I'm thrilled to introduce you to author, Kari Trumbo.

Kari Trumbo is a bestselling author, according to Publisher’s Weekly, known for her Wayside Ranch romantic suspense series that emphasizes faith, chosen family, and hard-earned second chances.

Drawing on her background in psychology and criminology, Kari infuses her stories of love, danger, and redemption with emotional depth and genuine tension—skills she developed as a developmental editor before focusing on her own writing.

When she’s not crafting thrilling romances, she enjoys life with her husband of over twenty years in rural Minnesota, where the trees grow tall and mosquitoes are persistent.

And she has a new release.

Beneath Still Waters

Fresh out of training and still haunted by a near-fatal shootout, Ferd Kincade retreats to Wayside Ranch to heal.

   She expects quiet. Instead, she finds a body.
   When she discovers a mysterious boat washed ashore on a nearby lake, nothing about the scene makes sense and Ferd can’t walk away. Pulling Piper’s Ridge detective Duke Campose into the investigation, she soon uncovers signs of something far more dangerous than a simple murder.
   Someone is hiding a deadly secret.
   And they’re willing to kill again to keep it buried.
   As the truth points to a ruthless drug operation, Ferd becomes the next target. Now, she’ll need every ounce of her training, and a lot of faith, to survive long enough to bring a killer to justice.

Tell us about your new release.

Beneath Still Waters is the first book in the spin-off series, The Wayside Files. (The new series is richer if readers have at least read Operation: Wayside ahead of this, but they will be able to read it without the other books if they choose.)

The thread that will weave through this whole series is: What is home? It will ask questions like: Why don't I feel at home anywhere? What do I need to feel fulfilled and at peace?

Ferd (short for Delferdia) Kincade is a 24-year-old officer fresh out of training in Cody, WY. She suffers a gunshot wound while on duty and is back at Wayside Ranch, her home, to recuperate. There are some secrets surrounding her shooting that she isn't willing to share.

While there, she meets the local investigator, and they both happen upon a death scene in passing. Ferd doesn't seek out investigation, but it sure comes naturally as she's drawn into this case. It feels natural. She feels competent. So where does that leave her in her career? She has to go back to Cody—and the secrets waiting there.

What sparked or inspired this story?

Honestly... I kept seeing requests for Christian fiction without romance. To be completely clear, it's likely there will eventually be romance in this series, but I don't see it ever taking over. I wrote this (and am currently writing book 2) to be a mystery series. Think Murder, She Wrote mixed with a healthy dose of Scarecrow and Mrs. King, with faith woven in.

Ferd is internally snarky but sees how emotions and less tangible things can help solve a mystery, while Duke Campose, the actual investigator, is a solid-evidence kind of guy. Her instincts and his evidence weave together in a way where neither is more important, and both are helpful in solving cases.

I didn't want one character who was "super smart and always right," like so often happens. My goal in writing this was to create a pair who rely on each other's strengths to get an important job done.

Do you have a favorite character in this book?

I love both Ferd and Duke and don't think I could choose between the two for the top slot, but as for secondary characters... My absolute favorite is Maddie the Mortician.

She is about 30 and has taken over her family's mortuary business. Since Piper's Ridge is a VERY small town, she's also taken over the ME duties half the time because the last one is 84 years old and semi-retired. She has lovely blonde hair with bright pink highlights and drives an electric blue hearse as her everyday car.

She has a sweet and calm demeanor that makes dealing with all things death a little less heavy. She is not comedy, but levity. And she is based on someone in real life whom I admire.

Who was the most difficult character to write?

This will sound horrible, but the hardest character was the deceased. Bailey had secrets. Lots of them. He was divorced. He used to be an alcoholic. He had turned his life around but was still largely misunderstood. Small towns still talk, long after deeds are done.

I wanted readers to understand who he was, so he wasn't just "a body." It's hard.

What is your favorite setting?

With very few exceptions, I write about small towns and rural areas. Give me rural lakes, streams, fields, gravel roads, and cafes. That's my vibe.

Did this book require you to do any interesting research?

Every book does, to some extent. For this one, I studied which tribes are in central and southern Wyoming, and while I created a fictional reservation, it's based on the one that is there.

I often create a fictional town instead of using a real one if a location has the potential to be recurring in my books because I don't want people who live in the area to read my story and have my description pull them out of it. I've had that happen with books written near where I live, and I vowed to never let that happen to me.

Piper's Ridge is also a fictional place, as is Wayside, though they are real in my head.

I also had to research how deep the lakes were in the area and how large they could be. I needed a massive lake for this story to work and was very glad I found one, though again, I didn't use the name of an actual lake.

That's how I keep things believable. If something naturally occurs in the area I'm writing in, I can include it. If not, I need to think of another way around the issue.

How long have you been writing?

I have been published since 2016 and have over 90 published titles.

Did you always want to be an author?

This is a tricky question. Implicitly, no. I was told by friends I would be "one of those romance authors" when I was in high school because I was rarely found without a romance novel back then. But my English teachers would've disagreed.

In 2015, I was laid up with a massive back injury and decided to write down a recurring dream I had that had story potential. It was not Christian fiction (though it was clean), and it was pretty bad, BUT it was enough to make me see that I could do this thing.

I started on my next book the very next month for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I wrote over 100k words that month and finished the first draft of the first book I would ever submit to agents and later self-publish. My agent came less than five years later.

You have written in multiple genres, what has been your favorite?

I have written mystery, romantic suspense, historical romance, contemporary romance, and women's fiction (under the name Teri Blake). I write in each one to fill a current need, but my favorite genre is romantic suspense.

Even though The Wayside Files doesn't include romance in the traditional sense, at least not yet, I miss it. I love writing romance.

If you could be a character inside any one of your romantic suspense books, which one would you choose?

Marin from Bound by Evidence. She is competent and cool. She's not a K9 handler but gets to work with a K9. She deals with everything life throws at her and keeps swinging. I would love to be her.

Which of your villains in your favorite?

Tough question. Since redemption and second chances really flow through my stories (there's some of that in every single one), I think Maisey from Hometown Hero is my favorite because she becomes the heroine in the next book. She gets the chance at the redemption I love giving my characters.

Which do you enjoy more, creating villains or heroes?

Heroes, by far. I always have to add a dash of evil to my villains before publication. My heroes come to me much quicker and easier than my villains do.