Kristen Ashley (born Kristen A L Moutaw; April 8, 1968) is a ''New York Times'' and ''USA Today'' bestselling author of more than 75 books in 14 languages, with over three million copies sold. Two of her novels have been adapted into film.

Career

Ashley has always enjoyed books. At age 12, she began surreptitiously borrowing her mother's Harlequin Presents

romance novels A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed to the developme ...

and fell in love with the genre. As an adult, Ashley began writing books in the evenings, after she finished a long day of working in the medical field - first at the Rocky Mountain MS Center, then the

Colorado Neurological Institute Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, and then, after a move to

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, England, at The Pituitary Foundation. Over 15 years, Ashley wrote almost 25 romance novels. She attempted to find an agent or a publisher for her works but was consistently rejected. Ashley finally decided to publish her work independently on Kindle. She released three or four of her previously written titles each month and found an audience relatively quickly. Her readership expanded after a major blogger reviewed one of her novels, Sweet Dreams. Between her day job and her writing and publishing efforts, Ashley worked, on average, 14–16 hours a day, seven days a week, for years. Once her writing career reached a certain threshold, Ashley hired help; she now has an assistant and works with graphic designers, proofreaders, and copyeditors. In 2013, Ashley signed her first traditional publishing contract, with

Grand Central Publishing Grand Central Publishing is a book publishing imprint of Hachette Book Group, originally established in 1970 as Warner Books when Kinney National Company acquired the New York City-based Paperback Library. When Time Warner sold their book publis ...

's Forever line. As of 2019, she had released three series' worth of books through traditional publishing. Ashley chose to foray into traditional publishing for two primary reasons. First, she wanted to improve her craft by working with an experienced editor. Second, she wanted to make her books more accessible. With traditional publishing, her novels would be available in print as well as ebooks, which would expand her audience to people without ereaders and those who liked to browse bookstores and libraries. Ashley insisted that her publisher keep ebook prices low, at $3.99, to ensure that readers weren't priced out. In an interview in 2019, she noted that her "print sales are abysmal"; most of her income comes from ebook sales and merchandise that she creates based on her books. Passionflix purchased the film rights to several of Ashley's novels. The Will, based on Ashley's novel of the same name, was released on February 14, 2020. It was directed by Louise Alston and starred Megan Dodds, Chris McKenna, Martin Dingle-Wall and Patrick Byas. In 2020, Passionflix will be filming an adaption of Ashleys' "Three Wishes". As of 2019, Ashley had published more than 60 novels, which have been translated into 14 languages and sold a combined three million copies.

Reception

Her novel ''Raid'' was on the USA Today bestseller list. ''Own the Wind'' placed on the New York Times bestseller list. She won the ''Romantic Times'' Book Reviews Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense for ''Law Man'', and the Romance Reviews Reader's Choice Award for ''Ride Steady''. She was nominated for ''Romantic Times'' awards for Best Independent Contemporary Romance (''Hold On'') and Best Contemporary Romance (''Breathe''). Four of her novels (''Motorcycle Man'', ''The Will'', ''Ride Steady'', and ''The Hookup'') have been finalists for Goodreads Choice Awards in the Romance category.

Writing

As influences, Ashley cites

Janet Evanovich Janet Evanovich (née Schneider; April 22, 1943) is an American writer. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stepha ...

, Judith McNaught, J. K. Rowling, Carl Hiaasen. In interviews, Ashley states that she struggled with sleep due to an active mind, which she turned to creating stories that she continued developing over time. Her heroes are often

Alpha male In the zoological field of ethology, a dominance hierarchy (formerly and colloquially called a pecking order) is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social animal, social groups interact, creating a ranking system. Dif ...

s with the heroine bringing a strong character to match them. Her heroines run the gamut from independent women who run their own businesses to more traditional women whose utmost goal is to become a mother. Family, friends and music are recurring thematic elements. She claims that she does not tone down or restrict her characters into the typical hero and heroines found in romance novels, this being part of the reason for rejections by traditional publishers. She notes that "I celebrate imperfections. ...None of my characters are perfect. They don’t say the right thing. They get exhausted and they pick at each other and they bicker." She has written racially diverse characters, as well as LGBTQ characters. Though mainly in the romance genre, she covers other sub-genres in her work, including;

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

erotica Erotica is art, literature or photography that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erot ...

and

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

Bibliography

References

External links

*Official Website
KristenAshley.net
* * Kristen Ashley o

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashley, Kristen Living people 1968 births 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American novelists American romantic fiction writers American women novelists American women romantic fiction writers Novelists from Arizona Purdue University alumni