Good morning, Bookworms!
Today I am delighted to welcome KT King to my blog to shine the spotlight on the main female character in her book, Little Eden.
Welcome, KT, great to have you here and thanks for joining me, please will you introduce the character you’re shining the spotlight on in terms of job, relationships, family etc. …
Thanks, Emma. I suffer with ME/CFS is which a chronic illness. At present it is not a recognised disability but there are campaigns across the world trying to raise awareness and the momentum is growing. I am hoping to help raise awareness through my series of novels, Little Eden, by having a main female character, Sophie Lawrence, with ME.
Sophie and her sister, Lucy, have just lost their aunt Lilly, who was more like a mother to them than their own mother. In order to support herself and her nieces she ran the Daisy Place Café-Bookshop in Little Eden and the girls have just inherited it from her. Lucy has run the café with Lilly for years and takes over the management. Sophie lost her house, her job and everything she had just before the novel starts after she had the worst bout of ME, she had had in years. Sophie spends about 20 hours a day in bed and luckily is supported by her sister. Sophie struggles with being dependent on others but gets no state aid and would be homeless without her sister’s help.
Sophie is psychic and has healing gifts. Although she is not trained in any of these, she was a lawyer by training; she helps her friends throughout the novel by using her gift of second sight. She is the one who realises that her aunt has risen from the grave and she is the one who leads the fight against the dark forces who are trying to destroy Little Eden. As the novel progresses, she becomes more and more valuable to Little Eden and everyone in it, despite her disability and she becomes the heroine of the piece.
Sophie and Lucy are best friends with Robert Bartlett-Hart (the main protagonist), Jack Fortune who runs the antique shop, Minnie Fig who owns the craft shop, Linnet Finch who owns the florist, but they are friends with many of the residents of Little Eden.
When did you create Sophie?
I created her about 20 years ago when I was first thinking about the novel. Like the Bartlett-Harts, the Lawrences have their own family tree and they are related to the BH’s through an ancestor in the 17th Century.
Did you write the book to accommodate Sophie or Sophie to accommodate the book?
The book was always going to be a vessel to inspire readers to think about the supernatural being more natural than ‘super’, multi-dimensional living as well as self-help through the use of complimentary therapies and spiritual development. Sophie leads the past life parts of the plot, speaks to the spirits, and helps protect others when they are in danger.
What do you like most about her?
Sophie is based on me to a large extent. She has psychic and healing abilities and suffers with ME just as I do. I like the fact that she never gives up, never gives in. I have had to find courage to go on every single day and have developed a steel core but with a compassionate heart. I like the fact that Sophie can speak to a wider audience about ME because she is not ‘telling’ people about it, the readers just live her life with her as she survives day to day.
What do you like least about her?
She does not suffer fools gladly and can be a little too quick to judge others. Her sister, Lucy, keeps her on the straight and narrow!
Did your early readers/editorial team like them to start with or did you have to change them in any way?
I don’t have an editorial team but my early readers, all my early readers love Sophie and say she represents their way of life as healers, psychics, therapists, and that it is lovely to be represented in a novel where they are cherished rather than ridiculed.
Does she have any similarities with anyone real?
She is based on myself, but she gets much more support from her friends and family than anyone with ME I know. Readers have commented that her situation has made them think more about how vulnerable someone is when they have a disability. A chronic illness prevents sufferers from holding down a job and those with ME get no state aid at all. Sophie also suffers with a sense of being worthless, useless, and a burden to others, she often has bouts of depression and can be suicidal; these are all realistic traits for sufferers with ME, including myself.
In my head she looks like the actress Ashley Judd (therefore a billion times prettier than me!).
What are your plans for her?
Sophie will always be one of the main characters in Little Eden, but I am hoping that she will have some novellas of her own as well. Her multi-dimensional life can go pretty much anywhere in time and space.
Would you be friends in real life?
I would love Sophie as my friend as she is loyal almost to a fault and always truthful. She is funny and sassy and in spite of her disability she always tries to care for others. She is willing to do anything to help her friends and Little Eden.
Sophie and Little Eden sound great, KT!
If you Bookworms think so too, you can get your copy of Little Eden now, here’s the blurb …
2012. Little Eden, London, England.
The beautiful sanctuary town of Little Eden is under threat.
Human greed, selfishness and disregard are about to turn the last 1,000 years to dust.
Robert Bartlett-Hart must make a choice.
With the help his friends (plus plenty of tea and cake), Robert learns that there is more at stake than just Little Eden.
Something lies at the heart of Abbey; something that stands between mankind and Armageddon.
The friends must navigate past lives, other dimensions, and even Heaven itself, to find a way to save Little Eden and themselves.
Will Little Eden survive to usher in a new age, or will humanity perish with it?
Go and grab your copy now!
About the author …
I suffer with ME/CFS so find it hard to promote my book in the usual ways. I have virtually no income as I can only work a few hours a month with clients and lost my business and home in 2012 due to a massive relapse which left me bed bound for three years. When well enough I wrote the book in my head and only started to type it up about three years ago. I was lucky that my sister was willing to help with corrections as well as a client who did the proof reading for me and I used some of my savings to pay for the publication as an e-book. I am planning on doing Crowd Funding to try to get some money towards bringing it out in paperback as so many readers are asking for a ‘real copy’.
At present ME it is not a recognised disability in the UK but there are campaigns across the world trying to raise awareness and momentum is gathering. More people suffer with ME than Parkinson’s and MS combined in the UK and across the world there are millions of us with the condition. The UK government is slowly taking notice of the condition but the medical profession are slow in making changing in attitudes towards sufferers. I hope Little Eden can be part of that wave of change.
Little Eden is based on the walled town of Beverley, East Yorkshire, where I used to live. Beverley started with just an abbey built by St John but as more and more pilgrims came, the town grew. The boundaries were marked by white stones before the walls were built in the time of King Alfred. Anyone inside the perimeter was granted sanctuary; even the King could not arrest someone who had taken refuge there, until they had been given a fair trial by the monks.
Little Eden is an idyllic sanctuary in which all the most beautiful aspects of England are represented and where humanity lives at its best.
I wanted to create a place to which readers could escape and characters they could make friends with. Some readers have already started reading it for the second time (it only came out Nov 18). It is a novel that people can read over and over, when they were feeling down, alone or just want to go into another world for a while.
It is a very unusual novel and some readers comment on it being quirky, original, and a lot of fun to read. It has a soundtrack, wiki-links, prayers, meditation, song lyrics, poems, literary quotes, recipes, and self-help suggestions throughout. One reader said it was like Jane Austen on speed!
Little Eden in getting 5 star reviews and amazing feedback from readers. They are all asking when book two is coming out and I am hoping to release the next one in the series this year.
You can keep up with all KT’s news by following her on Twitter: @KTKingbooks
Emma The Little Bookworm 
Massive thank you Emma can’t tell you how much I appreciate being featured by you 💓
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