Skye Taylor

Let's welcome Skye Taylor to Author Sit-Down, Skye is working on a series with a most intriguing premise. Read on to hear all about the first book, Unspoken Promises. As usual, I asked five questions.

1.    1. Unspoken Promises, the first in the Bailey Island Romance series, is a split-level story told in two timelines. How did you come up with the idea of writing two linked stories in one?

 Unlike some authors, I am not a detailed plotter. I have detailed dossiers on my characters and a clear idea of where the story starts and where it will end, but the actual action is often as much a surprise to me as my readers. In the first book in this series, I started with a heroine who just lost everything: her sons off to college, her husband leaving her for another woman, the home she’s shared for the last 20 years is where her hubby grew up, so he’s given her a month to vacate. And then her boss tells her he’s moving their fun little company halfway across the country for family reasons, so no job, unless she wants to move to Dallas. Then she finds out she has inherited a “cottage” from a friend who recently died childless. With nothing else going on, she heads to Maine to check out this cottage and finds it is a large, nearly 200-year-old landmark home. When she discovers a wedding dress that had never been worn in the attic while exploring her new digs, she brings it downstairs to try on. To my surprise, the next chapter begins with a young woman wearing the same dress in front of the same antique mirror with a woman kneeling on the floor pinning up the hem. It’s 1943 and her fiancé goes off to fight in Europe. That’s how the historic story came to life.

2.  What are the names of your main characters? How did you choose them?

Kenzie Ross is my main character and I chose her name because I liked Kenzie and Ross sounded good with that name. The new man in her life is Sam Philips and he got his name from my two little angel grandsons: Sam who died of SIDS at 5 months and Philip who was killed at 18 months when an unsecured gate fell on his head at a park. For stories set in the past, I do a google search to find the most common names in whatever year and place I’m setting my story. I also have a ghost in this new series who is named after my granddaughter. Anna Rose thinks it’s fantastic that I’d give an important character her name. I also have a couple supporting characters named after friends who thought it would be fun to appear in my books.

3.      Do you prefer writing finite series or standalones--why?

Not sure I prefer either above the other. I have two standalone books, one a time travel that was inspired by an excursion to explore a deserted island I’d read the history of and one mainstream suspense that was partially influenced by the years in which I came of age during the Vietnam War. That one begins in the present with a candidate running for president of the United States who is handed a photograph during a meet and greet session that takes him back to a time he’d done everything to put well into the past and emotions he never wanted to relive. I got some serious help creating Matt Steele from my brother who did serve in that war although he never chose to become a politician.

The first book in my Camerons of Tides Way series was a standalone when I wrote it, but after pitching it to an editor at a conference, she asked for the manuscript and suggested I submit ideas for at least two follow up stories for a series. That series ended with 7 books. I also planned to make my police procedural mysteries a series. There are two books out now and one in the writing, but it’s slower going because for a mystery I really do need to have an outline and that is a major challenge for an author who writes by the seat of her pants.

4.    4. How did you choose the setting for this series?

WWhen I was vacationing in Maine a year ago, a friend loaned the first of my Tides Way series, which is set in a fictitious town in coastal North Carolina, to a friend of hers. That lady enjoyed it so much she bought the whole set. Then she found me on Facebook and asked where in Maine I was vacationing. I told her, not thinking for a minute that anyone in Florida would know where Bailey Island was, but to my surprise, she did know and ended by asking why I didn’t write a series set there. Once that seed was planted it took root and the first book came out in June with the second set to release early next year. 

5.     5. Hit us with a high concept pitch (25 words or under) for the series.

When Kenzie inherits The Captain Patrick Murray House, she dismisses tales of a ghost keeping watch on her roof but loves finding treasures in the attic that tell stories of the women who lived in this historical old mansion in the past.

OR: I like the longer version better but neither are less than the 25 words you asked for.

Comment from Sally: (It's perfectly fine to change up a question.)

 When Kenzie Ross inherits The Captain Patrick Murray House on Bailey Island she claims she doesn’t believe the stories about a ghost who mans the widow’s walk. Treasures found in the attic bring forward other stories from the past: a wedding dress that was never worn because the groom went away to war in 1943 and a journal written by a girl seduced by an engineer who came to build the bridge in 1928. It isn’t until Kenzie’s new love goes missing after a boating accident that she meets the widow who still maintains a vigil for her husband who never came home from the sea.

Here's your “Log Line” or High Concept for just the first book in the series; Unspoken Promises:

Two women, a cottage by the sea, and three generations of love and loss . . . .

 

To see more about Skye and her books, check out her website: http://www.Skye-writer.com

To check out the book, go to BUY HERE

If you're reading this in August 2025, see the cover in the All Author Cover of the Month contest.  HERE

Skye's bio:

Skye Taylor, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and published author, loves history, books, beaches and chocolate. Her published work includes: Unspoken Promises, A Bailey Island Romance, Bullseye & Crossfire (A mystery series set in St Ausgustine, FL,) The Candidate, The Cameron’s of Tide’s Way (a contemporary romance series) and Iain’s Plaid. Visit her website at: www.Skye-writer.com.  She is a member of SinC, FWA, RWA and WFWA.

 Thanks, Skye! 

Author Sit-Down is a blog dedicated to talking books. If you've written a book (or several) and would like an author sit-down, you can contact me at sallybyname(AT)gmail.com. Nominate your book and tell me a bit about it and I'll send you five questions. In the meantime, check out the other posts on this blog. Each author has an entertaining and enlightening story to tell.