Kandy to Make Us Smile!

by Anna Campbell

It's my great pleasure to bring back to the lair witty and wonderful Aussie contemporary romance author Kandy Shepherd. Kandy is carving quite a niche for herself in the market with her romantic comedies featuring gorgeous heroes, heroines...and dogs!

Kandy's latest release is HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS (great title, huh?). Here's the blurb:

Love, Unleashed.

Former model Serena Oakley will take puppy play-dates over glamorous parties any day, which is one reason why she’s swapped her stilettos for Birkenstocks - and opened Paws-A-While, an upscale doggy day care and spa in San Francisco. When a ruggedly handsome client walks through her doors, clutching a purse-sized Yorki-poo and only barely convincing when it comes to canine credentials, instinct tells her to be wary - despite her instant attraction to him.


Undercover investigator Nick Whalen has followed a series of identity frauds to Serena and is determined to dig up the secrets he’s certain she is hiding. Despite their mutual distrust, Nick and Serena find themselves bonding over an injured, orphaned dog with a serious junk food habit. And soon they’re arousing more than just suspicions.

Nick begins to wonder if one gorgeous, possibly criminal woman and one sad-eyed mutt could show him what he’s been missing out on all his life, while Serena longs to let down her guard. But when Serena’s safety is threatened - and their future together put in jeopardy - the pair must trust in love and loyalty to thwart a danger that’s circling too close to home.

HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS is currently available at a really great price on Amazon ($3.89!) - just click on the cover in this blog and it takes you straight there.

For more information on Kandy and her wonderful books, please check out her website.

ANNA: Kandy, welcome back to the lair! The cabana boys have been barking with excitement at the news of your visit! Congratulations on the release of HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS. By the way, that’s another great title! Can you tell us about this story?

KANDY: Thanks so much, Anna, for having me here, do hope you can keep those cabana boys on the leash until after the interview!

It’s a fun title isn’t it? HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS is a tale of romance, mystery and dogs.

Serena Oakley owns an upscale doggy day care and spa in San Francisco and is suspicious of her hunky new client with his purse-sized Yorki-poo. Serena is right to be wary as Nick Whalen is an undercover PI investigating an identity fraud, and Serena is his prime suspect.

But when Serena’s safety is threatened they have to trust in each other enough to thwart the danger.

Serena is the best friend of the heroine of my first novel LOVE IS A FOUR-LEGGED WORD.


To help her best friend Maddy out on her magazine, Serena posed semi-nude in a bathtub of chocolate and the photos ended up as an ad campaign. I liked writing Serena and kept thinking about her after I typed “The End”. I wondered how that kind of publicity would affect her. Then when I was visiting San Francisco, I drove past a new doggy day care center. What a great job for a dog nut like Serena! What if I wrote Serena her own book where she had given up modeling and owned her own upscale doggy day-care? And what if I created a gorgeous hero who was scathing about the idea of pooch pampering? I fell totally in love with former FBI agent Nick Whalen when I was writing him. I had an image of James Bond actor Daniel Craig in mind when I first created Nick but, as is the way with fictional characters, he soon developed into his own individual person.

There’s a cast of quirky canine supporting characters too, of course. The “hero” dog is a very big, very sad rescue dog named Mack. Brutus the millionaire mutt from LOVE IS A FOUR-LEGGED WORD also “guest stars”.(BTW, Anna, important as my doggy characters are, I never lose sight of the fact that they are secondary characters in my stories. I’m careful that they don’t distract from the developing romance between the hero and the heroine. But the reactions of the human characters to the animals can give great insight into the human’s personality—I have a lot of fun with that!)

ANNA: Yes, you always include such wonderful animal characters in your stories. Will you tell us a little bit about the real-life pets that inspired the four-legged participants in HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS?

