07.24.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:22 am by Kay
I shall assume that this is your first visit to kaysisk.com. A heart-felt welcome. If you came from the link in the McKinney Living Magazine, a extra dose of welcome for you. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed meeting with Louis Miller and reliving his dance career. It was a joy-filled afternoon.
Please browse around my site. I started writing my “stories” when I was in West Ward Elementary (now Nell Burks Elementary, and yes, Miss Nell was my second-grade teacher, as well as my mother’s!). I still have some of my literary efforts from my high school days. I now write contemporary romance novels. (As opposed to historical or paranormal for those of you just learning about the romance genre.) Each book has its special page listed to the right.
Under ‘Links’ you’ll find favorite blogs and review sites. ‘Romance as I see it’ is an archive of my web articles from several years ago.
‘Buy the Books’ takes you to my publisher, Wings ePress, Inc. That’s the best place to purchase my books, either as ebook or print. Just search on my name. If you have a Fictionwise account, they also carry all my books in eformats. On Amazon, the Zshop of PawPrints will do it for print books.
Lastly is the link to my blog, Sisker’s Lair. Here I have my day-to-day musings on everything from the raccoons in the pear tree to our trip-diary from Australia last February. I have a lot of fun with my blog. I consider it a running commentary about my life in small town Texas.
Thank you for coming. Please, come again.
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06.09.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:23 pm by Kay
There are several strengths in my romance book club, but I think the biggest one is our diversity of reading tastes. We each have a field of expertise, if you like, from our sci-fi/paranormal readers who cut their teeth on fanfic, to inspirational, western, Regency, historical in general, American, English, Indian… We know each other’s tastes and can and do find reading recommendations for each other.
Therefore, so we don’t have a steady diet of any one thing–and to please each of us in turn–we choose different categories for our monthly reads. The last two were an African-American contemporary which we were all intrigued with until the ending (maybe there should have been another chapter because the reader was left hanging) and classic Georgette Heyers found for 50 cents apiece at a used book store. We had settled on Georgette because she’s being reprinted and if any of us had read her, we couldn’t remember. Citing small print, archaic vocabulary, and too long to get to the point, only 3 of the 8 of us finished the book. I finished mine, but it took a while. Still, in the balance, and although some of the stories were first penned in the 1920s, the core of the romance stories could be found on any shelf today.
Or could it?
We pick our next two or three months’ reads as a group. This month, we passed around the current Romantic Times Book Reviews issue and not one of us was drawn to a single book. Historical didn’t appeal because of the Heyer business. Series fell short because most of us judge national contests and there had been several of those to read. Erotica is a personal choice and taste; we have, but out of deference to one of our members, we usually don’t any more. Romantic suspense seems riddled with serial killers and violence more suited to a mainstream audience. Paranormal is the taste of the moment, and many of our favorite authors have defected there, but they didn’t seem to take their talent with them. Did they do it just to sell? (Not that writing to the market is a bad thing, but be good at it.)
That left sixteen contemporary single-title romances out of 203 romances reviewed. Eight per cent–and we weren’t biting. Where was a good, old-fashioned romance?
So the topic of our closing discussion was: what’s left for us to read? Admittedly, we’re jaded, but our chief complaint was favorite authors changing genres permanently. At least when Nora changed to JD Robb, she still kept Nora.
In the end, we went with an epublished book, one from my publisher, Wings ePress, Inc, which has been nominated for a Bookseller’s Best Award through the Detroit RWA chapter. It’s an historical, set in Australia. Its stature as a finalist in a tough contest intrigued us. I’ll let you know if that was enough.
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05.07.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:41 pm by Kay
I’ve always enjoyed time-travel novels, Jude Devereaux’s A Knight in Shining Armor and Anya Seton’s Green Darkness, just to name two classics and not even taking into consideration the depth of work of Diana Gabaldon. But all those stretch themselves back centuries. What if you wanted to go back just a little bit? How far would be far enough to make a difference in what you wrote?
Shades of Quantum Leap come to mind, when Sam Beckett was allowed to “leap” within his lifetime. Staging a book five years in the past wouldn’t make much difference, perhaps not even ten, except in a few instances. But what if we went back 15 years, to 1993? How different would a books need to be?
