About
Born and raised in Australia, Katie’s early years of day dreaming in the “bush”, and having her father tell her wild bedtime stories, inspired her passion for writing.
After graduating High School, she became a foreign exchange student where she met a young man who several years later she married. Now she lives in Arizona with her husband, daughter and their dog.
She has a diploma in travel and tourism which helps inspire her writing. She is currently at school studying English and Creative Writing.
Katie loves to out sing her friends and family, play sports and be a good wife and mother. She now works as a Clerk with a lien company in Arizona to help support her family and her schooling. She loves to write, and takes the few spare moments in her day to work on her novels.
Description
<p>When Jessica Bryant pesters her wealthy parents to allow her to have a dog as a pet, the answer is a resounding "No"; but they soon come to regret their decision when thier home is broken into one evening whilst they are out and their daughter kidnapped and held for ransom. The kidnappers, in the form of four seedy and incompetent characters wearing Disneyland-type masks, take her hostage and keep her incarcerated in a place from which there appears to be no escape. However, they reckon without the resourcefulness of our heroine, and the courage of a wonderful stray dog who comes to her aid and whom she names 'Murdo'. And so begins an exciting and humurous accounting of the couples' adventures together as they consistently foil and outwit the abductors whilst on the run together.<br /> This is a lovely story of the friendship between a girl and a dog, bringing out themes of responsibility, camaraderie, redemption, salvation and self-sacrifice. It includes some wonderful dialogue sequences as Jessica teaches her new four-legged friend how to communicate with her, with additional delightful conversations between the animals when a rabbit and a sparrow join forces with them in an effort to outwit the kidnappers and restore Jessica safely back to her parents' home. </p>
Story Behind The Book
When I first started planning out Kiya, I had thought it would be only one book. But as I thought about events I wanted to cover, I realized I needed to make more than one book. So I decided to make it into three books.
The very original concept ended at the end of book one, with Naomi fleeing with Tut. Sort of a riding of into the sunset to live happily ever after. But then I realized, there was more to the story than an HEA, especially when Horemheb started smashing my head for more attention than I originally intended.
So I worked out events I wanted to include and constructed a timeline. Then I needed to decide how I would begin and end each book. Book two at first started with the third assassin entering her father’s house in Thebes, but I felt like her journey through the desert needed to be addressed and it created a great action opening scene.
A great deal of time passes in these books, so book three skips over six years so the momentum isn’t slowed. That was a difficult decision to make, but necessary. The plot needed to focus on the main people; Naomi and Tut.
Once I had where I’d break the stories worked out, the rest fell into place. There were times during book two where historical events lacked, so I became concerned my filler for Naomi’s life wouldn’t make it long enough, but it worked out in the end.
