Inside The Mind of K.M. Daughters

What a relief to be authors and do something we consider wonderful and magical with the scripts running through our heads. The writer’s life for us is immersion in a fictional world where we live for a while – in the case of Beyond The Code of Conduct, with the Sullivan family. Our decision to write this romantic suspense series stemmed from our reluctance to say goodbye to these characters. Fortunately John and Jean Sullivan’s love affair provided us with sufficient “Sullivan Boys” to play with. We really enjoy the family’s company.

Since we team write our creative process is in many ways a two-way mind meld. Our ages are three and a half years apart and our earliest memories involve creating stories together: neighborhood plays, fantasies about what we’d do as grown-ups and even an imaginary friend or two. We could and can finish each other’s sentences, evidence of very similar thinking styles – yet we are very different women.

One of us has experienced divorce, single parenthood and finding a second chance at romance, remarrying at 40. One of us is married to her teenage sweetheart, became a mother in her early twenties and is a (very) young grandmother. Our father died a few weeks after being diagnosed with acute leukemia in the same month as his forty-sixth birthday – we were nineteen and fifteen years old at the time. Our mother died when we were young mothers, a time when we felt we needed her most. These combined and diverse life experiences as teenagers, women, wives and mothers add dimension and richness to our creative collaboration and depth to our characters.

We’re optimistic, hopeful women so the romance genre fits our mindset and life philosophy. We can attest to the belief that love heals in our real world, so the theme prevails in our fictional worlds. We can’t imagine writing any story that doesn’t end happily (ever after).

In book one of The Sullivan Boy series, our heroine is an emergency room doctor, widow of a policeman shot during a hold-up, and single mother of a ten-year old girl. Our hero, the eldest Sullivan brother, is a homicide lieutenant whose wife left him for another man and one in the family line of six siblings and their father, in law enforcement careers.

In book two, Beyond The Code of Conduct, our Sullivan brother hero was gravely injured in the line of duty as a homicide detective in book one saving the life of our heroine, now a successful FBI Agent. Inactive duty frustrates our hero and loss devastates him when his youngest brother is murdered. Our heroine’s mother died when she was a child.

We were raised to appreciate life’s small pleasures. Our parents dealt with insufficient budgets, unemployment and the challenge of establishing a small business on a shoestring. We have both struggled financially in our adult lives, so the lessons of childhood when by necessity the best things in life better be free or at least cheap, remain in the forefront of our minds.

Early in life, we gobbled up books – reading became and always will be the ultimate, inexpensive fun entertainment at any age for us. Now we create books populated with accessible characters dealing with professions, emotional baggage, loss, and practical problems while striving for that elusive romantic connection with the goal as an author of providing affordable entertainment for our readers.

Make sure and leave a question/comment for the Ladies as they will giveaway a autographed copy of Book 1 in the Sullivan Boys Series, Against Doctors Orders to one lucky winner. Don't forget your email addy!!


Excerpt of Against Doctors Orders

He saw pinpoints of light on his closed lids. “Wow,” the word gushed from his lips. He held her as she snuggled against his chest, both trembling in the aftermath.

“I hear bells,” she said.

“Honey, I hear bells, too. I think it’s your phone.”

His cell phone rang and they pulled back to look at each other.

“This can’t be good news.” He kissed her before he helped her slide off his lap, mostly naked and tantalizing, into her seat. She dove for her purse.

They both dealt with the calls while they grabbed their clothes and wiggled into them.

He fished an emergency beacon out of his glove compartment and set it on the top of his car. The rotating light washed the grass and tree limbs with red swirls.

“He’s hit again,” he said as he started the car. “We’ve got a live victim on the Eisenhower Expressway five minutes away from Chicago Regional.”

“I know,” she said. “They’re trying to patch me in to the paramedics now.”
He thrust the gearshift into reverse, tossed his arm over his seat and floored the accelerator. “Seat belt on?”

She nodded.

He backed the car down the path full tilt. Seatbelts strained as the impacts from the bumpy road jolted them in their seats. The tires hit asphalt and he slammed on the brakes. All the anti-skid devices in the car engaged with a mechanical moan and they fishtailed onto the road. He floored the car again and they took off.

He wanted to tell her what their trip to lovers lane meant to him. But there had to be time for that later. Not now. He could only think one thing. A break. This could be the break I need to stop the bastard.

He heard her calm voice on the phone as he wove among the sparse cars on the expressway and thanked God for the V-8 engine that blasted them down the road over a hundred miles per hour.

“They’re there,” she said as she snapped her phone shut. “My team’s ready for her.”