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Margaret Hargrove: Hi listeners. I'm Audible Editor Margaret Hargrove, and I am so honored and excited to be talking to Kennedy Ryan today. Kennedy's emotional romances, including Before I Let Go and the popular Hoops series, are well-known for their memorable characters and unforgettable love stories. The award-winning author has now written an Audible Original romance called Coming Home, about two superstar journalists who come back to their HBCU for homecoming and an unexpected second chance at love. Kennedy, welcome to Audible.
Kennedy Ryan: Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
MH: So, Coming Home was such a delight to listen to. I was so excited when I heard that you were writing an Audible Original. I definitely felt all the feels, which always happens when I listen to a Kennedy Ryan romance.
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KR: Yay!
MH: Maybe shed a few tears, happy tears.
KR: No way. With Coming Home?
MH: Well, you know, at the end. I'm not going to give spoilers, but you know.
KR: It's so funny you say that because on TikTok and everywhere I've promised everyone, "No tears this time" [laughs]. I've promised everyone no tears. I can't believe that.
MH: Kennedy, I don't think that's possible with you [laughs].
KR: That's why I said it, because people are always like, "Ooh, I know this is going to make me cry." I was like, "Oh, no. Not this one. No-tears guarantee." Margaret just shot me down [laughs].
MH: Yes. But it's happy tears, of course. So, I've heard that you're a huge fan of audiobooks. And you won an Audie Award last year, for Reel, which is amazing. Congratulations.
KR: Yes. And congratulations to the narrators. They were amazing, absolutely amazing. They made history as the first Black narrators to win an Audie in the romance category. So I'm really, really, really proud of them. Nicole Small, Jakobi Diem, and Eboni Flowers. Call them by their names.
MH: It's an amazing audiobook. But tell me, what was it like writing an audio-first love story with Coming Home?
KR: It was so interesting. I had to kind of adjust a little bit. I tried to avoid the "he says" and the "she says" as much as I could, but I find myself doing that a lot in my work anyway because I'm such an audiophile. When I'm listening, I want it to be as uninterrupted by the "he says" and the attributions as possible. I found myself doing that for this as well, knowing it was going to audio first.
But then I also found myself really excited about the possibility of what more we could do, how we could add some dimension to it. And I don't know if I need to talk about this now, but this is where the marching band comes in. That idea of kind of building out the experience a little bit. And you mentioned Reel, which won the Audie. I think I got spoiled with that, because with that, it's kind of like a story within a story in the sense that it has this director who's making a biopic about a Harlem Renaissance-era performer, a Black performer, whose legacy has been forgotten. And she's a singer and she's an actor, and we actually had singing and we had instrumentation. And I got kind of spoiled with that, just the dimension that it added to the experience. And so when we started brainstorming about what Coming Home could be, I really was like, "How can we add some dimension to it?" And I was really, really excited about setting it on a fictional HBCU. It was just all these ideas percolating that kind of came to bear as I started writing it.
MH: We'll definitely touch on the music and the setting in a little bit, but I wanted to dig in a little bit to the story. I think of you as the queen of writing second-chance romances. You've written quite a few of them. And I feel like there's just something about a second-chance romance that makes you cheer on the couple as they try to finally get it right. You do that so well. What is it that you love about writing second-chance romances and how did that inspire Coming Home?
KR: As I think about it, you're right that I do write a lot of second-chance. And kind of one of the common themes is that they come together, whether it's an actual full-bodied relationship or like with Coming Home, it's a connection; they were friends in college and there was—I don't want to give too much away—maybe one kiss, and lots of longing and possibility that they never got to fully explore. Whether it's that fully formed relationship or whether it's that connection they never got to fully explore, I think what's really interesting to me is the separation, the years that come between when they were together before and when they reunite under whatever those circumstances are. To see how they grow and mature, and who they become.
And I write romance, you know? Some people say, "No you don't. You write women's fiction." But I think I write romance, romantic women's fiction. And the reason I bring that up is because, for me, in the context of romance as a genre, those intervening years become really important to me. Because I like to see women form themselves. To become whole, you know? To have time to build their careers or build their lives, or in some cases build their family, but to really stand on their own and know what they want, and know what to expect, and know what they can ask for, know what they won't settle for. I like to see women in a lot of my stories form into that and then get the chance to reunite with the love of their lives.
