Balancing Spice and Story: Crafting Dark Romance with CS Kelleher

On this episode of the Connecticut Book Festivals Podcast, Jed welcomes CS Kelleher, author of the dark contemporary romance novel Scorched Boundaries—the first in a planned four-book series. CS shares how the book began in an entirely different direction: a romantic suspense involving mistaken identity and South Korean gangs. After hitting a massive bout of writer’s block, inspiration struck one night while she was watching TV and typing on her phone. That spontaneous moment became the prologue to Scorched Boundaries and launched a brand‑new cast of characters and storyline. Listeners meet Maeve Donovan, an Irish American CEO of a boutique luxury real estate marketing firm in Portland, Oregon, and Lee Hae Jin, a South Korean billionaire mogul whose darkness shapes much of the story. CS explains the difference between romantic suspense and dark contemporary romance, emphasizing the heavier emotional themes, psychological thriller elements, and the importance of clear trigger warnings. CS talks about her deep love of Asian dramas and K‑pop, and how binge‑watching Korean and Chinese dramas during COVID helped inspire the emotional tone and character dynamics of her series. She and Jed also have fun discussing “brain characters”—those fictional voices that take over and insist on changing the plot—and how one such character turned her planned trilogy into a four‑book series. Along the way, CS shares stories about writing spicy scenes, her retired‑teacher mom’s grammatical “eye twitches,” honoring her Nana through her pen name, and her hopes to someday return to an earlier South Korea–set project.