Welcome Back Kait Carson — Learning to Reason Without the Hurricane Season #Giveaway

Sherry — after six weeks in the South, I’m heading north tomorrow

I’m delighted to welcome back Kait Carson and hope you will love hearing about her big life move (in real life and her fictional world) as much as I did!

Kait: Greetings Wickeds. I’m excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I freely confess, I’m at a crossroads in my writing life.

If you are familiar with my books, you know I’m a Florida writer. The Hayden Kent Series is set in the Florida Keys—with side trips to Grand Cayman and Belize. All places close to my scuba-diving heart. Hayden is a Florida paralegal. In Death Dive, she expands her probate practice by working for an insurance company as a paralegal/investigator. It’s all Florida law. By coincidence, I had a twenty-year career as a Florida paralegal.

Life in the tropics was familiar and comforting. I knew when the temps dropped into the 50s to beware of falling iguanas. They’re fine, just inanimate until the weather warms. When June rolled around, I stocked the pantry with non-perishables and got the go bag together. Only had to leave once—for Hurricane Irma. If my first stage blew up at one-hundred and twenty feet under water, I had a plan. It worked, I survived, and Hayden had a like experience in Death by Blue Water.

Yep, Florida was home. Except this writer is a Jersey Girl who, after forty years, missed the changing seasons. Hubs and I had bought a Maine camp intending to move full time when we retired. The 2020 pandemic forced our hand. Far northern Maine sounded its siren call and off we went.

Now it’s time for a second confession. I love change. It fills me with a heady sense of possibility. If you are uprooting your life, you might as well go big! I’d been a part-time author for years. It wasn’t satisfying. I had so much more to say. With Florida in the rear-view mirror, literally, I ditched the day job, and dove in.

Since I’ve been writing full time, I’ve edited and re-published the first two of the Hayden Kent series and written and published the third, Death Dive. It was time to cast around for what’s next. Ideas were popping for a series in the Keys. When I sat down to write, my heroine refused to cooperate. I was a Mainer now, and danged if Sassy Romano didn’t want to see the north country, too. What’s a writer to do? At the end of the day, the author takes dictation and the characters drive the bus. Sassy wanted nothing to do with Florida. After all, she was on the run from a bad marriage in California. She wanted the change of seasons, too.

Together, she and I set out to explore this gorgeous state. Sassy lives in a fictitious town in the Allagash. She grew up in Tremayne Lodge. An inn and artist colony her family owned for generations. One she’s now inherited. Bears, moose, deer, and fisher cats, don’t bother her. They’ve always been in her backyard, but a body in the pottery studio. That’s another matter.

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My trips through the uncharted north Maine woods have been a revelation. There’s a raw beauty that steals your breath. Northern lights dance overhead. Stars blanket the night sky. Hoar frost shimmers on icy branches under cloudless blue skies. It’s a land ripe for mystery, and one I’m proud to share.

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June passes unnoticed these days. There’s no hurricane season here. December, that’s a different story. Time to hunker down when nor’easters blast through the trees, and power lines bend under icy coats. Maine in the winter holds no forgiveness but the promise of spring. A time when the landscape fills with all shades of green and the beauty of a pointillist painting. A place where secrets, and ideas, percolate.

Readers: Have you ever reinvented yourself? How did it work out? How do you feel about change? Kait is giving away a Kindle copy of Death Dive to two lucky commenters. US only, alas!

Kait Carson left Florida living behind to move to the Crown of Maine. Her latest book is Death Dive. She lives on 120 wooded acres with her husband, four cats, six conures, and a Cavapoo puppy. Visit her at www.kaitcarson.com