one. The book had originally been bought by this reader’s mother who then passed it on to her

daughter when she had to get on a plane to visit her sick father in another state in USA.  Knowing her daughter was fearful of flying, she gave it to her to read on the flight, and it distracted her from the worry she normally felt.  That was good enough for me but there was more.

At the hospital, waiting for news of her father, she finished the book – shared it with her sister, her aunt, even her male cousin. It helped distract them from their worries,  fill those anxious hours.  And then, when everyone in the family had read it, the nursing staff – particularly those on duty at night – were able to share it and relax during their long shifts in the dark hours. 

Luckily my reader’s father recovered, which was great news. But as a writer the great news for me was the way that my light romance novel provided the perfect escapee from stress and worry for people who needed it. I’ve experienced that for myself this past few weeks and I’m truly grateful to the people who wrote the books who helped me through some difficult days.

It’s another reason why I’m proud to write what I do – why I’m never insulted or feel criticised when what I write is  described as escapist. That’s fine by me. And if I what I wrote helps someone through a hard time then I’m doubly pleased – couldn’t be more so.

What about you? Have  you read a particular book that helped you through a bad time?  Or is there one you turn to again and again knowing it will cheer you up when you’re feeling down? I hope so.

A Question of Honour  - or A Question of Honor depending on whether you're reading the Mills and  Boon Modern edition or the  Harlequin  Presents one  is out now .

And the new, revised and updated Kindle edition  of Kate Walker's 12 Point Guide

to Writing Romance is now available on Amazon  at a much lower price than the old paperback.

You can find out more about Kate Walker and her books over on her web site  which has just been updated with new information added.

And there is all the up to date news on her blog   or Facebook page