Kilby Blades

Kilby Blades is a USA Today Bestselling author of Romance and Women's Fiction. Her debut novel, Snapdragon, was a HOLT Medallion finalist, a Publisher's Weekly BookLife Prize Semi-Finalist, and an IPPY Award medalist. Kilby was honored with an RSJ Emma Award for Best Debut Author in 2018, and has been lauded by critics for "easing feminism and equality into her novels" (IndieReader) and "writing characters who complement each other like a fine wine does a good meal" (Publisher's Weekly).

During her earlier career as a digital marketing executive, she moonlighted as a journalist, freelanced as a food, wine and travel writer and lived it up as an entertainment columnist. She has lived in five countries, visited more than twenty-five, and spends part of her year in her happy place—her pied-à-terre in the Andes Mountains.

She’s stopped selling widgets for a living and now spends her time when she’s not writing novels raising money for worthy causes, both a a professional fundraiser and as a board volunteer (most notably, she is president of the Board of Directors for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month). She also tours internationally for book signings, speaks nationally and teaches within the author community.

Kilby is a feminist, an oenophile, a cinephile, a social-justice fighter, and above all else, a glutton for a good story.

A personal note: my NAME IS NOT KILBY It seems fitting to tell you that my real name isn’t Kilby Blades. Given the, erm...racy nature of the earlier novels I wrote as Kilby Blades, I prefer to stay in the closet. The name Kilby Blades was inspired by my late fictionista friend of the same name. She passed away in 2003 at the end of a long autoimmune illness that we didn’t know nearly enough about at the time. We were both in our early twenties when she died. It’s hard to explain how somebody who is gone can still hold such an important place in my life. But Kilby does.

In addition to being an amazing person with intelligence, wisdom, and heart around all manner of things, she was, for years, the most important person in my writing life. She told me when my writing sucked, did so with the right balance of compassion and truth, and stepped up my game around big concepts of craft. I dedicated my first original novel, Snapdragon, to her and have chosen to write under her name as an homage..

Before I became Kilby Blades, various handles I used to publish fan fiction hid me behind the curtain of anonymity for many years. In my largest fandom, my four stories tally more than 1.5 million chapters read, and have received a combined 15,000 favorites, reviews and follows. Though I haven't written for fandom since 2012, I still receive scores of favorites and follows each month.

On the Web

• Website [1]

Books

• Adam Bomb - 2020
• Art Of Worship, The - 2017
• Chrysalis - 2017
• Chrysalis: Lo - 2017
• Crazy Old Money - 2019
• Ended? - 2019
• Forrest For The Trees - 2021
• Friended - 2018
• It Takes A Villa - 2022
• Loaded - 2019
• Look Good On Paper - 2022
• Secret Ingedient, The - 2019
• Snapdragon - 2017
• Spooning Leads To Forking - 2020
• Tinsel And Tatas - 2021
• Vertical - 2019
• Wild Goose Chase -2024
• Worst Valentine's Day Ever - 2019
• Young Buck - 2024

Anthologies

• Worst Holiday Ever - 2018

Series/Related Titles

Gilded Love

1. Snapdragon
2. Chrysalis
3. Vertical
4. Loaded

Entangled

1. Looks Good On Paper
2. It Takes A Villa

Green Valley Heroes

1. Forrest For The Trees
2. Young Buck
3. Wild Goose Chase

Hot in the Kitchen

1. The Secret Ingedient
2. Spooning Leads To Forking

Modern Love

1. Friended
2. Ended?

Recognitions

• 2021 Vivian Award Finalist - Contemporary Romance: Mid, The Secret Ingredient