No internet for the general populace is the first thing which comes to mind, and for most people of my acquaintance, buying a cell phone was a Big Deal. Video cameras were still bulky, digital cameras were a few formulations off, and DVDs still on the drawing board. There was satellite TV, but they were big satellites, stuck in your yard and not handily affixed to the side of an apartment’s rail.
Air travel might have actually still had a tinge of fun to it.
We made long distance calls when the rates dropped after five (and Sundays until they rose again in the evening). Now I scroll down the contact list on my cell phone and touch ‘dial.’ As to gas prices… does a dollar a gallon sound about right?
I’m not contemplating any time-traveling in my future novels. I’ll leave that to the historical authors and I’ll read them with gusto. I’m strictly a contemporary type of gal because if 1993 is too far back (except where gas prices are concerned), then anything more than that would really cramp my characters’ (life)styles.
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04.12.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:58 pm by admin
Rob Preece at Books for a Buck has given WBB a four star review:
“Author Kay Layton Sisk spins a heartwarming story of a family finding its strength as plans for the wedding increase the pressure. Sisk gives each of the sisters distinct personalities and desires, but also highlights the strengths and similarities that run between them, despite their conflicts. It’s enjoyable seeing how the sisters feel about themselves and the others–almost as if we are allowed to spy on their deepest secrets. One thing is certain–nobody associated with the wedding will be unchanged, and the people with the most to gain aren’t even the bride and groom.”
Read the complete review.
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03.25.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:36 pm by Kay
Traveling by air is not my favorite way to get from point A to point B, never mind that it be the most efficient and sometimes, given the circumstances, the only. But I do take delight in the airline magazines stuffed into the seatback in front of me.
The articles are colorful, short, oftentimes something I would never have desired to read about except I’m stuck someplace for a period of time and I’m tired of my current book. I peruse the magazine articles, look at the flashy advertisements, figure out how to get from one place to another on the airline’s route chart, read the fine print, walk through the various airport layouts, and finally arrive where I’ve been wanting to go all along, the puzzle pages.
The American Way, magazine of American Airlines, has a page for Mensa wannabes, a Sudoku puzzle, and a challenging crossword. Yes, sir, it’s guaranteed to keep me busy for a while.
I head for the Mensa first, mainly because I want to see if I could qualify (not to worry), but also to ferret out the easy questions, answer them quickly, circle back to the harder ones, finally give up, read the answers, and have an ah-ha moment. Or two. That accomplished, I go where I’ve been headed all along, the crossword.
I skip the Sudoku. I grew up with a certain amount of arithmetical prowess; I enjoyed numbers. They weren’t mysterious to me, just matter of fact. Give me numbers, I could manipulate them to my heart’s content. I learned to take per cent by playing Monopoly. I made up my own long division problems and had my mother check the answer for me. (This was before handy-dandy pocket calculators so we could consider this a labor of love on her part.) While I handled algebra and geometry equally, calculus took its toll on me, and I found there was a darker side of my old friends and that darker side lives on in Sudoku.
Still, I did number puzzles, even while I continued with crosswords. But over time, the words have won out and I find those are the Mensa questions I can answer with barely a blink. Crossword puzzles are fun, a game to see what the author is up to, what his conceit is. If I can figure it out, reveal the trick to the puzzle, I’m a happy camper.
Am I fonder of crosswords now because I’ve dangled in the word-pot for many years? Has being a writer changed the way I look at words, at how they’re formed and how they relate to each other? I think so. Beyond the elementary level, I just get frustrated with Sudoku. Frustration has led to non-interest. But words? Words still fascinate.
Give me the Wall Street Journal’s weekly crossword or the Sunday New York Times. I smile at the thought. As to the one in the back of the American Way, I’ve just found it online.
Let the word games begin. I think I’ll consider it research.
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02.23.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:42 pm by Kay
We just returned from a wonderful trip to Australia, a fortunate second visit for us. But wonderful as I knew the trip would be, filled with more things to see than I could take in, I knew there would be down time, hours (like 40 on a plane) when I’d need something to do other than sleep or look out the window. So I planned my leisure time accordingly.
