Meet Kharisma Rhayne, Multi-genre Published Author

Ten years ago, Kharisma traded in snow, ice and tornadoes for sun, heat, sand and mountains. She now lives in beautiful Arizona with her husband, 4 kids & 5 rescue dogs. Her love for nature and animals is well known and she gets to indulge it in her new home with wolves, coyotes, snakes, and various other creatures as her nearest neighbors. Living in the middle of nowhere is something she wouldn’t change for the world.
 

Dabbling in writing through Junior High and High School, Kharisma officially got her start writing LGBT, BDSM and erotica. Never one to slow down, she started writing several additional genres including crime, medical, historical and paranormal. Her latest adventure is a dark horror. When you pick up one of her books, she wants you to walk away turned on and inspired! Come take a stroll into Kharisma’s worlds of ecstasy, love, adventure and fear. 

Welcome to Castle Campbell. The view here is spectacular. There is a coniferous forest before you reach an open moorland. At the far point, there's even a view down to Glen Devon which is the setting for Kharisma's Highlander series. Umm...maybe we'll see a few hot guys in kilts? Read on to find out! And there's a giveaway. Details below (down under the kilts).

Naughty Reader’s: Hi Kharisma! Thank you for inviting us to Castle Campbell this week. What an awesome place! Tell us a bit about yourself  that our readers might not know.

Kharisma:  I have two different Highlander series (with a character spin-off in addition to the series…so 3?) in the works and often am asked why…typically I shrug it off as simply “Im Scots.” So, a little more on that: I’m actually a Campbell descendant and related through blood to Argyll. Evidently, my Scots *roots* are a little deeper than I generally share.

Naughty Reader’s: What made you want to become a writer?

Kharisma: Honestly, it was an accident. I always saw things I had different ideas and, of course, thought my ideas were better. So, I just wrote and wrote and then decided to try getting published. It’s been moving faster than I can keep up with since then.

Naughty Reader’s: Please share a bit about your new release Having Thyne without giving away any spoilers.

Kharisma:  My latest release was Having Thyne. It’s a sequel (a very unplanned sequel) to Knowing Thyne. It’s ménage and a fun little sex-capade during their anniversary. The initial plan was that Thyne would only appear in one short story. The week of release, I was overwhelmed with emails for sequels (and jumping for joy over them). So, Having Thyne took form. Who could say no to another fun weekend?

Blurb:

Another year has passed and Adison has planned an anniversary treat for Thyne that she hopes will surpass the last one. But in pushing her boundaries to outdo herself, will he push the limits of Thyne's bounds?

Naughty Reader’s: Do you write under a pen name?

Kharisma:  Sort of. No, really. While Kharisma Rhayne isn’t my birth name, I did go through a lot of legal turmoil to get the name its own identity. It has its own EIN number, not linked to my legal name at all…and I can legally sign it on anything. So, it’s like I’m honestly, even in the eyes of the IRS…two different people.

Naughty Reader’s: What types of hero or heroine do you like best?

Kharisma:  To me, in my writing, I mostly focus on the hero. He heroine in most of my books is secondary. He’s strone…sort of the mega-alpha male with an added boost. He’s strong, stubborn, generally knows exactly what he wants (although, I have strayed from that a time or two) and won’t let anything stop him. Most of my heroes are also not perfect. They have flaws and to me, that makes me like them more (they’re just not so flawed as to be annoying lol).

Naughty Reader’s: Tell us about a typical day in your life as a writer.

 

Kharisma:  My days are a scramble. It all starts at 4:30am. It’s oldest daughter getting dropped off at school, running home and making sure my younger three are ready, then driving them to school. When I get home, it’s publishing company stuff and loads of coffee. If I’m lucky, I can get in a little promo to keep my name floating around…and then it’s high caffeine (Pepsi, Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew) and trying to do at least 2 or 3 1K1HR sprints. Sometimes I can manage 1000 to up to 8000 words in a day…but lately it’s been rare. Then in the afternoon it’s back to pick up my youngest, back again to pick up my oldest and back another time to get my other two from sports practices. At that point it’s cooking, cleaning, homework. I do still try to write, but it doesn’t happen often. Once my youngest falls asleep, I try for at least another 1000 words before I’m too tired to manage to keep my eyes open. 

