Gettin' Revived in '25

The new kids on the block

Oops. I vanished again.

Sorry about that. To put it mildly, life shifted into overdrive. Last summer, I finalized a divorce and married a real-life, top-tier book boyfriend on Halloween. Yes, that one. As in the one. Funny how life works out, eh? We bought a house with sweet neighbors (and mountain views from the deck!) His two rambunctious puppies joined my pups to form an interesting-looking pack. One of the puppies weighs as much as the other three dogs combined. That puppy also drools, sheds like no one's business, and has roughly three brain cells, but he's a cutie. Amid the chaos, my two elderly sister-cats and their pesky little friend, Grimm, settled in. According to Cleo, our windows make excellent birdwatching perches. Luna is too obsessed with my husband to notice.

Times were hectic for a bit, but it was a fantastic ride. 100/10, I highly recommend the well-hung mechanic route through life.

Then, 2025 struck... and the 💩 hit the fan. A loved one was diagnosed with a brain tumor.... and another one had a stroke and threw in heart failure to scare us even more. And then my favorite troublemaker, Grimm the Cat, lost a battle with liver cancer.

Did I mention it was all in the first three months of the year? Rude, I know.

But things are looking up, and the humans involved are on the mend.

That brings me to writing...

Baby on Board will be released this year under KB.

However, future books (including a snarky rom-com passion project I'm obsessed with) may not be published under this pen name.

With her peers, KB hit the USA Today Best-selling Booklist twice. She took a stressed-out corporate zombie from her cubicle to a home office. She sits perched on my bookshelf and yours. But somewhere along the way, my passion for writing died. Writing became a metric for which I was judged and ridiculed repeatedly. Instead of crying in a cubicle, I was crying at home at my desk. That life wasn't and isn't sustainable.

I've toyed with more "me" pen names, including one using my actual first name, Kelsey. That's the direction I'm leaning toward. For one, it's a more authentic feel, and it allows me to leave a boatload of trauma in the past. Talk about freedom! Plus, I really hate signing initials. KB books would remain available, but future releases would cease under the name.

Still, I'm conflicted. I made this pen name. I wrote these books. I did the damn thing and then some.

But she isn't me. At least she hasn't felt like it in a long while.

Either way, I'll make that decision after Baby on Board releases. On the same note, Karina Light (my darker pen name) is forever defunct. Kiss & Control will remain up, but no future books will come from that pen. The sub-genre doesn't speak to me anymore.

However, my PNR/rom-com work is still in the pipeline. Honestly, that has been my saving grace through everything... especially when human men were the scum of the earth to me 😂 I've had a field day in that realm.

So, stay tuned. I'm buzzing behind the scenes. Watch for newsletter updates with sneak peeks, potential new pen name info, and more.

XOXO KB