KANDY: I’ve had dogs and cats since I was a small child. As a writer, I’m a “people watcher” but I’m also an animal watcher and have borrowed aspects from many of the dogs I’ve met over the years to help create my fictional canines. The kernel of Mack came from my friend Melinda’s dog Mate who lives in far northern California. Mate is a large, friendly mixed-breed dog who thinks he’s still a tiny puppy. Seeing this outsized animal trying to snuggle onto her lap is quite a laugh-out-loud sight! (I borrowed that sight for a scene with Serena.)

Mack grew further in my imagination after Melinda and I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Ashland, Oregon for the annual Shakespeare Festival. In a gift shop we encountered the most enormous black dog I have ever seen. This gentle giant was sweet natured and graciously allowed my friend and I to pet him. But I noticed other people in the store skirt around him, obviously nervous. That got me thinking further about a dog with a lot to give that maybe no-one wanted.

A few favorite dogs have been “borrowed” for supporting roles in BARK including a beautiful, very old golden lab named Freya who belonged to historical author Isolde Martyn. Coco, the miniature black poodle, is a canine character in both my books.

After the first book was written, I met Lily my new neighbor’s poodle and knew I had met the real-life Coco so Lily became an influence on how I wrote Coco in BARK.

ANNA: We hosted you in the lair last year when your brilliant debut LOVE IS A FOUR-LEGGED WORD hit the stands. As someone who’s been published now for around eighteen months, I wondered if there was anything you wished you’d known before you sold that you definitely know now.

KANDY: I think being published gives you a greater confidence when you write. Knowing people—total strangers, not your friends and family!—read your books and love them enough to write to you and tell you, gives you a boost of faith in your own ability that I certainly struggled with as an unpublished writer.

ANNA: What else has been happening in Kandy Shepherd’s world since we last hosted you in July 2009?

KANDY: Visits to the Romance Writers of America conference in Washington DC and Orlando were very exciting and gave me an opportunity to meet many of the Banditas and visitors to the Lair face to face—that was a real thrill!

Organizing the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference with author Cathleen Ross in August this year was a major commitment but a wonderful experience. As an organizer you get to schmooze with the guest editors, agents and authors—how good is that!

ANNA: Not so long ago, the word around Romancelandia was that the contemporary was dead. Since then I’ve noticed a real upsurge in contemporaries. Yours, of course, but also books from great writers like Robyn Carr, Kristan Higgins and Victoria Dahl. What do you think makes for the longstanding appeal of the contemporary romance?

KANDY: While I love historicals—especially yours of course!—my bookshelves are also packed with contemporary romance and women’s fiction. I wonder if the appeal of the contemporary is that they are more a reflection of real life and readers can identify with the characters and the settings. Those wonderful authors you mention write warm-hearted stories with characters who face current dilemmas and win through. My readers tell me they enjoy a laugh and an escape into something not too heavy. Of course the best of contemporaries have the potential to stand the test of time so well, they become historicals. Look at Jane Austen!

ANNA: Hey, thanks for that lovely compliment! What’s coming up next for you?

KANDY: I’m working on a third, linked book with a “doggy focus” featuring one of the characters from HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS and hope to have some good news to share soon.

ANNA: Do you have any advice for unpublished writers?

KANDY: Be sure to nurture your own “voice” and be true to your own vision.

That said, try not to fall in love with your own words. Be prepared to slash, rewrite and hone until your work is as good as it can be. Find critique partners you respect and be prepared to listen to them, while at the same time retaining confidence in your own voice.

Anna, I would love to give away some prizes to Bandits readers. While I love dogs, I also have cats, horses and even miniature bulls who I adore. I’m constantly amazed at how different their personalities are.

Do you know a dog (or cat, or any other animal) with a memorable personality?

Please leave a comment for a chance to win one of two prizes—a signed copy of HOME IS WHERE THE BARK IS and a LOVE IS A FOUR-LEGGED WORD T-shirt.

Thanks, Kandy, lovely answers and they're great prizes! Good luck, everyone!