The Writing Life: Time for an Embrace?

November 17, 2016 by hollykerrauthor Leave a comment

The Final Embrace

Five more days to wait to find out what’s happening with Kenna and Del and Iliya – my lonely single and her married couple!

I started this series with the idea of what happens when you fall in love with a man, and his wife.

My Husbands and Wives series was finished, and I was easily distracted away from my Office Plays series (btw the third and final book After Hours is coming soon) and I was looking for something different. Instead of a cast of many different characters, I came up with three – the lonely single Kenna, hiding from the world; sexy Iliya with turmoil of her dark past threatening to erupt; and her husband Del, who loves Iliya and accepts what she does, even though he doesn’t like it very much.

More than any other book I’ve written, Touch has really taken on a life of it’s own. I planned on writing a trilogy – Touch, Caress and Embrace. But it wasn’t until I finished Touch, and outlining Caress, that I realized Del and Iliya had their own stories to tell. Iliya had a lot going on with William. There was the relationship with Amy both had to resolve. And Del had a past of his own. They had so much to say and with Touch being from Kenna’s point of view, the secrets of my happily married couple weren’t going to come to light.

That’s why I made the decision to move from three books to nine. I wanted to expand the series to give Del and Iliya a trilogy of their own. Their characters had come to life for me, and I wanted to be able to tell their stories. I didn’t do this for the money, as one reviewer suggested, but because I was invested in Del and Iliya and hoped my readers were, too. Their stories needed to be told.

With the release of Embrace comes the usual bittersweet feelings. I’m happy the story is told, but sad that I have to put these characters to bed. (With each other? ;)) How will it all end for the threesome – will they be able to make their relationship work?