Kerry Peresta’s publishing credits include a popular newspaper column, “The Lighter Side,” (2009—2011), and magazine articles in
Local Life Magazine,
The Bluffton Breeze,
Lady Lowcountry, and
Island Events Magazine. She is the author of three published novels,
The Hunting, women’s fiction,
The Deadening, Book One of the Olivia Callahan Suspense Series, and
The Rising, Book Two. Book Three in this series releases in 2023 by Level Best Books. She spent twenty-five years in advertising as an account manager, creative director, editor, and copywriter. She is past chapter president of the Maryland Writers’ Association and a current member and presenter of Hilton Head Island Writers’ Network, South Carolina Writers Association, and the Sisters in Crime organization. Kerry and her husband moved to Hilton Head Island, SC, in 2015. She is the mother of four adult children, and has a bunch of wonderful grandkids who remind her what life is all about.
When did you know you wanted to become a writer?
I didn’t realize I wanted to become a writer until I started dating a man seventeen years ago that was a multi-published author of a suspense series. Our relationship did not move forward, but we became good friends. While we were together, I was entranced by the fact that he was an author. I wanted to know everything about it. It was a world unknown to me, but it drew me. Called out to me. I started thinking about what life was like over the past twenty, thirty years…I’d been in the advertising business as a designer and artist, account executive and copywriter. I’d loved the artistic aspect of it, but I was crazy about writing copy. It was so easy for me, and I loved crafting pictures with words. Funny, I didn’t even think of becoming an author at that time. Later, when my kids were grown, and I had time to breathe, I remembered how good it felt to write and how easy it had always been for me. The first thing I remember having published was a letter to the editor in 2009. And from that humble beginning, I was hooked.
What inspired you to create a character like Olivia Callahan and develop her quest for her past?
At an author event in 2013 for ‘The Hunting’, one of the other authors attracted most of the book buyers to her table while the rest of us just looked at each other. Finally, I had to find out what was so fascinating about this woman. She told me that she’d been in a car wreck a few years back, had fallen into a coma, and was unexpected to survive. After a year, she woke up! With a significant difference…her injury and the coma trauma had completely rewired her brain. Instead of shy and passive, her recovering neural pathways had changed her into a socially fluent, aggressive, confident woman. Which, of course, is attractive to people. I walked back to my table, thoughts spinning. All I could think about was what a great character that would make. I wrote the book…it took me three years or so to find a publisher, and now I’m on Book Three in the series. People love this character! And her journey is ever-changing.
What kind of research did you do to describe the results of real brain injury?
I read several real-life accounts of TBI recovery, learned about resultant aphasia and speech issues and memory issues, depending on the part of the brain that had been injured. I read neurological studies, observed videos of TBI patients in recovery, in physical therapy. It was exciting – or a little sad – to realize that a victim of TBI will not have a recovery timeline or a particularly specific outlook. The brain is so incredible that it can repair itself in thousands of intricate ways. If one pathway is compromised, it will create a new pathway. Sometimes the patient is severely compromised and sometimes something incredible happens, as in Olivia’s case. It is widely understood in the medical community that the brain is so complex, the long-term effects of a TBI are unknown and only time will reveal the answer. In Olivia’s case, she is still suffering brain blips and deficits that are interfering with her determination to build a career, but she is overcoming her deficits admirably. There is, however, still an ‘unknown’ hanging over her…and she is not quite sure yet if her ever-evolving brain will land somewhere and be predictable.
How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
Great question! By the time I was convinced to do a series, I’d had a lot of instruction and had been exposed to awesome mentors that helped me define what genre I needed to write. It changed my process in that it is now much more specific. At the time I wrote my first book, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write women’s fiction, or suspense or crime thrillers. I just knew I really, REALLY, loved Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Chicago PD, etc. I also loved navigating the thorny issues of a flawed protagonist. My agent at that time helped me navigate the path to making THE DEADENING, Book One; fit into the suspense genre. This included holding off the suspense and inserting the big reveal at the end, making each chapter – or most of them – end on a cliff-hanger situation that made sure the reader kept turning pages. Also, to lay off the frilly descriptions of location and rooms and things and ramp up the action. Race through the dialogue. In my books now, I strive for a fast pace, dialogue that doesn’t bog down with too many metaphors or descriptions, and a satisfying, dizzying conclusion. I think every writer would say that each book they write makes them a better writer, because they learn more about it.
Okay, so you're an author. What do you enjoy reading?
I enjoy psychological suspense the most, but I also read crime thrillers and medical thrillers. THE SILENT PATIENT by Alex Michaelides, is probably at the top of my ‘best books ever read’ list right now. I also love medical thrillers, and Tess Gerritsen is a master. The Brits are absolutely brilliant at suspense, and one I am enjoying right now is Louise Jensen. Her books are thrilling. Also, I’ve read about every book Lee Child has written, and of course, Sue Grafton was my go-to back when she first started and I’ve read almost all of those as well. There are certainly endearing traits inspired by Kinsey Milhone in my current protagonist, Olivia.
