Austin, Kate

PERSONAL:

Hobbies and other interests: Books, movies, music, art, walking on the beach, shopping, learning to play the cello, dinner with friends, traveling, and talking.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

ROMANCE NOVELS

Dragonflies and Dinosaurs, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

The Gossip Queens, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

The Sunshine Coast News, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

Awakening, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

(With Stevi Mittman and Mary Schramski) Holiday Wishes, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2006.

(With Jennifer Greene and Stevi Mittman) Summer Dreams, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

Last Night at the Halfmoon, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

Seeing Is Believing, Harlequin Next (Don Mills, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

Also author of the blog Kate Austin Talks about ….

SIDELIGHTS:

"I like characters with problems and I like characters who [are] on the edge—edge of a change, edge of a journey," author Kate Austin told Reese Witherfork in an interview on the Interviews with Sexy Novelists Web site. "But, as I do in real life, I like characters who take risks and deal with their problems (and we ALL have problems of one kind or another—that perfect life you see somebody living? it ain't) in a positive way."

Austin is true to her word when writing her own romance novels. In Dragonflies and Dinosaurs, for example, Randy Roman suffers increased panic attacks when her sister, Susan, develops breast cancer. Randy, who is emotionally traumatized most of the time, is now concerned that it runs in the family because her mother died of the disease two years earlier. As a result, Randy and her two nephews take a road trip back to the sisters' hometown to scatter their mother's ashes there. In the process, Randy meets the retired Tom Webb, who is living in the house the sisters grew up in years ago. Page Traynor, writing on the Romantic Times Online, called the novel "a journey into the past and the truth that's found there."

Austin's novel The Gossip Queens features three women living on the Sunshine Coast in Canada and dealing with various troubles in their life, including unfulfilled love lives and one grandmother serving as a full-time babysitter for her newly born granddaughter after her daughter has an accident. Romantic Times Online contributor Page Traynor called the novel "a heartwarming and deeply emotional book." Shannon Bigham, writing on the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site, commented: "This book about friendship and love has a cozy feel."

In Awakening, Austin presents a paranormal romance about a woman who is attacked and ends up at a mysterious house where a person supposedly remains for a year and then leaves rejuvenated. A Romantic Times Online contributor noted the novel's "wonderful, fresh characters." In Last Night at the Halfmoon, Austin once again sets the scene for her story at Canada's Sunshine Coast, this time featuring Aimee Anouk King, whose wonderful life begins to crack apart after the Halfmoon Drive-In closes, a place that Aimee remembers fondly. Writing on the Harriet Klausner's Review Archive, Klausner noted: "This is a fascinating ingenious character study that uses the Halfmoon Drive-In as a focal point of the highlight films of Aimee's life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, March 15, 2006, Kristin Ramsdell, review of The Sunshine Coast News; June 15, 2006, Kristin Ramsdell, review of Awakening; December 1, 2006, Kristin Ramsdell, review of Holiday Wishes, p. 102.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (July 25, 2007), Shannon Bigham, review of The Gossip Queens, Awakening, and Holiday Wishes.

Harriet Klausner's Review Archive,http://harrietklausner.wwwi.com/ (July 24, 2007), Harriet Klausner, review of Last Night at the Halfmoon and Dragonflies and Dinosaurs.

Interviews with Sexy Novelists,http://reesewitherfork.blogspot.com/ (January 6, 2006), Reese Witherfork, "Interview with Kate Austin; Harlequin Next Writer."

Romantic Times Online, (July 25, 2007), Page Traynor, review of Holiday Wishes, The Gossip Queens, The Sunshine Coast News, Dragonflies and Dinosaurs, and Last Night at the Halfmoon; review of Awakening.