I took romance novels, of course. There were several requisites: no hardcover or trades, as size and weight is a definite consideration. And, although my books are e-published, I’ve yet to decide on the perfect handheld reader, so packing a library on one wouldn’t do either. I wanted a variety of historical and contemporary and I wanted a guaranteed good read from a favorite author. Plus they had to be cheap, because I was going to leave them where I finished them.
Several years ago, my romance reading club had participated in BookCrossing’s “read and release” program. Trip preparation being what it is, I didn’t have time to register any of my choices before going, so I was just going to leave them on their own without explanation.
So, what did I pack? At time of departure, I was reading Jana DeLeon’s Unlucky, so it went in first. From the used book store, I gathered two Deborah Smith’s, A Place to Call Home and Sweet Hush, Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ First Lady, and Laura Parker’s Notorious.
I’d like to say I read and left all five, but I can’t. I read 2 1/2 and left 3. Here’s how that works:
I was so tired and sleepy at the end of the days, I actually fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. On the plane rides, I was lured by movies and sleep and crossword puzzles in the back of the flight magazines. But by the time we were on the Ghan, Australia’s north-south passenger train, Unlucky and I were ready to part ways. It went to a lovely woman from Perth, Western Australia, who was needing a new author. A Place to Call Home traveled to England with another Ghan friend, one who had fallen into the lure of a trendy trade paperback in the airport book shop. It had a good premise, a story line she normally loved, but the writing was awful. Did I have a solution for her!
Sweet Hush I finished on the plane to LAX. Rather than leave it to the cleaners, who I thought might toss it as rubbish (as if!), I held it until the gate area. We’d bought a USA Today, and as we were finishing each section, we placed it on a communal table for others and others were picking it up, reading it and placing it back. Just a bit of karma for all those discarded papers I’ve read. So I carefully placed Sweet Hush within view and waited.
No one picked it up. Did they really think it was mine? I nudged it more into the center of the table. Nothing. Okay, perhaps the woman reading the hardcover book (and she had already devoured our paper), really needed something more uplifting and fun.
“Pardon me,” I began, “but do you read romance?” I held Sweet Hush up for her.
She actually looked down her nose at me. Disdain dripped. “Oh,” she snubbed, “I don’t read that.”
I carefully placed the book back on the table and cleared the newspapers from around it. I left it on its own to find a new reader.
And I hope that woman’s book had a terribly despondent, sad, unlikable ending. I really do.
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01.28.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:22 am by Kay
As little girls we dream about princes, white horses, castles, and damsels in distress. In our minds we take on many roles, play many parts, and live happily-ever-after.
As “big” girls, we do more than dream: we write. The prince becomes the boy next door, the boss, the cowboy, the doctor, the policeman. His white horse morphs into a Porsche, an ambulance, a squad car… or stays a horse. The castle is a condo, an office suite, a beach resort. And the damsel? More than likely she’s a gal who can take care of herself–but knows her life won’t be complete without someone to help her live it happily-ever-after.
My name is Kay Layton Sisk and I write romance novels. To answer those who start their anti-romance argument with “but aren’t they all the same?”, I have only to take them on a tour of the local bookstore or library. Yes, genre romance novels are the same in their commitment to helping a worthy heroine find her worthy hero. We may all know the destination, but the journey–whether it be through time, space, the Middle Ages, Roman Britain, the American West, Britain’s Regency period, or a contemporary small town–is always unique. I know the destination. It’s the journey I crave, and the journey I want you, as the reader, to take with me as you read one of my books.
I started writing in grade school. My heroines bested monsters and saved their neighborhoods–filled with my school friends. In high school, I was writing “fanfic” (but I didn’t know it) with characters based on my favorite TV shows. In college, I had to write essays and papers based on other people’s work which meant reading it, which meant I didn’t write books. But about 15 years ago, I began to write again, this time with what the industry calls “romantic suspense”. A couple of those and then I was on a journey to lighter fare, finding my way with what I hoped was a comedic, high-spirited touch. I grew up on “Twilight Zone” and Alfred Hitchcock: I knew irony and a wink when I saw it. Hopefully, I knew how to I write it.
