Amazon bestselling
author Kimberly Rae usually writes suspense about human trafficking. Her brand
new book, Blue Ridge Setup, however, is a fun, lighthearted read set in the
beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. Let’s find out more!
What is Blue Ridge
Setup about?
At its heart, Blue Ridge Setup is a fun read about a young
woman getting set up who doesn’t want to get set up. Kayla Madison moves in
with her eccentric romance-novelist great aunt, who is determined she and Ryan
Cummings would make great characters for her next novel, if only she can get
them together! Poor Ryan has no idea what he’s getting into when he agrees to
do a landscaping project for the great aunt, who intends to keep coming up with
jobs for him to do until her plan works! And of course I love that it’s set in
the Blue Ridge mountains, in my own town in fact!
Is the eccentric
great aunt based on someone you know?
No, but I wish she was. She’s a riot—kind of what I’d
imagine Anne of Green Gables would be like as a senior citizen. =)
Your main character
starts having health problems and that plays a big part in your story. Why did
you do that?
Most novels don’t have heroines with chronic health
conditions. If there is a medical crisis in a book, it gets resolved so the
main character can get back to her life as a healthy, productive individual.
As nice as that is, for many it is just not a reality. I was
shocked to find out that nearly 1 out of every 2 people in our country has some
type of chronic illness, and 96% of those are “invisible illnesses,” meaning
the phrase I and others often hear, “But you don’t look sick!” As a person with
chronic illness myself, I wanted to read a book with a character who didn’t get
magically better, but who learned to live well despite and through her
limitations. I wanted a book that said you don’t have to be healthy to have a
happy ending.
Kayla’s disease is
very rare. Did you have to do a lot of research?
None at all, well, not for her anyway. I have Addison’s
disease myself. I thought about giving her something different but they say you
should write what you know, so…
Did you embellish a
little with the health crisis to make it more dramatic?
The opposite, actually. That crisis in the book is from
memory, not imagination, including the doctor asking, “Do you give permission
for this surgery?”
And me responding, “What happens if I don’t?”
“You die,” he says. Cracked me up! Oh, and her joking with
Ryan about the doctor saying sometimes a Central IV goes up instead of down
actually happened to me, and the doctor told me he’d fix it tomorrow. Tomorrow!
That was an interesting night. =) Goodness, that makes my life sounds
interesting.
So did the
falling-down-the-mountain-needing-a-shot incident happen to you as well?
Thankfully, no. That’s fiction. However, I have needed my
husband to give me those shots on several occasions (poor man, he hates
needles), once even on an airplane, which made a passing stewardess quite
nervous!
Are any other parts
of the story personal to you?
Like Kayla, health problems brought me home from the mission
field and took away my sense of identity and significance. And it was one of
the best things God ever did for me. I hated it, but I had to learn to stop
looking for my worth in what I did. Now, I get to share with others that it is God
who gives us worth, and it is not based at all on our level of activity or
achievement.
What do you hope
readers get out of Blue Ridge Setup?
First, I hope they just enjoy the story. After that, I hope
it blesses readers with the reminder that God loves them deeply. If they are in
a place where it feels like He has taken away their biggest dreams, they should
not despair. His dreams for them are better than anything they could dream for
themselves.
Where can readers get
Blue Ridge Setup?
You can find it on amazon: http://goo.gl/yLD3zQ
. Right now it only has a few reviews. I’d love some more!
Find out more about
Kimberly’s bestselling suspense series or her books on living joyfully with
chronic illness, or contact her at www.kimberlyrae.com.
