By Kristy McCaffrey



There are three books that have been the most fun for me to write.



Into the Land of Shadows

At the beginning of my writing career, I wrote THE WREN followed by THE DOVE. I knew I had a series on my hands, but instead of continuing I went and wrote SHADOWS because it was a story that jumped in my head and wouldn’t let me go. It was initially titled HER TOUCH, and I infused a lot of humor in the book, something I hadn’t before attempted.

I modeled the heroine, Kate, after my own daughter Kate, giving her the same sass, curiosity, and maddening habits (e.g. sleeping late). I set the story in Northern Arizona, a favorite location in my home state, and I gave the hero a pet wolf (based on my parent’s wolf hybrid from my childhood). I also didn’t hold back in terms of plot, and I pushed a paranormal angle (an exorcism) that has likely affected sales, but this book is still a favorite of mine, combining humor, a brooding hero, a sassy heroine, Bart the wolf, Navajo lore, and spiritual possession. It’s also one of my steamier novels.




Ancient Winds

I’ve long been fascinated by ancient alien theories. I wanted to play with those ideas in a book, and ANCIENT WINDS was the result. It’s a contemporary adventure romance set in the wilds of Bolivia, because I’d always wanted to do a jungle romance. My heroine, Brynn, is a Sumerian cuneiform scholar, and it took some doing plot-wise to get a cuneiform tablet into the jungle, but I was determined. The hero, Dr. Tristan Magee, is a rogue physicist because I’m a huge science geek. I even managed to add time travel. My brain cells were really firing for this one. What a fun playground this was for me to write each day.




The Canary

This more recent book is centered around paleontology in 1899. That alone made this story great fun to research. I thought I knew dinosaurs, but I was regularly wowed by what I unearthed each day. I also loved giving the heroine, Sarah, a lot of agency (the scene where she has to convince the hero’s father that she’s got the grit to be on his dig site was written in one sitting—that doesn’t happen too often).

I was really pleased by this quote from InD’tale Magazine – “Strong female characters dominated this book although most of the characters are male.” That’s a score in my book!