by Rita Herron
Then a friend turned me on to romance, and I fell in love with the genre. I’ve written thirty books so far!
2) Do you keep a writing schedule?
Yes, although I’m flexible, and not a morning person. I usually get to the computer around ten and work most of the day, with breaks for exercise and also for sanity purposes! But writing is a full-time career for me, so I usually write about eight hours a day. Some of that time may also be used for editing my own work, researching, or “thinking” about the story—planning is vital to producing smooth work and being prolific.
3) What do you read?
I love a variety of types of books, from comedies to suspense to paranormal to women’s fiction. I also enjoy folklore, local legends and weird stories about places or people, and read nonfiction books to get that. You’ll find some of these interesting tidbits and folklore cropping up in my books!
4) What inspired you to write Last Kiss Goodbye?
I had written a young adult book (that never sold) awhile back and built the story around an old abandoned junkyard. I’ve seen so many of them in the rural South that I began to look at them symbolically. I knew I wanted to include that in my story. I also wanted to use Southern ghost stories, and the idea of the town being called Kudzu Hollow seemed to fit. I had also heard an interview about a man who had researched “the innocents”—people who had been falsely imprisoned and later released due to new evidence. He not only focused on the person’s lost years but on the difficulty of transitioning back into normal life. It really made me think about those innocents, and sparked the idea for my own hero.
From there, the other characters emerged, then the title and the rest of the story.
I hope you enjoy it!
Discussion Questions
1) How would you describe this book to a friend? What drove each character to return to his/her hometown? How had the characters changed since leaving Kudzu Hollow?
2) Why couldn’t the hero and heroine be together in the beginning?
3) How did the hero’s and heroine’s personalities/conflicts/emotions help bring them together in the end? What would you say is the climactic turning point for each character?
4) What important theme or themes run throughout the book?
5) This book has a lot of symbolism. Name at least four metaphors and describe.
6) What interesting visual elements (either object or place) have significance in the book?
7) What is the significance of the title? Is it literal or metaphorical or both?
8) In the town of Kudzu Hollow, the kudzu chokes the life out of the town and land just as the evil and lost loved ones trap the people into staying. Do you believe that evil exists? Do you think spirits are trapped so that they can’t move on? Do you believe people’s spirits try to communicate once the people are dead?
9) Lady Bella Rue is very superstitious and thinks she can control/change/protect the town with her potions and spells. Do you believe in the supernatural or paranormal? Witchcraft or voodoo? Do you have any superstitions? Why do you think the people are afraid of her? Because they think she’s evil or because they’re afraid she’s right? Or because they believe she really has powers?
10) The bad weather and rains are used both literally and metaphorically. Discuss the significance of weather and setting in the story.
11) Ivy owns a magazine called Southern Scrapbooks. Do you make scrapbooks yourself? What kinds of things do you include? How did her job parallel her life?
12) Have you, a friend or loved one ever been wrongfully accused of something? How did you feel? Do you know someone who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he/she didn’t commit? How did his/her life change?
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8139-8
LAST KISS GOODBYE
Copyright © 2006 by Rita B. Herron
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
EPILOGUE
Last Kiss Goodbye