Background

Kendra Elliot was born and raised in the lush Pacific W.

Education

Ms. Elliot graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, but later trained as a dentist.

Career

After obtaining a dental hygiene license, Kendra practiced for sixteen years where her passion for writing still persisted in her mind. She later abandoned the dental world and focused on writing. By the year 2010, she was a full-time author, producing dozens of manuscripts. Armed with prolific writing skills, Kendra joined The Rose City Romance Writers of America, a local writer’s chapter. During her time at the chapter, Kendra learned a lot especially tips on writing and publications, the community she met was a great inspiration to both her writing dreams and resources she needed.

On the same year (2010), Kendra’s manuscripts were ready and “Stronger Than Bone”, one of her best manuscripts became a finalist at the Romance Writers of America (RWA) Golden Heart, a prestigious contest based on Houston Texas. The RWA receives over one thousand two hundred manuscripts every year, which means making the finals takes a lot of effort for the authors. Kendra burnt the midnight oil publishing her second and third books. The latter won the Daphne Du Maurier award for romantic suspense under the title “Buried”. Over time, Kendra’s genres evolved from contemporary romance to romantic suspense, she talks about her stories ‘tripping over dead bodies at every chapter’ she writes and this made her change her writing genre altogether.

By the year 2012, Kendra Elliot’s books obtained publications and her first book was published the same year with the title Buried. The publisher, Amazon Publishing published the book and was received by thousands of readers across the world. This first novel depicts crime as one of the most devastating endeavors in our daily life and some of the secrets remain hidden forever and no one may ever know the truth. In the same year, her next novel to be published under the title “Chilled” was released as well.

By the year 2013, Kendra Elliot became a renowned author and she won several awards due to her work on the book Buried. It was published by Montlake Romance on March 26th, 2013. It features a three hundred and sixty-two pages story that runs on a series of productions named Bone Secrets. "Buried" is the third book in the series. Kendra made her debut series Hidden followed by Chilled, then Buried and received a lot of compliments and views across the globe. Buried became one of the most thrilling stories as Kendra talks about a character (Chris Jacobs) who is a lone survivor of a vanished school bus. She describes him as damaged and suffers a memory lapse. Unlike her debut novel Hidden, where she had talked about a character (Lacey Campbell) who was an ondotologist which depicts her real field of specialization. As a matter of fact, Kendra Elliot wrote the first novel basing the star character (Lucy Campbell) on an area she was well versed with, that is, dental hygiene (ondotology).

On her Bone Secret series, the stories on each book feature different characters which allows readers to read randomly without necessarily following the sequence. However, the rest of the series is ordered and is a continuous story.

In the following year 2014, Kendra won the Daphne du Maurier award under the category of best romantic suspense with her novel Buried. The book was also an International Thriller Writer’s finalist for the Best Paperback Original and romantic times for the same category (romantic suspense).

However, Kendra has written several other book series such as Rogue River Novella Series and Callahan and McLane Series.

All these novella series have been sold worldwide through both online stores and libraries. Her major selling store is Amazon. The Rogue River Novella Series ran on four books which are full of horrific events starting with “On Her Father’s Grave” as series one through to series four “Walking on Her Grave”. The story was done under a collaboration with Melinda Leigh who did series two “Gone to Her Grave” and the last book “Walking on Her Grave”. Kendra worked on the first and third novels.

On the wake of 2013, Kendra signed a contract with the Amazon.com to write exclusive digital content on Amazon’s Kindle platform. However, most readers expressed concern that most of them did not have access to the Kindle platform which led to the introduction of the android based app that was made available to users for free download at Google Play Store.

Kendra has come a long way from her childhood zest for literature to where she stands now. She always expresses herself as a unique person, claiming that she refuses to take anything green and loves a good Mia Tai on the beach of Kauai. In 2009, still fascinated by forensics, she spent some of her time with FBI shooting range in Washington DC. Kendra has also expressed concern about reading other writer’s manuscripts as a bad practice that is prone to unnecessary legal issues over time. She advises upcoming writers on how to proceed with a ready manuscript to the next stage – publication.

Achievements

• Kendra Elliot has sold over 7 million books, hit the Wall Street Journal top ten bestseller list nine times, and is a three-time winner of the Daphne du Maurier award for Best Romantic Suspense for Buried, which was also an International Thriller Writers' finalist for Best Paperback Original and a Romantic Times finalist for Best Romantic Suspense.
  
  She is also the award-winning author of the Bone Secrets and Callahan & McLane series and the Mercy Kilpatrick novels.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bridged

    (After a congressman’s tortured body is found dangling fro...)

    2015
  • Vanished

    (When an eleven-year-old is abducted on her way to school,...)

    2014
  • Veiled

    (When a dead body turns up in the hot tub at a high-end re...)

    2013
  • Close to the Bone

    (FBI Special Agent Cate Wilde is back home on a remote Pac...)

    2018
  • Chilled

    (As a forensic nurse on a search and rescue team, Brynn Ne...)

    2012
  • A Merciful Promise

    (The Wall Street Journal bestselling series continues as M...)

