Greetings everyone,
Today I’m chatting with author Kimberly Belle, a woman who grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, then ended up living in The Netherlands for ten years. Yes, a surprising (and fun) life journey so far.
Kimberly, married with children, loves to travel and fling that passport of hers around and, in my opinion, has written a gripping novel about trust, guilt, the military, romance and life’s complications. But be ready for a quick reading ride, so to speak. The Ones We Trust moves right along, like a literary roller coaster.
Here we go…
Cathy Lamb: Kimberly, I love the beginning paragraph of your book, “There’s a thin, fragile line that separates us all from misfortune. A place where life teeters on a razor’s edge, and everything boils down to one single, solitary second. Where either you will whiz past the Mack truck blissfully unaware, or you will slam it head on. Where there’s a before, and then, without warning or apology, there’s an after.”
Has this happened to you and was this the impetus of the book? You teetered on a razor’s edge…
Kimberly Belle: Thankfully, no, at least not at the level at which it happens to Abigail and Gabe. They’re each struggling with recovering from their own tragedies, which is part of what binds them in this story. They understand where the other is coming from, how that one moment can change everything, and they’re both trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces and move on.
I was trying to pigeon hole The Ones We Trust and I just can’t. It’s women’s fiction. It’s a touch of historical fiction. It’s a romance. It’s a family saga. It’s politics and war. How do you classify it?
Officially, it’s suspenseful women’s fiction, but you’re right. It’s a little bit of everything you mentioned. I love what one reader described my novels as, “…a thriller, crime novel, contemporary romance, and family drama all rolled into one explosive story.” I think that about covers it, don’t you?
Yes, I think she’s got it.
Now tell us what this non – pigeon holed book is all about.
The Ones We Trust is about Abigail Wolff, a former DC journalist who, in an attempt to rehabilitate her career, finds herself at the heart of a US army cover-up involving the death of a soldier in Afghanistan. The more evidence she stumbles upon in the case, the fewer people she finds she can trust, including her own father, a retired army general.
And she certainly never expected to fall for the slain soldier’s brother, Gabe, a bitter man struggling to hold his family together. The investigation eventually leaves her with an impossible choice, one of unrelenting sacrifice to protect the people she loves.
Abigail, the main character, is haunted by guilt. At the beginning of the book she believes she contributed to the death of another person because of her role as a journalist. I think some readers might say that the guilt she feels is warranted, others would say that she was doing her job as a journalist.
As a writer, did you deliberately set out to create the controversy about this character? I could see how a book club would love this novel because of the issues and different perspectives that this central element would bring to the discussion.
Yes, I love hitting on those issues that I can see from both sides, because I know readers will, too.
The thing is, Abigail was doing her job by writing the story about Chelsea, and even afterward, she still believes that the public always has the right to know. But guilt is an emotion, and emotions aren’t always logical. No matter how many times she tells herself Chelsea’s death wasn’t her fault, Abigail can’t quite let go of her guilt.
There were, as the title suggests, so many issues of trust. Do you trust your father, a career army man when he wants you to bury a story? What about the beloved uncle? Do you trust what the military is telling you, the government? Do you trust the man you’re falling in love with? Do you trust him if he doesn’t believe in you? Do you trust yourself?
Did you start out with this theme of trust or did it morph along the way as you wrote the book?
Trust was the theme from the very start, though it began with trust issues between Gabe and Abigail and her father. Gabe has trouble trusting Abigail, while at the same time Abigail’s trust in her father is shattered. The two are sort of opposite, but they mirror each other. Trust is such a hard thing to give sometimes, and we don’t give it unconditionally. I think every reader can relate to having doubts when it comes to deciding who to trust.
I certainly can, Kimberly. Sometimes it’s hard to know if you can trust, and who.
Were you trying to make any political statements when you wrote The Ones We Trust?
No. As a matter of fact, I was trying very, very hard to stay away from them. Politics is such a charged subject, and it has the tendency to take over any conversation, including fictional ones, and I didn’t want the Armstrong’s story to be swallowed alive by a debate about military affairs or foreign policy. So, though there are a few references to politicians—it’s set in Washington, DC, after all—I don’t attach political opinions or leanings to any of them on purpose.
