Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Courageous Love
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/authors/kc-richardson-139
RESEARCHER NOTES:
N/A
PERSONAL
Married.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Physical therapist and author.
AVOCATIONS:Golf, quality time with loved ones, exercising, reading, kayaking, writing.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
K.C. Richardson worked as a physical therapist prior to launching her writing career. Just as her physical therapy career sprouted in part from her time spent playing college sports, her writing career has blossomed from her passion for the craft.
Courageous Love centers on protagonists Francesca Greco (mainly known as “Frank”) and Alex Taylor, as well as their blossoming relationship. Frank is a police officer who, for the most part, is alone in the world. Her family was ripped apart by breast cancer, its most recent victim being Frank’s much-cherished sister. The incident shattered Frank’s relationship with the rest of her family. Alex, on the other hand, is surrounded by loved ones. In addition to helping out with her young godson, she has an abundant supply of friends and family around her. These two characters’ lives become intertwined by chance.
While on duty, Frank catches Alex speeding through traffic and more occupied with her phone than paying attention to the road. As a result, Frank stops Alex and tickets her. Alex responds none too kindly to this, but soon comes to see Alex in a new light. Fate quickly brings them back together, first through a friend, and again as Frank pays a visit to the ER where Alex works. Sparks begin to fly wildly between the two, and it isn’t long before they start to kindle a romantic relationship.
However, happiness doesn’t occupy the new couple’s world for long. Both Frank and Alex are shaken when Alex learns she has breast cancer. The news is especially hard for Frank, thanks to her own history and the trauma cancer has inflicted upon her life. She carries a tremendous amount of unresolved emotions regarding the death of her sister, and it is these emotions that she must finally face head-on as Alex endures her own cancer battle. Alex struggles with the news all the same, to the point that she begins distancing herself from Frank. However, Frank isn’t willing to let Alex or their relationship go so easily, and intends to support her girlfriend no matter what. A Publishers Weekly contributor called Courageous Love “sensitively told and realistically plotted story” that “will grab readers by the heartstrings and not let them go.” On the Lesbian Reading Room blog, one reviewer commented: “Alex and Frank are well drawn and along with their closest friends and Alex’s family, become familiar characters we would be happy to meet and get to know.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, October 24, 2016, review of Courageous Love, p. 62.
ONLINE
Bold Strokes Books, https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/ (July 26, 2017), author profile.
Lesbian Reading Room, http://www.lesbianreadingroom.com/ (January 14, 2017), review of Courageous Love.
Romantic Reader Blog, https://theromanticreaderblog.com/ (November 28, 2016), review of Courageous Love.
Smashwords, https://www.smashwords.com/ (July 26, 2017), author profile.*
KC Richardson
Visit author profile on
Send a message
KC Richardson attended college on a basketball scholarship, and her numerous injuries in her various sports led her to a career in physical therapy. Her love for reading and writing allows her to create characters and tell their stories. Her second novel, Courageous Love, is a Golden Crown Literary Award finalist in the Traditional Contemporary Romance category. She and her wife live in Southern California where they are trying to raise respectful fur kids.
When KC isn't torturing/fixing people, she loves spending time with her wonderful friends and family, reading, writing, kayaking, working out, and playing golf.
KC Richardson lives in Southern California with her wife and fur kids. She loves writing romance novels because while relationships aren't without their tough times, she believes in the happily ever after. You can follow her on Facebook or twitter @KCRichardson7.
KC Richardson attended college on a basketball scholarship, and her numerous injuries in her various sports led her to a career in physical therapy. Her love for reading and writing allows her to create characters and tell their stories. She and her wife live in Southern California where they are trying to raise respectful fur kids.
When KC isn’t torturing…erm… fixing people, she loves spending time with her wonderful friends and family, reading, writing, kayaking, working out, and playing golf.
Courageous Love
Publishers Weekly.