    2019
  • Dead in Her Tracks

    (This wasn’t how Police Chief Zane Duncan expected to spen...)

    2015
  • Targeted

    (All Detective Mason Callahan wanted was a quiet fishing t...)

    2016
  • Death and Her Devotion

    (In the first Rogue Vows novella, Zane and Stevie are abou...)

    2016
  • Bred in the Bone

    (In the fourth Widow’s Island novella, the truth of a twen...)

    2019
  • A Merciful Silence

    (FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick must unlock the mystery of mas...)

    2018
  • Hidden

    (Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female s...)

    2012
  • A Merciful Fate

    (Raised by preppers, survivalist and FBI agent Mercy Kilpa...)

    2019
  • A Merciful Truth

    (FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick can take on any challenge - ev...)

    2017
  • The Last Sister

    (Twenty years ago Emily Mills’s father was murdered, and s...)

    2020
  • Truth Be Told

    (A torrential two-day storm has cut off the small town of ...)

    2017
  • A Merciful Death

    (FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her w...)

    2017
  • Alone

    (Alone is the fourth book in Bone Secrets, the multimillio...)

    2014
  • Buried

    (Buried is the third book in Bone Secrets, the multimillio...)

    2013
  • Known

    (Known is the fifth book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion...)

    2016
  • Her Grave Secrets

    (There are no secrets in a small town - until someone has ...)

    2014
  • On Her Father's Grave

    (In a small town like Solitude, Oregon, keeping a secret c...)

    2014
  • Spiraled

    (FBI Special Agent Ava McLane solves crimes; she doesn’t w...)

    2015
  • Below the Bones 2020
  • The Silence 2020

Views

Kendra writes best in the morning. When she is in the writing stage, she leaves the house five days a week and sits in a coffee shop for three hours. She starts by editing what she wrote the day before and then she doesn’t leave until she gets 2000 new words. She is usually done by noon and has the rest of the day to do her mom's stuff. Or read. She said that she is much more efficient when she is not at home. What she can do in three hours at a coffee shop takes eight hours at home.

She doesn’t plot her novels. Before she starts, she knows her main characters and she knows the inciting incident that will become the focus of the primary investigation. From there she lets a lot of the character’s backstory come to her as she writes and lets the story follow the natural progression of an investigation. She will sketch out about three chapters at a time so that she knows her general direction. She uses a large plot board where she maps out the scenes once she has written them. It shows her where she has been and helps her keep the story focused and linear.

Quotations: "I never planned to be a writer. I didn’t enjoy my English or writing courses in high school and college. I did the absolute minimum possible when I had to write a paper. Yes, my degree is in Journalism, but I wanted to work in advertising… and I didn’t plan to write in that field either; I had my eye on account management. I never did work in that field."

"Personally, I prefer books where I learn something. I love to have forensics, science, technology, history, or travel incorporated in the books I read. Include a story with characters I want to root for and I'm hooked. Romance authors include these sorts of elements in their stories all the time. My books straddle the fence between romance and suspense. I manage to appeal to both genres. I feel it's the perfect place to be. Romance readers are the most voracious readers of any genre. They spend the most money and devour countless books. The mystery readers are second."

"I'm probably the only author in the world that never spends any time thinking about this. I don't visualize my characters with actors like a lot of authors do while writing."

"I believe in write what you know. I’ve lived here all my life and know how people think and talk. I’ve found that readers around the world are slightly fascinated with our corner of the US. There’s a deep appreciation of the land and the rugged beauty of the mountains and coast."

"Keep going. Writing life is filled with highs and lows. Sometimes it feels like you’ve encountered low after low after low. The highs will come. They may not balance out the lows, but they’ll renew your vigor to push ahead. Write for yourself, not for others. Don’t get into this business for the money. Take lots of classes to improve your craft and study the business side of writing. There is always something to learn. Listen to advice from others, but only take the advice once you’ve studied it from every angle."

Membership

Kendra Elliot is a member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), which is a national non-profit genre writers association. She is also a member of the International Thriller Writers and the Kiss of Death Chapter of RWA.

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  Romance Writers of America Association , United States

Personality

Kendra's passion for literature started at an early age where she spent most of the time reading several storybooks. Some of her favorite writers were Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden among others. She's always been fascinated with forensics, refuses to eat anything green, and loves a strong Mai Tai on the beach on Kauai.

If she is not writing, she is probably reading. Her husband and her like to travel, so they try to plan a big trip after she turns in each book and a short trip somewhere in the middle of her writing schedule so she doesn’t get burned out.

Interests

• traveling, reading

• Writers

  Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Lee Child, Karen Rose, Robert Crais, Lisa Gardner, Michael Connelly, Tami Hoag

Connections

Kendra still lives in the Pacific West with her husband, three daughters, two cats, and a Pomeranian.

Friend:

Melinda Leigh

Melinda and Kendra first met at the Romance Writers of America where they shared a common goal, that is, take Romance Writing to the next level. Although Kendra’s books were published a year earlier (2010), Melinda’s books debut the following year (2011) but they still worked together though they had all fully left their careers. Melinda was a banker.

References

• Author's Kendra Elliot Official Website