We are delighted to welcome author K.C. Tansley to Omnimystery News today.
K.C. — who also writes adult cross-genre fiction as Kourtney Keintz — begins a new YA time travel murder mystery series with The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts (Beckett Publishing Group; July 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats). We recently had an opportunity to spend some time with her talking about her new book.
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Omnimystery News: Tell us a little more about your new series. How do you see the characters developing over the course of the series?
Photo provided courtesy of
K.C. Tansley
K.C. Tansley: I don't want to write an episodic 20 book series. I see mine as more of a character developing limited series. I estimate it will be a 6-7 book series. Because my protagonist is seventeen, she's definitely going to grow and develop with each book. She's at an age where she really shouldn't be fully formed and should still be discovering who she is. For me that's part of the fun of writing her — knowing she will grow and change over the series and even within each book.
OMN: How do you categorize this first book in the series?
KCT: I am very aware of the standard genre conventions, but I find for readers it's best to use my own. Every time I say it's a YA time travel murder mystery, their eyes light up and they ask where they can find it. It's a very easy way to convey what the book is. For industry purposes, my publisher labeled it time travel and mystery in the juvenile fiction codes.
Reviewers have called it a paranormal, a mystery, and cross genre. The point of labels is to help people make snap judgments about things. It's about efficiency. So finding the right label is a bit of trial and error. At its heart, the book is a murder mystery that has a huge time travel component. So I mashed up the two and it seems to give readers a vivid picture of what the book is.
OMN: Give us a summary of the book in a tweet.
KCT: In The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts, 17-year-old Kat Preston accidentally #timetravels to solve a murder & break a curse. #YAmystery #TGWIG
OMN: Is there any particular place that influenced where you set the story?
KCT: Definitely. I was born and raised in Connecticut and I think much of that is depicted in the setting. The fictional town of Wright is based on Old Saybrook and Westbrook in Connecticut, but a much more scaled back version of these beach towns. Castle Creighton was inspired by Gillette Castle and the Isle of Acacia was a mash up of a small island off the coast of Westbrook and The Thimble Islands.
OMN: Why did you choose to use a different name for this series?
KCT: My adult cross-genre fiction series is published under my real name. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is a major departure in content and tone. It's a YA time travel murder mystery written for a 12+ audience. I don't want kids picking up my adult book and parents getting upset. So I created a pseudonym to make sure people know what they are getting.
The disadvantage is that I have to find a way to navigate between the two identities with one website, one blog, one Facebook page, and one Twitter account. For people who know me, it's easy. For those meeting me as K.C., it can be a little confusing.
OMN: How did The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts come to be titled?
KCT: Kat, my main character, is a girl who has had to ignore ghosts most of her life in order to have a normal life. But her normal life doesn't last much longer.
OMN: Was this also the working title of the book as you wrote it?
KCT: No. The novel went through a few title changes over the years. It started out as The Curse of The Radcliffe Rubies, then it became The Radcliffe Curse, and it settled into Reckonings. When I sold it to my first publisher, Harlequin, it was still Reckonings. They had me do a title worksheet and they picked The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts from my suggestions. I really love the title. It conveys so much about the book. When my second publisher took it on, they kept that title.
OMN: How involved were you with the cover design?
KCT: My publisher had the final say over everything. But being a small press, my opinion was heard. My editor and publisher both agreed that the cover needed to feature the girl and the castle and convey the spooky, gothic vibe. When three initial concepts came in, we all agreed on the same one. I think that speaks to our shared vision for the book. There were a few rounds of revisions and tweaking after that. I absolutely love this cover. I think the cover captures my character perfectly and truly conveys the heart of the story.
OMN: What kinds of feedback do you receive from readers?
KCT: I love getting emails, Facebook comments, and blog comments from readers about their reactions to the book. For someone to take a moment to let me know they enjoyed my book is really really awesome. The best feedback is a review on Amazon or Goodreads because it tells the world what you think and helps the book get more attention.
OMN: What's next for you?
KCT: Right now, I'm hard at work on the first draft of the sequel to The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts. Then it's the book tour for The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts. I'm trying to keep travel regional, and I plan to get out a lot to meet readers and present workshops.
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K.C Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables — spells, ghosts, time travel — and writes about them. Never one to say no to a road trip, she's climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at KCTansley.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts by K.C. Tansley
The Unbelievables Series
Publisher: Beckett Publishing Group
She tried to ignore them. But some things won't be ignored.
Kat Preston doesn't believe in ghosts. Not because she's never seen one, but because she saw one too many. Refusing to believe is the only way to protect herself from the ghost that tried to steal her life. Kat's disbelief keeps her safe until her junior year at McTernan Academy, when a research project for an eccentric teacher takes her to a tiny, private island off the coast of Connecticut.
The site of a grisly mystery, the Isle of Acacia is no place for a girl who ignores ghosts, but the ghosts leave Kat little choice. Accompanied by her research partner, Evan Kingsley, she investigates the disappearance of Cassie Mallory and Sebastian Radcliffe on their wedding night in 1886. Evan's scientific approach to everything leaves Kat on her own to confront a host of unbelievables: ancestral curses, powerful spells, and her strange connection to the ghosts that haunt Castle Creighton.
But that's all before Kat's yanked through a magic portal and Evan follows her. When the two of them awaken 129 years in the past with their souls trapped inside the bodies of two wedding guests, everything changes. Together, Kat and Evan race to stop the wedding-night murders and find a way back to their own time — and their own bodies — before their souls slip away forever.
— The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts by K.C. Tansley
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