Kimberly Lang Visits the Tulip Tree

We are very pleased to have Kimberly Lang visiting with us today.  Here are some comments by Kimberly about her new book to get us started.   I know everyone will be as excited as we all are to have her here and find out about her upcoming release! 

Be sure to stop back by tomorrow for a recipe by Kimberly for Recipe Friday! 

And now lets see what Kimberly has to say:

This is my first official visit to the Tulip Tree. I sometimes appear in the comment tail, but a front page spot? ~preens~ 

Thanks for having me, y’all!

So, I’m officially here to talk about my new book, The Privileged and the Damned, out this month from Harlequin Presents.  I’m very excited that this book is on the shelves.  It’s the first book in my trilogy about the Marshall brothers, and I’m totally in love with these boys.

I’ve never set out to write a series of connected books before.  I did go back once to revisit a character from a previous book, but I didn’t plan to write the second book when I wrote the first.  This time, I went in with the idea of having the same characters appear in all three books.  It was a challenge for me to set up characters for two future books without having that overshadow the story in this book, and since I fell hard for the Marshall brothers, it was tough not having them take over the entire thing! I also had to set up an entire family, with a past and present and plans for the future, which is the closest to world-building I’ve ever come. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to do way too much within such a short book.

The Privileged and the Damned is Ethan’s story.  He’s the middle brother, a bit of a playboy who falls hard for Lily, a girl who works in his grandparents’ stable who has a secret past she’s trying to escape. This story is a little more emotionally complicated than I usually write, so it was another challenge to face.

There were many times when I looked at my computer and wondered aloud if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

In the end, though, I’m really pleased with Ethan and Lily’s story.  In December, the oldest brother, Brady, meets his match in The Power and the Glory.  And early next year, the youngest brother, Finn, brings the whole series to a close with his story (which is still so recently finished I don’t have a title or release date yet).

So, my first foray into family sagas feels successful, and I hope that readers enjoy this family and these brothers as much as I did.

Are you a fan of the family saga? Do you like getting that deep into one setting and one group of people? What about the cameo appearances of characters in the other books?

You can pop over to my website (www.booksbykimberly.com) to read an excerpt of the first chapter of The Privileged and the Damned (which contains Ethan and Lily’s first meeting. And, honestly, that’s my favorite first meet I’ve ever written.) and find out more about the Marshall family.

Kimberly