Thank you for having me, Delilah.
I am so thrilled to be in another boxed set with you. Â Yay!!! The SEALS of SUMMER 2 is now available for purchase. Eleven BRAND-NEW NAVY SEAL ROMANCES by NY Times and USA Today bestselling authors!
My book, THE GUARDIAN, was a loooong time in the making. I’d actually written this book in 2009 about how a man and woman who are fighting personal struggles find love in Haiti. Bam. It was done and I sent to my editor.
While I waited for her to read it, catastrophe struck. On January 12, 2010, the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti to its knees. It was horrific. Scary. I live in California and know about quakes, 5.0 will freak you out of your skin, but a 7.0 quake? No, that’s beyond comprehension. It had to feel like the end of the earth for those poor people. Hundreds of thousands of people died.
I don’t know about you, but I held my breath watching the search and rescue teams on television. I cried as victim after victim was pulled out of the rubble. What I remember to this day was the human strength, the absolute determination to survive, and the kindness, generosity and love of everyone who jumped in there to help. Goodness, it was breathtaking.
But my book couldn’t be published the way it was. Obviously, I hadn’t known the earthquake was coming but now that it had arrived, I needed to change the book. All of it. The place I’d written about didn’t exist anymore.
I dove deep into the time period around the earthquake gathering all the data, pictures, articles, videos, and news reports I could find. I wanted to set my story inside the Montana, the beautiful five-story hotel that pancaked in the quake. It wasn’t easy to find the information I needed. Oh, there was plenty of information after the quake, but not much prior to. I needed to know what the inside of the hotel looked like on January 11, 2010. But how? I’d never been there.
Enter YouTube. The Montana was a beautiful five-star hotel in Haiti and people had been proud and delighted to stay there. And, bless them, they’d posted their family videos on YouTube. I couldn’t understand the language, but I could watch. Learn. Understand. I worked really hard to get the facts and little details right because the people who were there would want it that way.
It is my hope that I did the place and people justice. I am so grateful to the Search and Rescue teams and relief organizations who work so hard in these situations.
Thank you all for reading.
Kimberley Troutte
Website  NEWSLETTER  @KTroutte
Kimberley Troutte is a 2015 RITA® award nominated, NY Times, USA Today and Amazon Top 100 bestselling author as well as being in the Top 10 on Amazon for Romantic Suspense. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons, a wild cat, an old snake and all the other creatures hubby and boys rescue.
To learn more about her adult novels and nonfiction books, please visit her at www.kimberleytroutte.com or sign up for the newsletter at https://ymlp.com/xgbqwswygmgj.
