The Forbidden Trilogy (107 page)

Even you.

Think about it. How many times have you judged someone
harshly, or thought something naughty or totally inappropriate or had a random
urge to smack someone (or worse)? Most of us never act on these thoughts. In
fact, 90% of them flitter through our consciousness so fast, we aren’t even
fully aware of them.

But I am.

I hear those things you don’t even like to acknowledge in
yourself. They dance around in my head like a song on repeat. I can’t ever rid
myself of your darkest perversions. Is it any wonder Luke and Lucy are my only
friends and I’ve never had a boyfriend?

Until Drake.

He’s unlike any other guy I’ve ever known, and not just
because he has inhuman physical strength and can control people with his mind,
every guy I grew up with at Rent-A-Kid had some para-power. No, it’s who he is
on the inside.

He’s fearless and accepts me 100% for who I am. He isn’t
scared of my powers and he doesn’t try to hide who he is from me. He let me in
to his most intimate secrets and laid himself bare for me to judge.

It’s hard, though. I have mixed feelings about the whole
mind control thing. Our roles are reversed, you see. While he accepts me, I
find myself scared of his power. But I’m working on it. Together, we face some
big challenges.

The place I’ve considered home my whole life may not be what
it appears. They’re up to something evil, and only with Drake by my side will I
survive.

His strength gives me strength, and I love that about him.

We are so connected, even though we’ve never met in person.
I know that sounds crazy, but you’ve got to understand, we’re in each other’s
minds all the time! We probably knew each other better in the first week than
you will ever know your lover. You don’t know what your partner is thinking,
not really.

But I do. I know Drake from the inside out, and it’s because
of that total transparency and connection that I know I can trust him.

I don’t always like reading minds, and it’s made my life
lonely for a long time. But with Drake, this ability has freed us from the fear
and worry that other couples must feel. With him, everything makes sense.
Everything fits. He fills something inside of me that I didn’t even know was
empty.

Now if we can only figure out what’s going on so we can get
out of this alive, we might have a shot at happily ever after.

Wish us luck.

Drake Says

You don’t expect anything good to come out of being
kidnapped, especially on the day I was set to win a major surfing contest. Dude,
it seriously sucks!

How they got the jump on me, I’ll never know. It’s kind of
embarrassing. I can control minds and kick ass, so how’d this happen?

Well, all I can say is I’m glad it happened. I know, that’s
crazy, right? But I’d never have met Sam if some blockheads hadn’t wiped me out
on Venice Beach that day. Also, we kind of need each other to get out of this
seriously F’d up situation, so…

Maybe fate?

But there’s more. She’s special, different. The last girl I
hooked up with, let’s just say she was more of a one-nighter that got out of
hand. Sam’s a girl I could see spending every night with, forever. No, more
than that. Sam’s the girl I can’t imagine my life without.

I can’t even tell you how painful it is to be stripped of my
powers and held captive, knowing some of the things they’re doing to Sam. You
don’t even want to know what I’m doing to do to those bastards when I get my
strength back. If you’ve got a weak stomach, you might want to turn your head.

I’d kill for her and I’d die for her. But most of all,
I’d live for her.

I know she’s not thrilled with the mind control thing, but I
also know that when she looked into my soul, when I opened up my mind to her
and gave her access to every memory, every pain, every misdeed and violent
act–she embraced it all without flinching.

I’ll never find another girl like her. She’s stronger than
she thinks, and she’s kind and good all the way through. She cares about others
and feels things deeply. She cries at sad movies and makes me feel things I’ve
never felt before.

I love her, and I never thought I’d ever love or feel loved
again. I mean, my best friend Brad, you know, cares and stuff. He’s a dude
though. And Father Patrick, he’s like a dad to me. But it’s not the same.

With Sam, life has a whole new meaning. With her I know I
can do anything, be anything.

So I have to find a way to get us out of this. I will not
let them hurt her, and there will be hell to pay when this is over.

What inspired you to write this series?

The concept for the book first came to me in a dream many
years ago about a girl named Sam who could read minds and was raised in a
secret school and rented out as a spy to the rich and powerful. I made a few
notes about my dream and put it away for a long time, then pulled it out last
fall when I wanted an idea for a short story.

It obviously didn't stay just a short story, and so
Forbidden
Mind
, the first draft, was written in a week. The world developed quite a bit
from there as I thought about how something like Rent-A-Kid would have been
created and what the bigger plans for something like that would be. Each book
in the series expanded the world and the characters, and now that the last book
in the trilogy is out, it's clear that these three books only reflected a small
bit of the world that wants to be created.

So next year my husband, Dmytry Karpov, and I will be
writing a new trilogy,
The Fallen Trilogy
, that expands this world with
a new plotline, new cast of characters, and some favorites from the Forbidden
Trilogy as well. It's a standalone series from Forbidden, but fans of Forbidden
will really enjoy the new direction of this spin-off trilogy, I hope!

What was most challenging about writing The Forbidden
Trilogy? Easiest?