It's not to invalidate people who get together when they're really young and stay together all their lives, because that's what my husband and I have done. That's my story. We've been married for 25 years, over half my life. So that's amazing, but I think it's something to see two people meet and it's like, "This is who you are. I love who you are." And then there's a separation, it's like, "Wow. You're even more of who you are" or "Look how you've changed" or "Look what you've matured into." And I really like to see those two mature versions of that person come together, and see what kind of love they can make.
But second-chance is really, it is something that I lean into a lot, and I think, especially with something like Before I Let Go— you referenced that—sometimes if what broke them isn't healed, then do they really get that second chance? So, a lot of times those intervening years is giving them space to heal and to do what they need to do, the work they need to do on themselves before they come back and can have a healthy connection and deep relationship with that other person who probably, if it's in my books, have been working on themselves too.
MH: Yeah, I definitely consider your romances to be mature. I feel that the characters have really come into their own and they're a whole person now looking for love, versus them trying to find love and making themselves whole in someone else, which is really nice.
KR: Yes. And that's probably a function of my age, you know?
MH: Yeah, I'm in the same age group, so I get it. I definitely get it. Two of my favorite narrators, Wesleigh Siobhan and Jakobi Diem—I like to call them the dream team—narrate Coming Home. They also narrated your most recent title, Before I Let Go, and Jakobi was part of the cast for Reel. Did you fall in love with their amazing performance of Before I Let Go, and just had to have them for Coming Home?
KR: I really did. They didn't audition for Coming Home. As I was talking with the editors, I just said, "It's them," you know? It's Wesleigh and Jakobi. I call them Weskobi. Fortunately, they were available and we were just coming off Before I Let Go, which was such a great experience for the three of us. Wesleigh literally was messaging me in tears. She was like, "You got me in the booth sobbing. What in the world?" Wesleigh and I had such a great connection. And as you mentioned, Jakobi and I worked together on Reel, we worked together on Hook Shot, we worked together on Grip, we worked together on Queen Move. Jakobi's my guy. I love the resonance of his voice, and so we've had a great relationship too. And in Before I Let Go, there was so much emotion in that book. And they performed it, you know? They acted it. You could feel the emotion in the scenes that really called for it, and I just love them together so much. I was like, "Let's do it again."
MH: Yes. They definitely recreated the magic here with Coming Home. They're a perfect pairing together.
KR: They really are. And the other thing is they have such huge fan bases. Listeners love to see them together. People love to hear them together and so that was something I wanted. It was a treat I wanted to give my readers and listeners.
MH: True. Well, another treat that you alluded to earlier is the music in Coming Home. I'll say that music is another theme. Other than second-chance romances, I feel that a lot of music is incorporated in a few of your books. And here in Coming Home, there's this pivotal moment at the end of the story—no spoilers—but we get to hear music from the real-life Southern University marching band, The Human Jukebox. It creates this really authentic homecoming atmosphere. You almost feel like you're really there. I never went to an HBCU, but I was like, "I'm in it. I'm here.”
KR: Yes. And you know, it's so funny because I didn't attend an HBCU. I'm a Tar Heel, I went to UNC Chapel Hill. And both of these characters are journalists. That's my background, journalism, and I chose UNC because of their—I'm a North Carolinian, grew up in North Carolina, Tar Heel, and so I chose UNC Chapel Hill because of their outstanding journalism program. But I grew up in HBCU spaces. My dad was the dean of students in an HBCU, he was a president of an HBCU, a chancellor of an HBCU. So, my whole life was spent in those spaces and it was really important for me to kind of highlight that. It's a very unique experience. It's very culturally specific and at the same time, so universally appreciated and appealing. And I wanted to create that in this story, that moment.
"I like to see women form themselves. To become whole, you know?...I like to see women in a lot of my stories form into that and then get the chance to reunite with the love of their lives."