I’ve written 13 novels, 11 of which are published, one is in limbo, and the other is, as we say in the biz, under the bed. My heroines aren’t looking for romance when it comes and bops them over the head. Even then, they’ll try to ignore it. But the heroes, those guys with a twinkle in their eye who weren’t looking for it either, can be quite persistent. Together, they take the journey to their destination, the one we know as a satisfactory ending, a happily-ever-after.
Note: This essay first appeared in the North Texas e-News, www.ntxe-news.com, on Jan. 24, 2008, to promote a library romance program.
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12.27.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:15 pm by Kay
I’m a bit of a clothes-horse, an admission which comes as no surprise to those who have accompanied me on trips to my favorite store. I blame all this on my mother (can’t we blame everything on our mothers?) because she was determined my sister and I would dress well. A fashionable store in town would take trading stamps in lieu of cash for purchases, and so Mother didn’t grocery shop except on double-stamp day. I came to dread her “lick those stamps in the book” directives. I fear I wasn’t even appreciative when I had the stylish clothes those stamps bought. She also had a woman “who sewed” to sew clothes for us. Eventually, my sister and I became adept at doing this for ourselves. I find now that with the cost of patterns and fabric, it is most often more advantageous to buy ready-made. However, shopping for old linens is a hobby, and no cast-off tablecloths or bed covers are safe from my shears and thread. I adapted a silky bed coverlet into a bias skirt this summer and never wore it without rave reviews.
So it should come as no surprise that my heroines have wardrobes. I may not mention what they’re wearing within the book–and I rarely make a big deal of it if I do–but I know what’s in their closets because that defines them for me. As examples, we can take the six heroines of my Texoma Series.
Lyla: As the owner of a convenience store and the mother of a young son, Lyla dresses in comfortable clothes. She needs to clean up the spills in the aisles and cook breakfast for the hungry crowd. But come Sunday, she puts on her department store best when she plays the church organ.
Jemma: Real estate agent Jemma is right out of a Coldwater Creek catalog. She looks professional but approachable when showing her clientele around the Lake area.
Sara: Motorcycles and mayhem. Sara once bought at boutiques and the instant she gets the band’s credit card, she hits Rodeo Drive again. Leather and boots.
Bettina: Very British Bettina watches her coins closely. As a photographer, she’ll be shooting the clothes she’d really like to wear, but her wardrobe is practical.
Phillipa: As a professional cellist for a London symphony, Phillipa wears black. Her tastes reflect her upper crust upbringing and tailored is the name of the game.
Anya: Dancer and yoga instructor, Anya dresses to stretch and demonstrate.
Six heroines, six different personalities. I faced a similar feat in WEDDING BELLE BLUES, my January 2008 release from Wings ePress. WEDDING consists of five short stories centered around what’s meant-to-be (by the bride’s mother) a fairy tale wedding. Alas, the bride’s aunts have a way of interfering.
Mary Willa: Mother of two teenage daughters with wants bigger than her limited budget, Mary Willa has to fight to keep the girls in line with a nurse’s salary. Her divorce when the youngest was a baby marked the end of a tenuous estrangement from her family, but she struggles to do everything on her own. Her wardrobe is nursing professional and what she’s had in the closet for years.
Felicia: Flight attendant Felicia loves a bargain–at a boutique. She’s a shopper extraordinaire.
Penelope: Felicia’s twin is a school speech therapist. Her clothes are practical department store finds. As a young widow, Penelope watches her money. She has no interest in dressing to attract a man.
Mauri: The youngest aunt earned her MBA and her marketing whiz reputation in the same year. She shops only at the top of the couture food chain. She can’t be successful unless she looks the part.
Patrice: Mother of the bride Patrice married well and never lets her sisters forget it. Her wardrobe is polished and everything from last year is at the consignment shop. Patrice isn’t a banker’s daughter–and the oldest of five sisters–for nothing!
While I know what my heroes wear, unless it becomes a mark of their personality, I don’t dwell on it, although I admit a soft spot for a man in a bespoke tuxedo.
WEDDING BELLE BLUES is available January 2008 at Wings ePress, Inc in both print and ebook format.
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