Thank you so much for talking to me!
Learn more about The Rising below, and read an excerpt from the book!
The Rising
by Kerry L Peresta
May 1-31, 2022 Virtual Book Tour
Synopsis:
After an assault that landed her in a hospital as a Jane Doe two years earlier, Olivia Callahan has regained her speech, movement, and much of the memory she lost due to a traumatic brain injury. The media hype about the incident has faded away, and Olivia is ready to rebuild her life, but her therapist insists she must continue to look back in order to move forward. The only person that can help her recall specifics is her abusive ex-husband, Monty, who is in prison for murder. The thought of talking to Monty makes her skin crawl, but for her daughters’ sake and her own sanity, she must learn more about who she was before the attack.
Just as the pieces of her life start falling into place, she stumbles across the still-warm body of an old friend who has been gruesomely murdered. Her dream of pursuing a peaceful existence is shattered when she learns the killer left evidence behind to implicate her in the murder. The only person that would want to sabotage her is Monty—but he’s in prison! Something sinister is going on, and Olivia is desperate to uncover the truth before another senseless murder is committed.
Book Details:
Genre: Psychological Suspense, Thriller, Crime Fiction, Suspense, Mystery
Published by: Level Best Books
Publication Date: March 29, 2022
Number of Pages: 300
ISBN: 168512092X (ISBN-13: 978-1685120924)
Series: Olivia Callahan Suspense, Book 2
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
“How low you fall points to how high you’ll rise.”
~Matshona Dhliwayo
The stark buildings and barbed-wire-topped walls surrounding the correctional facility reminded me of a Hitchcock movie.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. I found a parking spot, and waited in the car a minute, taking in the starkness and finality of a prison compound. My heart did a little lurch when I thought about Monty—my ex-husband and the father of my two daughters—inside. Incarcerated. I guess since I hadn’t seen him since his indictment, it didn’t seem real.
However, I’d learned that having sympathy for Monty was like having sympathy for a snake just before it sank its fangs. “It’s been eighteen months. You can keep it together with this psycho,” I hissed to myself. I hiked my purse onto my shoulder and walked out into the buttery sunshine toward the visitors’ entrance.
I presented my driver’s license, endured a frisk, offered my hand for the fingerprint process, and walked through the metal detector, which of course, went off. With stoic resignation, I endured another frisk, a few hard glances from the guards, and eventually pulled the culprit from the pocket of my pants, an aluminum foil candy bar wrapper.
While I waited for Monty at one of the small, circular tables in the visitors’ room, I scanned the list of do’s and don’ts. Hands must be visible at all times. Vulgar language not allowed. No passing anything to the prisoner. No jewelry other than a wedding band or religious necklace.
I stared at my hands, sticky with sweat. My heart beat in my throat.
I lifted my curls off my forehead and fanned my face with one hand. Three other visitors sat at tables. One woman with graying hair piled like a crown on her head stared at the floor. When she noticed that I was looking at her, she raised her head and threw me a sad smile. A younger woman at another table struggled to keep two young children under control, and an older couple with stress-lined faces whispered to each other as they waited. The room had tan, cinder block walls, a drop-in ceiling with grid tiles that probably hid video cameras, and a single door. No windows. A scrawny, fake plant in one corner made a half-hearted attempt at civility.
The metal door opened. My thoughts were mush, a blender on high. Could I do this? After two years of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and every other kind of therapy the docs could throw at me, shouldn’t I react better than this?
Remember, they’re only feelings.
I squared my shoulders. Wiped my palms on my pants.
As Monty offered his cuffed wrists to the corrections officer, he scanned the room under lowered eyelids. When he saw me, he gave me a scorched- earth glare. After the guard removed his handcuffs, he shook out his arms and rubbed his wrists. The raven-black hair was longer, and brushed his shoulders. He’d been working out. A lot. He wore a loose-fitting top and pants. Orange. As usual, he was larger than life, and in the bright white of the visiting space, surrounded by matching plastic tables and chairs, he was a raven-haired Schwarzenegger in a room full of Danny DeVito’s. I’d once had hope for reconciliation. The thought gave me the shakes now.
He dropped into the chair across from me and plopped his hands on the table. “What do you want?”
I spent a few seconds examining his face—this man I’d spent twenty, long years trying to please, and the reason I’d been assaulted and left for dead by Niles Peterson, a wreck of a man whose life Monty had destroyed as well.
The man responsible for my convoluted recovery from a brain injury that stole my past. Even after two years, I still had huge gaps in my memory, and staring at him felt like staring at a stranger instead of an ex-husband. “My therapist says I need to look back to move forward. I wanted to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”
“Okay,” he grumbled. “I’ll give you a few minutes. Oh, and you’ll love this. I have to attend counseling sessions about how to keep my ‘darker dispositions’ under control, and I have one of those in thirty minutes.”
Resisting a smile, I quipped, “Are they helping?” He rolled his eyes. “What are the questions?”