I owe a debt to Beyonce, who, with her Netflix special, Homecoming, she really brought so much visibility to HBCUs. That Netflix special and her using her platform at Coachella to highlight HBCUs was really inspirational for me and for so many people, because there's so many people, beyond HBCUs and beyond the Black community, who never really have gotten to see that, who don't really understand it. And I just thought, "What an opportunity to highlight just a touch of that experience." And I'm glad you felt like it was a good moment, because we really fought hard to have them involved. And I'm so glad it worked out.
MH: Yeah. I heard from your editor that you were even suggesting schools to talk to, bands to reach out to, popular songs that would be good to include in this moment. I like that you were really hands on to get that done.
KR: Oh, Margaret. That's an understatement. I'm sure in everything. I think some of that comes from, I'm a hybrid author. So, I'm an indie, I self-publish. The majority of my books are self-published, so anytime I'm working with a publisher, I'm approaching them. And I don't know how else to do it. I'm approaching them as a partner. And I'm like, "You know that I'm going to be, like, in it." Because for me, it's all my brand. My readers or listeners, they don't care if I published it or someone else published it. They just know, "It's Kennedy, and this is what I'm expecting." And so, for me, I'm always excited to, in any way I can, inject those elements that I think readers and listeners are coming, or have come, to expect from me as a storyteller. And in audio, like I said, I'm an audiophile and I have my favorite narrators, I have my favorite audiobooks. I have things that I'm looking for and listening for, and the opportunity to create a special auditory experience like that. It was my idea, like, "Can we please try to do this? Here's a list of the ones that we should go to. Here's songs." And they were just, thank goodness to my editors at Audible, they were like, "Yes, let's do it," and did everything they could to make it happen. And I really, really appreciate that.
MH: Yeah. We're always trying to push the envelope. It really gives our listeners an atmospheric feel when listening to audio, especially when they're listening to an Audible Original. So, Coming Home is set at a fictional HBCU called Finley University. Had you always wanted to write a romance set at an HBCU, given your history with it?
KR: I have. And I think, especially since I went to a PWI, UNC Chapel Hill, sometimes I'm like, "Well, I don't know it. Do I get to write that?" But it is something that I grew up with and it's something, I mean, my husband went to an HBCU, my sister went to a—believe me, everybody says that I'm the defector in my family. And they're always like, "You haven't really had a real college experience until you've had this." So, it is something that I've been completely adjacent to all my life, around all my life, and it was something that I wanted to depict with my kind of unique story. Whatever it is that's unique that I bring to the genre. Everybody brings their own lens to the genre. Whatever that storytelling lens is, I wanted to tell a story through that.
But I think that, if anyone's paying attention to my books, I'm often giving shout-outs to HBCUs. Like, in Before I Let Go, Yasmen is in Aggie [North Carolina A&T], and Josiah is a Moorhouse graduate. If you look throughout my stories, everybody's always wearing a sweatshirt of an HBCU or they have their diploma on the wall. I'm often dropping those kind of visibility nuggets for HBCUs, because it's important. I had wanted to do it and this just seemed like a great opportunity. I'm very cognizant of when I get a platform or when I have any platform I have in this space that I'm leveraging it for things that are important to me and that I'm passionate about and that I think are important, or that deserve more discourse, deserve more visibility. And that's kind of how this story came to be, is out of that desire.
MH: So, there's another homecoming HBCU element of Touré’s daughter being homecoming queen. So, she's the daughter of an alum, she's homecoming queen this weekend, her dad is coming back to the school for the centennial anniversary and it provides a good opportunity for them to reconnect. They have a strained relationship because he's spent so much of her life traveling the world, chasing his next story. What did you want to explore with their relationship, this father-daughter dynamic?
KR: I think some of it is a little bit personal, in the sense that I am really, really driven. My husband's all the time trying to find my off button. Believe me, my therapist is looking for it too. There have been spaces and times in my life when I have been so consumed with my own ambitions and my own dreams that it's been to the neglect of really important relationships. And that's something that I've had to go back and repair, and I'm still sometimes in the process of repairing. And I think that theme of ambition and dreams, but not to the detriment of real-life connection and real-life relationships, is something that I explore sometimes, for myself and in my stories. And I just saw an opportunity here to do that, and to show Black fatherhood, which is something that's important to me too. To show it in a positive way, but kind of like a different spin. It's not that he's not a good dad, but it's that he's been all over the world pursuing dreams. Not that he hasn't been present but there's really no substitute for time and connection, and he's someone who realizes at this stage in his life, "I need to make this a priority." My stories are often romance-plus. There's all this romance—like even with Before I Let Go, of course there's the love story, but then you have the kids and you have the friends and you have the mom and you have the—
MH: The restaurant.