I love this paragraph, too. “Secrets are a sneaky little seed. You can hide them, you can bury them, you can disguise them and cover them up. But then, just when you think your secret has rotted away and decayed into nothing, it stirs back to life. It sprouts roots and stems, crawls its way through the mud and muck, growing and climbing, and bursting through the surface, blooming for everyone to see. That’s the lesson here. The truth always comes out eventually.”
I know your character, Abigail, believes this. Do you?
Yes, absolutely! I think this is why I’m so bad at lying. I’m positive people are going to find me out, and they usually do. I’d rather just live as truthfully as possible to avoid all the dread and drama.
Me, too. Being honest always, no matter how hard, is the best and easiest way to live.
Tell us about yourself and your life, including the years you lived in The Netherlands.
Oh, yay! How much time do you have? Because I can talk for days about The Netherlands, and how much I love that country. If you’ve ever been, you know why. The windmills and flowers and beaches and bikes and wooden shoes. And did I mention the flowers? Tulips, as far as the eye can see.
But that’s not to say moving there was easy. I essentially plopped myself down in a foreign country, one with a strange language and culture, where I knew exactly one person. It took me a long time to feel comfortable there, but that country eventually wormed its way into my soul, and even though I don’t have the passport to prove it, I’m in my heart half Dutch.
Please give us the details of your writing process, beginning to end. From that spark of a story idea to the final draft.
Oh, you mean the tears and hair-pulling and staring at my blank screen or into space? Probably not…
Seriously, though, I’m a planner but not a plotter. When a story spark comes, it usually comes with a pretty good idea of my major plot points and main characters. The rest I fill in along the way. I’m not a fast writer but the words I produce each day are generally keepers, and my first draft is pretty clean. It typically doesn’t need tons of work to get it to the final version.
As someone who has two novels out, what are three things you know now about writing, or the publishing industry, that you wished you knew when you first started out?
I wish someone had told me…
1. Unless you’re Stephen King or Jodi Picoult, you can pretty much assume nobody has ever heard of you, so you’re going to have to make an awful lot of noise in order to sell a few books.
2. But even with all that noise you’re making, the best way to sell books is word of mouth – something you, as a writer, have very little control over. When someone praises your book out loud and in public, bend over backwards to thank them, because they’ve probably sold more books in their one Tweet than you did in ten.
3. Do not compare yourself to other writers. Do not hold yourself up to someone else’s success because it will mess with your mind and your writing mojo. Instead, put your energy into writing a book that’s better than your last.
I love all of that advice. What social media platforms do you find most effective to market your books?
Facebook seems to be where most of my readers hang out, but Twitter and Instagram are good spots to talk books, too. The thing I’ve discovered about readers on social media is that they’re hard-core. These folks love books, not just reading them but also talking about them, and when they find one they like, they will shout about it to the world.
Favorite place to visit?
Amsterdam, of course, and my husband and I go away every winter to a French island in the Caribbean with just the two of us, so those two spots are at the very top of my list. But I love to travel, and I’ll go pretty much anywhere, preferably the places that require a plane ticket and a passport.
Plans and goals for ten years down the road?
I’ll definitely still be writing, and will hopefully have made a bestseller list or two by then. I’d also love to be bi-continental, living half the year in the States and the other half in Amsterdam, with lots of other destinations in between. Hopefully, my kids will be settled and starting families by then, though I can’t make myself say the ‘G’ word just yet. By then, though, I’ll probably be begging them to push out a few babies.
Thanks so much for having me, Cathy! I’m honored to be included on your blog.
Bio & links for Kimberly —
Kimberly Belle grew up in Eastern Tennessee, in a small town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. A graduate of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, Kimberly lived for over a decade in the Netherlands and has worked in marketing and fundraising for various nonprofits. She’s the author of two novels, THE LAST BREATH and THE ONES WE TRUST (August 2015). She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.
Keep up with Kimberly on Facebook (www.facebook.com/KimberlyBelleBooks), Twitter (@KimberlySBelle), Instagram (@KimberlySBelle) or via her website at www.kimberlybellebooks.com.
