This month’s featured author is best selling romance writer Karen Docter with insights into why she LOVES to write about cops!!  Keep reading to find out how you could win a Kindle Fire!

Hi. My name is Karen. I’m a bestselling author of both contemporary and romantic suspense novels and I love cops. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like I’m standing at the podium in a 12-step program. They do say acknowledging the problem is the first step. However, this is one habit I have no intention of fixing anytime soon.

I hadn’t consciously thought about how much law enforcement had infiltrated my writing over the years until I recently developed my new contemporary romance series, True Love In Uniform. At the time, I was having a hard time trying to figure out what kind of series I wanted to write. For years, I pulled suspense elements out of my contemporaries to fit traditional publisher lines. Finally, an insightful critique partner encouraged me to launch my romantic suspense career as K.L. Docter—yes, I lead a double life, but that’s a whole different 12-step program 🙂 —and I found a way to pull the suspense elements out of my contemporaries and put it “where it belonged.”

Then, I went Indie. I’d worked hard to separate my two personas under traditional rules. So, here I was brainstorming a new contemporary series with another critique partner in a conference hotel room and she suggests <gasp> that I do a cop series? We were both exhausted so I laughed it off. Her response? “But you love cops.”

I do love cop heroes. What never occurred to me was that I no longer had to think of my two genres in terms of “either or”. I was an Indie author and could write whatever I wanted. If I wanted cops in my contemporaries, I could have cops.

It was a revelation. Sort of.

Let me back up a bit to explain why this epiphany meant so much to me. I’ve always had a strong sense of justice. Whether in real life or in the books I read and write, I am only satisfied when justice is served to the deserving. Nothing drives me crazier than to see people get away with the wicked things they do to other human beings, from lying and cheating to abuse and murder.

I can tell you the exact moment when I became aware of the injustices of the world. I think I was ten years old. Mom and dad had picked up my sisters and I from the roller rink or taken us to a drive-in movie or…isn’t it funny this one point escapes my memory when everything else about that night is still so vivid? Anyway, when we got near our neighborhood we were stopped at a police barricade. Along with several other families from the area, we waited for several hours before we were permitted to go home.

It wasn’t until we saw the news the next day that we knew what had happened. A police call had turned deadly. Two officers were sent to a home on a domestic, one of the more volatile kinds of calls. The officers had settled things down and were leaving when a neighbor, drunk and evidently taking exception to their presence, opened fire. One of the officers was killed at the scene and the suspect had barricaded himself in his home until he was taken into custody.

I was pretty naïve for my age, though it was a long time ago and we were more innocent when I grew up. (Yes, I’m THAT old! 🙂 ) But this one event stayed with me for years. It launched my personal awareness of the injustices in the world. The shooter wasn’t involved in the original call and the officer that died was only doing his job. Even worse the policeman left behind a wife and unborn child. My youthful sensibilities were appalled. I considered going into law enforcement for a long time but, for a variety of reasons, my life went in a different direction.

My life choices didn’t change the way I feel about what happened that night. It’s the reason I ended up writing romantic suspense and, ultimately, the reason my critique partner’s suggestion that I write contemporary cop books made so much sense. I can’t change the fact that too many injustices still occur on a daily basis around the world. I’m still appalled when I hear about a child who’s been abused or a family is murdered. I want the culprit to face justice.

On the flip side, when I hear about a bad cop that abuses his or her power I am just as happy to see them face that same justice. We should hold our LEOs to a higher standard because we’re charging them to protect us from the criminal element, not become a part of it. I find it heartbreaking when a few bad cops tarnish the badge. For every bad cop, there are tens of thousands good cops out there living their lives, falling in love, and raising families. Just like you and me.

These are the officers that live in my novels. In my romantic suspense, I dispense justice that satisfies even my ten-year-old self. Evil people pay for their transgressions, the innocent are protected, and love holds it all together. My new contemporary series may be about men and women in law enforcement, but their stories generally take place outside the confines of their precinct. These are about the real people behind the badge, their lives and loves.

I can’t see me giving up on my love affair with law enforcement anytime soon, which is probably a good thing. I’ll have six books in my Thorne’s Thorns series, not to mention another twenty suspense titles waiting in the queue. Although many of the heroes aren’t in law enforcement, justice is served. When I brainstormed my True Love In Uniform series with my critique partner in that conference hotel room, I came up a dozen titles I wanted to write. Every day, more stories pop into my head. Right now, I have over sixty titles in my TBW (To Be Written) folder and law enforcement factors into many of them.

I can blame my ten-year-old self for setting me on this path but, now that I’m deep into these woods, I want to see where my love affair with cops and the law will take me. Thank goodness, I have my readers to enable my habit. 🙂

Thank for you stopping by.  If you have any questions or comments for Karen, please leave them below in the comment section, Karen will be by to answer them!

Oh, and guess what? Just because you’re awesome and took the time to enjoy this insight into Karen’s muse inspiration….

Karen is giving away a Kindle Fire!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Connect with Karen/K.L.:
Website/Blog
Karen Docter FB
K.L. Docter FB
Goodreads
Twitter: @KarenDocter

Bio:
Karen Docter’s a 4-time RWA® Golden Heart finalist. She won the 2005 Daphne du Maurier Award for Category (Series) Romantic Mystery Suspense in the unpublished division.  She now writes contemporary romance as Karen Docter and romantic suspense as K.L. Docter.  She holds a B.A. in Technical Journalism and taught an online plotting workshop for 14 years and college level English composition. Her suspense novel, Killing Secrets, debuted at #8 on Amazon’s Bestsellers lists for psychological women’s fiction. It’s part of the Season of Thrills Box Set: 5 Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Novels by Bestselling Authors, which debuted at #1 on Hot New Releases in Noir Crime in December 2015. Although all of her novels are filled with romance, her suspense is built on the backdrop of danger her characters face in their story…usually because a serial killer is bent on ending one or both of their lives before they can fall in love.

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Also available from Karen Docter: Satin Pleasures (Romantic Comedy) and Catch That Santa (Romantic Comedy)