An Interview and a Giveaway with Author Kassy Paris!

Today we welcome Author Kassy Paris! She's giving away a print copy of her new book, Murder In Maggie Valley (U.S. residents only.) Comment for a chance to win!

Tell us a little about yourself and your newest book.

I’m a retired elementary teacher and a bred and born Texan. In 1997, while I was still teaching, my best friend came to me with a book idea. She said God had told her we were to write books together. What she didn’t know was being published was my secret desire. I had never spoken that wish aloud even to her, and we’d been best friends since 1965.

We signed our first contract in 2001, and Her Home or Her Heart was released by Heartsong Presents in 2002. Our pen name is Kasandra Elaine, my first name and her middle name. White Rose Publishing, now an imprint of Pelican Books, released our next three books, a romantic suspense series set in North Texas. Our most recent release, Murder in Maggie Valley, was published by White Bird Publications in March 2017.

Murder in Maggie Valley is our first cozy mystery and is set in the real town of Maggie Valley, NC. Maggie Valley sits in the beautiful mountains of northwestern North Carolina. Elaine and I spent six vacations in the area, including one in a cabin community similar to the one we created in our book. The town is real, but the murder is strictly from our imaginations.



Give us an insight into your main character. What does he/she do that is so special?

For this book, Elaine and I reverted to our original modus operandi—double main characters. Edna and Klara Pidgeon are widowed sisters-in-law whose husbands were brothers and died in a plane crash a few years before the story. The Pidgeon sisters, who are in their mid-fifties, go to Maggie Valley on vacation to perfect a pastry recipe they named KEPS. Edna discovers one of their neighbors murdered. The game is on for Klara, who is determined the two of them will solve the murder with all the detective skills they’ve gleaned from the murder mysteries they’ve read and watched. The two of them run into a wall when they encounter the local sheriff who believes it is his job to solve murders.


What are you working on at the moment?

I’m writing a novella for a collection about bridesmaids who have to have the highest bid in order to win a place in a wedding. Also, I’m trying to summon up the courage to write the next Edna and Klara cozy installment, alone. My best friend and writing partner, Elaine, moved to heaven in May 2015 after we finished the rough draft to Murder in Maggie Valley.


What is the hardest thing about writing?

The hardest thing about writing is sticking with writing one story at a time. I’m an eclectic reader and find I want to write on multiple novels at once. The best thing about writing more than one book at a time is that I don’t get writer’s block. I switch to another idea and move on with that one for a while. Ah, but the bad thing about writing multiple stories at once is it takes longer to complete them.

What is the easiest thing about writing?

Coming up with the idea for a book is the easiest thing about writing—so many ideas, so little time.

Anything else you'd like to share.

Holding onto a dream is a lesson I’ve learned. After graduating from college with my teaching degree, it took eleven years to get hired as a teacher. I wanted to teach in the school district I lived in, but God had other plans. When I did get hired, in a district 45 miles from my home, I spent the next 20 years in the same building. I made some wonderful friends, and was privileged to touch the lives of over 440 awesome students.

So, remember dreams can only become reality if you do the work required. Read, study, write, rewrite, and analyze as you dream, and one day your dream will come true.