The hardest part for me is outlining. I prefer to just
write, but with an increasingly complex series, I had to be really careful that
I didn't write myself into a corner. So I have adopted the outlining process
kicking and screaming. The easiest part for me is the actual writing. Once I'm
in the flow, it's like I'm dictating a story being told to me. 

Which characters or situations surprised you during the
writing process?

I was surprised at how strong Lucy's voice became during the
course of the series. She has her own POV in
Forbidden Fire
and even
more in
Forbidden Life
, and now she's going to have her own series with
her twin!

Some say YA books have become "too dark." How
do you feel about this in general and in regards to your own books?

I believe there's a difference between teen novels and YA
novels. To me the term Young Adult clearly indicates an adult, 18+, whereas
teen books would be for the 12 to 13+ crowd.

Given that, I don’t think it's a problem to have dark themes
in YA, since that age group is presumably mature enough to handle it. Even
younger teens deal with dark issues in their lives, to sugar coat it and expect
that they won't be able to handle those realities in their books is to
underestimate what their real lives are like. They deal with bullying, school
shootings, pregnancies, drugs and so much more.

And not only that, but most classics that are required
reading have some pretty dark themes and mature subject matters. Murder,
adultery, abuse, racism, slavery—these are all present in books that are
required reading for youth.

As far as the Forbidden Trilogy goes, it does get darker
with each book, and there are mature themes at play, which is why I don’t
consider it a young teen book as much as a young adult book. However, as the
saga continues, future books will be listed as adult to avoid any confusion,
though I still think they will be very appropriate for most of the 18+ YA crowd
to whom they are written.

If you could have any power, what would it be?

I'd want to be able to tell if people are lying, like Lucy.
I don't think I would enjoy mind reading like Sam, that's just TMI, ya know?
But lie detection? That would rock.

After writing paranormal/fantasy books for every age
group, have you found an age category that you prefer?

You know, I love them all for different reasons. My
children's books,
The Three Lost Kids
series, are so fun for me,
especially since they're based on my own girls and I get to talk through the
plots with them and teach them the process as I write them.

YA gives me a chance to tackle fun coming of age themes, and
the adult paranormal books I have coming out soon (which are still more YA, but
YA has taken to meaning teen or younger, and I wanted to write books that were
more focused on the actual young adult, rather than teen, so now I'm calling
them adult) give me freedom to write more adult themes that are becoming more
difficult to explore in YA.

Do you have plans to write in other genres?

I am taking a pen name, Daring Davenport, to publish adult
romance with more sexual content. My first book in this pen name,
Seduced by
Innocence
, launches Jan. 15
^th
. While I’m obviously not hiding my
pen name from the public, because I write for children and YA as Kimberly
Kinrade, I wanted to make sure any book I wrote with sexually explicit adult
content was clearly different, so nobody too young stumbled on it by accident.

If they made a movie about your life, who would you cast
to play you?

Kimberly Williams. Not only does she have my name, but
people used to say I look like her. Not sure how true that is, but she'd be
awesome!

What do you want your readers to get from your novel?

First, I hope they are absorbed by the characters and their
plight and feel pulled into this world. I want them to be entertained, but also
to be challenged to think about some of the themes present in the books. Themes
of good and evil, right and world, morality, the value of human life, love,
family.

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a
writer?

I joke that I was born with ink in my veins and magic in my
heart. I've been writing since I was a young girl, and actually started selling
my short stories and poetry to family and friends when I ran out of teeth to
sell to the Tooth Fairy. (True story!)

I was a journalist while in college, working for pay on the
student newspaper and for more pay for a large daily newspaper in Los Angeles,
California.

While I did start working on a novel in college, and I wrote
a few screenplays and plays, I didn't start focusing exclusively on my fiction
until a few years ago. Non-fiction writing, ghostwriting, and journalism always
took up all my time and paid the bills more immediately then writing books, but
my real passion is writing novels and I'm so glad I can finally do that full
time.

If you could travel back in time, where and when would
you go and why?

Egypt, 1370-1330 BC, because I would want to be there when
the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti turned Egypt on its head
by proclaiming it a monotheistic government during their religious revolution.
There's so much intrigue and mystery about that time. What happened to
Akhenaten? Where did Nefertiti come from? Did she really rule Egypt alone after
her husband's death, before King Tut was pushed into power? I would love to go
there!

In fact, I'll be writing in this time frame, about these
people, for the prequel of
The Reluctant Familiar
.
The Reluctant
Familiar
is set to come out in September, 2013 and after that, sometime in
2014, I'll be writing
The Egyptian Queen
. I'm really excited about it.

Has your family always been supportive of your writing?

Yes. I'm so lucky, especially when I hear stories from other
authors whose family won't even read their books. My parents have encouraged my
writing since I was a child. While most parents admonish their kids to
"Quit that writing and get a real job," my parents always said
"Quit that job and focus on your writing."

Also, I married my writing partner, so you can't get more
supportive than that. We're even co-writing a series of books together. And I
based another series on my children, so they love my books!

What do you do when you’re not writing?

You mean that's a real thing? Time when I'm not writing? Lol
Well, if I'm not writing, I'm usually thinking about writing, or plotting my
next book, or editing, or reading.