Naughty Reader’s: Do your books have a common theme or are they all different?

Kharisma: I’m all over the place. I LOVE history and just going where my characters lead me. I just can’t conform myself to one mold. I have contemporary, I have Civil War era stuff (soon), Native American historical, Viking, Highlander, even all the way to splatterpunk horror. I blame it on the fact that I have always loved to read everything. It only makes sense, I guess, that I’d write everything I could. I would say, though, that my books tend to have a very strong male lead character. Kind of the Alpha male plus (on my novels this becomes even more apparent).

Naughty Reader’s: Umm...where were we? Oh, yes. How long does it take you to write and then edit a story?

Kharisma:  Honestly, it just depends. It matters on if the kids’ dad is in town, how their school and sports week is, if I have an animal crisis (lol). It also depends on what I have going on with my publishing company. I have several books I’ve been writing on for at least 2 years. I have others that I have written in a week. I have lovely betas to help me with editing. They tend to have them anywhere from 24 hours to a week after I hand them over then it’s generally another week or two for me to look over their suggestions and pull everything together.

Naughty Reader’s: Do you have to be alone to write?

Kharisma:  Yes. Oh how I need silence. It’s why I can’t write at all afternoons, evenings and weekends or on any school vacations.

Naughty Reader’s: How do you go about naming characters?

Kharisma:  It’s really hit and miss. Sometimes I google endlessly for name ideas…sometimes it’s just a name I wish I’d thought of when I named my kids…sometimes it’s directly related to the location and time period of the book. There have even been a few I’ve let my kids name.

Naughty Reader’s: Is it easier to write about the characters if you find pictures of them before you write or do you write then find character pictures?

Kharisma:  I make up my characters in my head. I’ve never based any of my characters on actual people (except one). It’s why I have the first cover in my Dark Retribution Highlander Series custom drawn. He’s MY Malisin…exactly as I’ve pictured him in my head. I really want to do this with more of my books, but most publishers won’t allow you to bring in your own cover art. So, really…to date…none of my other characters actually have pictures…only the ones created in the minds of each of my readers.

Naughty Reader’s: How do you pick locations for your stories?

Kharisma:  It’s just luck of the draw. Sometimes I write on a work for a while before I really figure out where it’s going to be. Setting can be so important. It also has to be an area that I have enough knowledge on (or can research enough on) to paint a clear picture of.

Naughty Reader’s: What are you working on now and what should readers be looking forward to from you in the future?

Kharisma: I have so much going on. I have more ideas than I can shuffle to get finished. Some of my favorites are my In Pieces Series (splatterpunk)…Pieces of You will be coming soon and I can’t wait (it’s definitely not going to be for the faint of heart though). Also my Dark Retribution Series (Highlander and the one that will also hate a sub-series about the other characters)…my Untamable Desires Series (Native American Historical Erotica), I’ve been working on this series for quite a while and am looking forward to sharing it. I have a military series that some of my friends have been begging me to complete – Deep in the Trenches. And The Pleasure Crucible, my exclusively private BDSM club series. There’s a lot more I have in progress as well, but I’d be rambling for an hour. :D Oh, I better not forget, for those of you waiting on more Xander, book 3 of the Living Deadly Series is almost done and books 4 and 5 from the Bound by Seduction Series are releasing in November and December of this year. The wait is over.

Naughty Reader’s: Where can readers find out more about you and your books?

Kharisma: They can find me on my main site: http://www.kharismarhayne.com/

At KR Books

Twitter: @KharismaRhayne

Facebook

(I also have a number of series pages there for special snips and details of each one)

I’m on Amazon  / Barnes & Noble / ARe  / No Boundaries Press / Bookstrand

Naughty Readers:  Kharisma, thank you again chatting with us this week.

***Giveaway*** 

eBook copy of "Having Thyne" to one lucky commenter...however, if menage isn't the winner's thing, they're more than welcome to pick a different eBook from 

Kharisma's back list. 

Please leave include your email addy in your comment so we can easily contact the winner. Thanks and good luck!