Author Caitlin Moss joins the Live Desk

Now, one thing that is such a big focus as of recent, within the last few years, are romance novels. These books, these romance stories, we've seen how things like heated rivalry has become just like this huge talking point. The fantasy series that exist. Getting a little bit of response in the newsroom from some of the things I'm talking about. and one thing that we have been seeing throughout Western Washington are bookstores that are opening that are specific to just romance novels i believe there's one in the Ballard neighborhood there are some down in Tacoma Fox 13's Lauren Donovan who we were speaking to earlier actually did a story on this last year about how these are blowing up i'm talking about it like you guys don't know already you guys probably know better than i do joining me now live is a local author who focuses on these stories. Her newest book, Mourner for Hire, is out. And this one kind of marries both parts of the season right now because it is a romance story, but it also has a little bit of that spooky element. So joining me live now is Caitlin Moss. Caitlin, thanks for taking some time to talk to me today. Hi, thanks for having me, AJ. Yeah, tell me about your latest book that you have out, Mourner for Hire. Mourner for Hire follows a woman named Theda who is hired to attend funerals for a living. And she gets hired to attend the funeral of a man that she previously dated or the mother of a man that she previously dated. And when she shows up to the funeral, he is not happy to see her. And so she wants to bail, but she doesn't because she is haunted by his mother and she is a meddling ghost throughout. So I love this concept. I love this kind of idea. for a mourner for hire you've kind of heard of the tropes of maybe like the the wedding date that you would hire um yeah tell me about kind of the story and and how you came up with it and just kind of the different elements that are all a part of this uh your latest your latest book so it's a little bit accidental i saw a tweet a couple years ago about somebody just joking saying hey if you want me to do something strange at your funeral i'll do it for 200 bucks and then i wrote it down i thought it was a funny idea and then i found out that it's an actual profession it's not super popular in the states but in asia and parts of europe it's actually extremely common um so obviously there's a fun twist this is a romantic comedy so i have to balance the grief and death with the humor. And it's set in a fictional small Oregon coast town. And it's just a cozy, funny, heartfelt fall romance. I'm laughing as you're telling me this, because that sounds wild. Could you imagine you hire someone for your actual funeral to come in and make a scene? So here we are, we're looking at you now from one of your events. This is, I believe, Page and Pine. This book has been out for a little while now. Tell me kind of the response. You've been going around and, um, you know, talking to local bookstores about the work that you've done. Um, you know, this is your latest book. Tell me kind of how it's been for you, what you've heard from your fans. Yeah. So with this one, it's a true enemies to lovers. I know in the romance, uh, romantic and fantasy genre, we get a lot of enemies to lovers, but this one is a contemporary romance to lovers or enemies to lovers. And, um, it's, it's interesting to hear from readers either that have lost a loved one or kind of going through grief and how kind of using humor to balance the heartache is helpful and I think fiction does that in general. I think we read to get perspectives on other people's lives and reading is a great way to walk into someone else's shoes. I love the concept too because already it's fun and it's quirky with this kind of set up of mourner for hire but to kind of add that element of the ghost i want to ask um for for our readers what do you hit the dogs sorry no no they are they are they're trying to get their their it's not for that it's just for you tell me about this ghost situation how big of a plot is that for the story and you know you hear ghosts spooky season um like if there was a spooky spectrum how far on the spectrum of spooky does Mourner for Hire get i mean it's spooky in that the um the ghost is a main character um but it's a funny ghost think of more like Casper the friendly ghost or um there's an old rom-com from the 90s with Reese Witherspoon where um she's a ghost and so it's it's more of a humorous take on spooky so if you're not really into scary but you love kind of paranormal aspects um then this one is a read for you now again you were telling kind of the plot this is the ghost of the main character or her love interest it is the ghost of um the male main character's uh mother okay so this is kind of like you can look into it as a way of uh playing with words of you're being haunted by what would be your mother-in-law um tell me about because this is just one of several books that you've written we have i think your instagram account here um tell me about your story kind of getting into this form of writing um and you know the i think you have seven books out right Kaylin i have 11 actually um they are you know i went to school for journalism and i wrote for a magazine down in San Diego for years took some time off to really like raise a family have some kids and um then around 2020 when you know everything felt like it was up in flames i was like you know what i'm just gonna go for it and the response has been awesome um and it's been a lot of fun to really use this creative side of my brain and so you've been doing this now for years you have you know kind of different books out where you have your Instagram pulled up romance books but make them spooky your books um you know tell me about the process of coming up with these stories you mentioned this one specifically um kind of something as simple as a post on social media starts with uh what is now the creative process once you get an idea how long does it take for you to come up with that full concept and then to kind of get to this point now where you have a book on shelves yeah so it really the characters come alive first for me and I love um being introduced to a character and it sounds a little nutty but they kind of pop into my head and introduce themselves and start telling me their story and um it kind of just spirals from there so it can take me anywhere from two months to a full year to read a book or write a book it can take me that long to to read a book so that's pretty impressive you're able to write one in that amount of time um now as far as your story we have your Instagram up you have um as you mentioned 11 books out where can folks find the work that you've done or connect with you or or learn more about what you already have out there again like we're showing you you've done some events locally you're at bookstores you're at conventions um if people want to kind of dig into Mourner for Hire or some of your other works where can they find you they um obviously check out your local bookstores i always say buy my books there first um and then any um larger retail retailer as well yeah i know for instance there's a book i think in a store in my neighborhood that focuses on um romance stories specifically and i know that they do include um some local authors tell me about that what is the the the author scene like within Western Washington as well as this community because i believe that there's a there's a connection of authors that kind of have this network um who are all working together in this unique way to get these stories out yeah you know the local author community is wonderful i feel like they we've all kind of um we band together and do these big events together and support each other um obviously through social media and then online um a lot of these smaller bookstores are extremely supportive of all of us indie authors and um it's just been a lot of fun to kind of see everyone's careers grow over the last few years and so you have this book out Mourner for Hire it is available and it kind of rides that that spooky season as we are talking about uh halloween is just a couple days away at this point so that is already out there but if you are a fast reader unlike me and you're able to burn through this book i think that you also have another book that is perfect for the next season coming up the holiday season yes a world without you um which that this one is what i like to call my anti-hallmark christmas story because it's actually about the city girl that did pick this small town boy and married him and thought she would live happily ever after and now it's five years later and she's getting a divorce she is headed back to the city and she's starting over um and then when she goes to bed at night she gets to wake up in a parallel universe that shows her what life would have been like had she never left Seattle in the first place okay and so that one is also PNW you said the the mourner for hire Oregon based. So these are Pacific Northwest stories. Once again, if someone, I see you have them behind you, if someone is looking for a place where they can pick up your books, where should they look, Caitlin? I would love it if you looked at your local bookstore. If you have a local romance bookstore, that would be amazing too, but you can also find them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever books are sold. Yeah. Awesome. Mourner for Hire, Caitlin Moss, a romance story with a little spooky element perfect for the last couple days of the spooky season. Caitlin, thanks for taking some time to talk to us today. Yeah, thanks for having me.