Kelley, Karen

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Kelley, Karen

PERSONAL:

Married; children: two. Education: Attended nursing school. Hobbies and other interests: Collecting antiques.

CAREER:

Writer. Has worked in emergency medicine.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Bachelor Party, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

(With others) Bad Boys with Expensive Toys (contains Anything You Can Do by Kelley, The Fourteen Million Dollar Poodle by Nancy Warren, and The World Is Too Darned Big by MaryJanice Davidson), Brava Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Southern Comfort, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Southern Exposure, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Temperature's Rising, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2005.

Hell on Wheels, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2006.

(With others) The Morgue the Merrier (contains Blue Suede Christmas and Thank You, Santa! by Kelley, Dead Certain by Rosemary Laurey, and Holly in His Heart by Dianne Castell), Zebra (New York, NY), 2006.

(With others) Texas Bad Boys (contains Run of Bad Luck by Kelley, In Bad with Someone by Rosemary Laurey, and Come to a Bad End by Dianne Castell), Brava Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Double Dating with the Dead, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2007.

(With others) I'm Your Santa (contains It's a Wonderful Life by Kelley, The Christmas Present by Lori Foster, and Home for Christmas by Dianne Castell), Zebra (New York, NY), 2007.

Cosmic Sex, Brava Books (New York, NY), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Karen Kelley became a romance novelist only after raising two children and working several years in emergency health care. Her husband and children encouraged her to pursue this long-held ambition, but she went through six years' worth of rejections before she had a manuscript accepted for publication. She has since produced a diverse lot of romances. While all of them contain love stories, some have elements of crime-solving, science fiction, or the supernatural, and many have humorous aspects. Her mixing of these ingredients with romantic, erotic action has won Kelley praise from various critics.

Several of her works have featured police officers as protagonists. Southern Comfort heroine Fallon Hargis, for instance, is an undercover federal narcotics agent—or was, until her identity was revealed. She has narrowly escaped being killed, and she is hiding in a small Texas town while she tries to figure out which of her colleagues double-crossed her. Meanwhile, she becomes attracted to the local sheriff, who reciprocates, and they face danger together as their feelings for each other grow. Southern Exposure centers on a New Orleans police officer with secrets in her past and a newspaper columnist whom she first encounters when he is, on a dare, working for a night as a stripper. They spend a passion-filled night together. The revelation of his real profession upsets her only briefly, and as their relationship continues, he becomes interested personally and professionally in her secrets, which may include the key to a cold murder case. His affection and concern for her, however, may mean more to him than getting a story.

Temperature's Rising has a former cop turned real estate broker, who is also the daughter of her city's police chief, drawn back into law enforcement through a case of mistaken identity and a desire to help her father. She ends up posing as the wife of a handsome new male officer during a sting operation aimed at catching a gang of burglars, and the two begin to take their roles rather seriously. Diana Tixier Herald, reviewing Temperature's Rising for Booklist, found it "a perfect blend of humor, family congeniality, and sexy intimacy."

Science fiction figures in Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind. Mala, a woman from a planet without men, where she has had a robot lover, journeys to Earth because she has heard great praise for Earth men's sexual abilities. When she arrives in a rural part of Texas, a resident with a reputation for eccentricity reports a UFO sighting. The local sheriff is skeptical of the story, and when he meets Mala, he thinks she is not an alien but an amnesiac—a mysterious, attractive, alluring amnesiac. He takes her into his home, where she orders sex toys online and pursues him aggressively. Herald, again writing in Booklist, complimented Kelley's blend of "sexy, humorous romance and "kitschy sci-fi," saying it adds up to "a fun read."

Ghosts appear in Kelley's contributions to the omnibus The Morgue the Merrier and in Double Dating with the Dead. The Morgue the Merrier is set in a hotel that was once a morgue, in a town that is Christmas-themed, as are all the short novels in the book. Kelley's Blue Suede Christmas finds the spirit of an Elvis Presley impersonator playing matchmaker for a songwriting team. In Double Dating with the Dead, Selena James, a psychic who claims to communicate with the dead, goes up against Trent Sanders, a writer dedicated to debunking claims of the existence of anything supernatural. On a challenge to see which one is right, they both check into an allegedly haunted hotel for two weeks. If Trent wins, Selena will be his lover for a night. Despite their differing views, she is sufficiently attracted to him to want to become his lover, challenge or no, and he feels the same way; in addition, two playful ghosts push them toward each other. A "sexy, sassy romp" is how critic Shelley Mosley described the novel in Booklist.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2005, Diana Tixier Herald, review of Temperature's Rising, p. 41; March 15, 2007, Diana Tixier Herald, review of Close Encounters of the Sexy Kind, p. 32; September 15, 2007, Shelley Mosley, review of Double Dating with the Dead, p. 43.