263.43 (Oct. 24, 2016): p62.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Courageous Love
K.C. Richardson. Bold Strokes, $16.95 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-62639-797-2
Richardson (New Beginnings) combines sweet and heat in her second contemporary romance. ER nurse Alex Taylor meets Sgt. Francesca
"Frank" Greco when Frank pulls her over for speeding in their Southern California town. That's hardly the most auspicious encounter, but after
they meet again at a mutual friend's home (and Frank later ends up in Alex's ER), passion quickly takes over. For a short time, their romance feels
like a sexy fantasy, too good to be true. When Alex is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness--the same one that took the life of Frank's twin
sister--she starts to push Frank away, but Frank intends to prove to Alex that she'll stay around in sickness or in health. Richardson aptly captures
the myriad emotions and sometimes irrational thought processes of a young woman with a possibly fatal disease, as well as the torment inherent
in the idea of losing another loved one to the same illness. This sensitively told and realistically plotted story will grab readers by the heartstrings
and not let them go. (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Courageous Love." Publishers Weekly, 24 Oct. 2016, p. 62. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468771821&it=r&asid=d1d79d339c2ebc82ef55b6992e2f8017. Accessed 9 July
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468771821
Courageous Love by K.C. Richardson
NOVEMBER 28, 2016 / TIFFREADS
Slow, cliched, and flat…
Alex Taylor is an ER nurse at the local county hospital. This fun-loving lady enjoys her job, her friends and being an amazing godmother to her best friend’s little boy. While her positives are abundant so are her flaws when she deals with a crisis. Alex is fiercely independent, always helping others, but resisting when others do the same for her.
Francesca “Frank” Greco is an easy going, mild mannered police sergeant. Frank spends her days working or hanging out with her lab-mix, Bella. Frank has no family to speak of, losing her twin sister to breast cancer, caused irreparable damage to her relationship with her parents. The loss of her sister weighs heavily in Frank. (Rambling side note: Why in the world would a thirty-year-old woman go by the name Frank? Just, no!)
You may be thinking those aren’t very good descriptions of the two main characters. Well, that’s the thing. This book is kind of like a flat soda. You can still drink it, but you probably won’t get much satisfaction form it. Harsh, that was kind of harsh, sorry, but it’s true. This book is all telling, no showings. The characters are superficial and unlike an onion, there just aren’t many layers to them. The relationship between Alex and Frank takes off, boom there’s the cancer and we go into a public service announcement. It just doesn’t engage the reader, you are basically pushing through to finish the book. Frank is a doormat, Alex is all over the place emotionally, and neither character feels like a real person.
2 out of 5 stars
Publisher: Bold Stokes Books
http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com
Courageous Love
by KC Richardson
Link: http://a.co/2bRPOq7
Courageous Love – KC Richardson
January 14, 2017Romance, TraditionalVL
Courageous Love - KC RichardsonTake one happy and well centered ER nurse add one handsome Cop and the scene is set for a happy ever after. But throw in a life threatening disease and KC Richardson ramps up the angst.
Alex has a loving family, great friends, a godson she dotes on and a job she loves as an ER nurse. When a gorgeous sergeant pulls her over for speeding and texting, she gets all kinds of angry, but it sparks an attraction for both of them.
Several months later when Alex is diagnosed with the same disease that killed the most important women in Franki’s world and the stage is set for a traumatic time for all of them.
This is a great storyline and felt very well done. While there is a heavy dose of angst, it’s justified and well handled. There is a lot of medical information, but again it felt appropriate, and used to accentuate the overwhelming decisions and emotions of somebody faced with life defining choices.
Alex and Frank are well drawn and along with their closest friends and Alex’s family, become familiar characters we would be happy to meet and get to know. I haven’t read ‘New Beginnings” which sets up Jordan and Kirsten, but their relationship is delightful as is their son Aiden, Alex’s God-son,.
The impact of the disease on the friendly and easygoing Alex is extreme, making her an almost Jekyll and Hyde personality in the two halves of the story. But while extreme Ms Richardson amply justifies the feelings of a young woman whose surgery, in her mind, destroys her femininity.
I personally would have preferred Francesca to be Franki rather than Frank, she felt soft butch despite her uniform, and the fully masculine form seemed harsh, but that is purely personal.
My only real criticism of the book was that it needed a much heavier red pen to take out both word and explanatory repetition, rapidly becoming my biggest bugbear in the works of our newer authors, but then again that is hardly the author’s fault if they aren’t being told.