Website: http://www.mkempher.com
About the Book
One night, 28-year-old, Katherine O’Brian, decides to walk to an all-night diner. The only problem? It’s midnight, but Katherine lives in Reno Nevada, a city that never sleeps; she can clearly see
And now, she’s in trouble. She outran the man that night, and while she has no idea who he is, he knows who she is. And he wants her dead.
As if attempts on her life weren’t stressful enough, Katherine has gone back to college. She’s determined to finally finish her degree, but her lab partner is driving her crazy. He’s hot, but annoying. And she’s not sure which she wants more—a night of mad, passionate sex or a new lab partner. It varies from day to day.
Will Katherine give in to her lust for her partner or will she give in to her desire to throttle him? If she’s in the ground before graduation, it won’t matter.
Not your typical romance, not your typical mystery.
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Can you tell us what your new book is about?
Katherine O’Brian has recently moved back to Reno
NV, leaving an unhappy marriage behind. She
has the unwelcome task of packing up her parent’s home after their recent
deaths; her mother a year prior and her father recently. Her sister, who didn’t
attend the funeral comes to help; pain and resentment simmers barely beneath
the surface. At the same time, Katherine goes back to college to take the last
class she needs for a degree started years earlier. In the class, she’s
assigned a partner to work on a class project—his name is Scott Mitchell. He’s
tall, dark, and handsome and the attraction is almost immediate. However, they
both see the foolishness of getting romantically involved with someone they’ll
be spending many hours with for three months. If the romance goes south, so
does the project and their grades. Their relationship evolves into a
friendship; sure, the attraction is still there, but they both start dating
other people, so it’s very much controlled, or so they choose to believe.
One night, Katherine can’t sleep. She decides to walk to an
all-night diner three blocks away, at midnight;
this is Reno, the city that never
sleeps, and she can very clearly see the diner’s sign from her apartment. She
is not afraid, that is until she witnesses a man placing a dead body into the
truck of his car. The man chases her, but she gets away and hopes that’s the
end of it. It’s not. Soon, she starts having “accident’s”, each time she’s
lucky, but the accidents start to become more deadly, as if the killer had been
playing with her, but now wants her dead, once and for all.
This story has a lot of humor in it, the two main characters
chemistry makes for some laugh out loud dialogue reminiscent of older movies
with stars like Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
At the same time, the reader will see through the eyes of
the man who wants Katherine dead.
The ending is one you won’t see coming.
Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting
characters?
Scott Mitchell grew up in Carson
City, but moved down to Reno
to take a job. He’ll be working insurance, just until he gets his long overdue
degree, then he wants to open a bike store.
Alex, like his brother, Scott, is tall and handsome,
but he has a twinkle in his eye that makes people wonder what mischief has he
been up lately? Alex believes the mustache he sports makes him look like Tom
Selleck from the 1980s show, Magnum P.I, but Scott teases him by saying, he
really just looks like a cheesy porn star.
Amy, Katherine’s sister, returns to Reno
to help Katherine pack up their childhood home, but she has ulterior motives.
Verna, the woman Scott begins to date shortly after
meeting Katherine, is spiteful, vain and has her own bad habits she’d rather he
didn’t discover.
Michael, is someone Katherine runs into at a diner,
while out getting a quick bite with Scott. Katherine is former Air Force and
Michael is a former co-worker. They begin dating, but Michael too has a secret.
Your book is set in Reno
NV. Can you tell us why you
chose this location in particular?
I spent my teen years living in Reno,
so I’m able to (I hope) paint a vivid picture of area.
How long did it take you to write your book?
Mocha, Moonlight, and Murder is book one of a seven book
series--it took the longest to write--almost five years from first word typed
to publication.
What has been the most pivotal point of your writing
life?
Once book one was published, I got serious about writing.
Before then, I’d write here and there, whenever I felt like it. I was looking
at the writing process as a hobby. After publication of book one, I defined
myself as a writer and began to treat writing books as a career.
What kind of advice would you give other mystery authors?
Regardless of genre, my advice would be to do your research.
Buy books on the writing process, don’t assume you know what to do. Just like
with anything, if you’ve never done it before—you should be open to study.
Then, once you feel ready, create a rough outline. Nothing too involved.
Ideally, you should know who gets killed, who the killer is and why they killed
that person. If possible, travel to the location of your book. Try not to edit
during the writing process, not a lot anyway. Just get the words down. Sure, the
first draft might really stink, or not—but that’s what the revision process is
for; to make that dirty diamond shine. Write, every day, if possible.
Nobody is going to write your book for you. Don’t give up.
I consider this book to be a romantic comedy with a murder
mystery sub-plot. There is some, but very little, sex or profanity.