Featured Interview With Katie Mettner
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I started out life as the middle child and lived with my parents and brother and sister in a little house in Eau Claire Wisconsin. Growing up I loved going to the library with my dad and reading every Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew book I could get my hands on. At 13 I broke my leg skiing and that leg never really recovered from the injury. After many surgeries I was back to working as a baker and cake decorator. Eventually I moved north and worked as a cook until I met my soul mate, Dwayne, on Thanksgiving 1999. In fact, my birthday is June 14 and his is June 15! We got married in April 2000 and we had our first child in February 2001. I stayed at home with my three kids and eventually got my degree in medical transcription. I worked as a transcriptionist for a dozen years, having quit last year due to hand problems. While being a stay-at-home mom and a transcriptionist I started writing my first book, Sugar’s Dance. I now live in Northern Wisconsin, just a little south of Lake Superior, which happens to be my favorite backdrop for my stories!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
As I said above, I’ve always been fascinated with books because reading was a big part of my life since I was a little girl. My parents loved to read and passed that down to me. I’ve never been overly picky about what I read, I just loved to see how words went together to make sentences and then a whole store. I started writing very early in life and would often write short stories just for the fun of it when I was bored in the summer. Journaling and writing was my favorite class in school because I could let my imagination run wild during that time. I didn’t write as much after graduation as I was busy with work and starting a family. In 2011 I wasn’t able to walk on my leg anymore and the doctors suggested we amputate my left leg below the knee. I agreed and after the surgery I finally found time to write that book that had been building in me for years. That was 17 books ago! I discovered that Sugar was only the tip of the iceberg of characters waiting for their story to be told.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love a good mystery, and pretty much read every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Boxcar Children when I was little. Then I moved on to Mary Higgins Clark, Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich style books. I’m an equal opportunity book reader, but always loved Harlequin Romance Suspense books. They were my guilty pleasure so to say, so I’m sure that is why I like to write romantic suspense now. I love indie authors and read everything from contemporary romance to romantic suspense to straight mystery/thrillers. I can’t say I have a lot of other writers who inspire me in my writing, I tend to do my own thing. My characters are unlike most you read about as each one has a physical difference to overcome as they search for love.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Winter’s Rain, which isn’t my latest book, but is the book being featured at this time, is a romantic suspense story. Winter’s story is about a woman who has suffered at the hands of a very brutal, abusive man for the majority of her life. She managed to break free of him, but when he turned back up in her life, unannounced, she knew it would come down to his life, or hers, and this time she chose hers. On the run, after leaving him dead on the floor of her home, she embarks on a life changing journey to live John 8:32, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Let me insert here that this is in no way a Christian romance book. There are topics, situations and sins discussed and committed in this book that are not found in the Christian romance genre. MOVING ON) Winter isn’t a religious woman, but that verse has been on the bracelet she’s worn since high school. It’s taken her eight long years, and seeing the eyes of an old friend again, to see those words in a different light. She always saw them as literal, ‘telling someone about the abuse you suffered for so many years would set you free,’ but what she learned after killing her abuser (even though it was in self-defense), was a lesson far more expansive.
Winter grew up on a reservation the first nine years of her life with her best friend, Jedidiah Raintree. When he moved away her life began to spin out of control, but in the end her destiny led her back to him.
Winter’s Rain took me about four months from the time I started writing until the time I published it. Winter’s story flowed through me because this story HAD to be told. It’s called a gritty page-turner that draws raw emotion. As the writer I can tell you that was exactly how I felt about it then and now.
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