“I still have problems remembering stuff. There are things I need to… figure out about who I was before—”
“Before you hooked up with my ole’ buddy Niles?” he interrupted, with a smirk. “Before you threw away everything we had? Before you got yourself in a situation that could’ve gotten you killed? Before you started treating me like a piece of shit?”
I was careful not to react. I’d had enough therapy to understand how to treat a control freak that tried to make me the reason he ended up in prison. That part of my life—the part where Monty had been in charge and his spouse had to obey or else—was over. “Are you done?” I asked.
He clamped his lips together.
I folded my hands on the table and leaned in. “I’ll get right to the point. What drew you to me in the first place? What was I like before the accident, from your perspective?”
Monty tried to get comfortable in the plastic chair. Beneath his immense bulk, it seemed like a child’s chair. “Is that how you’re dealing with it?” His lips twisted in disgust. “It was an assault, Olivia. He tried to rape you, for God’s sake.”
I looked away. “It’s over, and he’s in the ground, thanks to you.”
He crossed his arms and glared. A corrections officer lifted his hand. With a grunt, Monty slapped both hands on the small table where the officer could see them.
After a few beats, he sneered, “You mean besides the obvious attraction of an older guy to a high school girl?” “Give me a break, Monty.”
He chuckled. “You were kind of…I don’t know…scared. I was drawn to you in a protective way. You were shy.”
I frowned. “What was I scared of?”
“Your crazy mom had married some jerk that kept you off balance all the time. Don’t you remember him?”
I thought for a few seconds. Nothing came.
“That coma still messes with you, doesn’t it? Well…might be good not to remember. Maybe he did things to you that he shouldn’t have.” Monty raised his eyebrows up and down.
I wanted to slap him, but I kept my expression neutral.
“A brain injury recovery is unpredictable. I still lose memories, even if someone has drilled them into me. I’m trying to use visualization. I have this feeling…that if I can see it, the rest will be like dominos.”
“So you may not ever remember? Even the good things about our marriage?”
I laughed. “We must have very different perspectives about the word ‘good’, Monty.”
Monty’s jaw muscles flexed. “Next?”
“Was I a capable mother? Was I available and…loving to the kids?”
Maybe it was my imagination, but his lower lip quivered. Did the guy have a heart after all? I’d always believed he loved our daughters. I hoped this was true.
“Olivia, you were a good mother. We had our problems, but you made a good home, and took excellent care of the kids. You were at every freakin’ event, every school fundraiser, everything.” He scowled. “I took a big back seat to the kids.”
“What problems did we have? When did they start?”
He leaned in. “You don’t remember our sex life? How terrible it was? Nothing I could do would get you to….” He shook his head. “You couldn’t even fix a decent meal. You should have been grateful you married someone like me so I could…teach you things.”
CHAPTER ONE
“Keep your voice down!” I insisted, embarrassed.
He cocked his head and grinned. “You always had this…desperate need for my approval or whatever. And when you conveniently avoided telling me you weren’t taking birth control it caused a lot of issues that could’ve been avoided.” He snorted. “Like being in here.”
I tried to rein in my disgust.
“So, let me get this straight. Your priority in our marriage was sex and good food and to pin all our issues on your child bride?” My tone hardened. “A young woman who came from a single-parent home? Who had no understanding what a good and normal guy was like?”
He gave me a look that could peel the skin off my face.
“How did you react when I didn’t do things the way you wanted?” I continued.
“Like any man who’d been disrespected. I corrected the issue.”
“How? By yelling? Physical force? Kicking your pregnant wife in the stomach?” This was a memory I had recovered.
A vein pulsed in his neck.
“How often, Monty? Were these reactions a…a lifestyle in our marriage?” “Look,” he snarled, “I don’t know that this is productive.”
“It is for me,” I said, brightly.
I glanced at the closest officer. He had his hands full with an issue at one of the other tables.
“Mom told me that Serena and Lilly floated out to sea one time, on a rubber raft. Do you remember that?”
His eyes found a spot on the wall.
“So you do remember. What happened?”
“Look, they were, I don’t know, four and six or so. I didn’t think it would be a problem for me to run grab a drink from our bag, and come back. I was gone less than five minutes. How could I know they’d lose control of the raft?”
An earthquake of anger shot through me. “You turned your back on a four-year-old and a six-year-old and expected them to have control of a raft? They were babies!”
“Yeah. Well.” He rose. “Looks like this question thing of yours isn’t working for me.” He pushed his chair in with a bang. The correctional officer gave him a look. Monty strode to the officer’s station and held out his wrists. Adrenaline made me a little shaky after he’d gone, but it wasn’t from fear of the man. My therapist would call this real progress.
I left the room and gathered my things from the visitors’ processing center. As I walked out of the prison facility, all I could think about was…why? Why had I married this guy? And stayed for twenty years? I couldn’t even remember myself as a person who could do that.
At least I’d dragged more information out of him. I was determined to piece together the puzzle of the past I’d lost.
***
Excerpt from The Rising by Kerry L Peresta. Copyright 2022 by Kerry L Peresta. Reproduced with permission from Kerry L Peresta. All rights reserved.
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