KR: The restaurant. I write romance. I love romance. I love love stories, but I like to set them in the context of "Our whole world is not each other." There are all of these relationships that are really important in our lives and we're falling into love in the context of that network of relationships that are also really important. And that's kind of, I think, what I was doing a little bit with the father-daughter storyline that runs through the love story.
MH: It's amazing how much you are able to get in to Coming Home. My only complaint is that it's way too short and I want more of Touré and Niomi. Please tell me you'll write a sequel or maybe have them pop up in another audiobook.
KR: I would love to. I really, really would. We're talking now, and I don't know if it will happen, about what this will look like when it goes to print. So, I might be able to expand it a little bit, when, and if, we do the e-book version, for sure. But my characters tend to move through different universes. You'll see Lotus from the Hoop series, she actually popped up in Before I Let Go, just the name-drop. Grip pops up in the Hoop series.
So, I definitely would not be surprised to see Niomi and Touré pop up in other universes. Because even though the story, by the nature of it being an Audible novella with a limited word-count, has to be short, I still fall in love with those characters, and there's all this building of them that goes in my head, and because I have this limited space, I can only put so much of them there. But there's still a lot of them up here that I didn't get to share, so we'll see. She's like the morning show sweetheart of America, and he's like the hard-hitting journalist who's embedding in Afghanistan. But they both are just these really dynamic characters who have carved out their own paths, kind of against odds, with things stacked against them. I think this is the first time I've written journalists, and they were fascinating for me.
MH: Cool. Hopefully we'll see them again.
KR: I hope so.
MH: Since you're such an avid audiobook fan, I'm curious, what are you listening to and loving right now?
KR: I just finished Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez, and it was fantastic. I also listened to recently You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty.
MH: I love that one.
KR: Which was Akwaeke [Emezi]. They are just amazing. Generational voices, you know? A generational voice. Actually, right now I am listening for the first time—I've read it before but I'm listening for the first time—to Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The book I'm writing, which is the sequel to Before I Let Go, a new couple, but that story is really kind of informing some of the feminine rage that I need for the second book of the Skyland series, Soledad's story, for those who have read Before I Let Go. I listened to A Lady for a Duke, which is Alexis Hall. It's the first trans romance that I've listened to and it's stellar. Absolutely stellar.
I'm always listening to an audiobook. Always. Like, I listen to them as I go to sleep. My son's commute is 45 minutes each way for his school, so I listen to audiobooks. I have about almost four hours in the car each day, sometimes. And so I'm always squeezing something in. Those are just a few of the ones that I've been listening to lately.
MH: You listen to audiobooks like you're an Audible editor.
KR: Do I?
MH: Yes. Because we're always listening. I mean, you're listening just as much as we do. We appreciate your support.
KR: My career is now really demanding in a way that I never anticipated, and I was a reader first, a voracious reader, and there was a span in my career where I was like, "I'm not getting to read." And I missed it. I was one of those people who was like, "I can't really listen to audiobooks because I can't focus and my mind drifts off, and da-da-da-da-da." And my first audiobook was The Golden Dynasty by Kristen Ashley. But you know, Kristen Ashley's audiobooks are like 20 hours long. I mean, they're really, really long. And it was such an immersive experience. I was like, "If audiobooks are like this, oh, yeah, I could do it." That started my listening journey, and I found I get so much more reading done that way. Because when I'm washing the dishes, when I'm cooking, when I take a walk—multi-tasking, you know? And I can get so much reading in, so I've really fallen in love with it. And a great narrator makes such a huge difference. I already mentioned Jakobi. Jacob Morgan is one of my favorites. Nicholas Bolton is a huge favorite for me. Of course, Wesleigh. So, I have my favorite narrators, too, and I'm one of those people who sometimes I'll look at the narrator even before I look at the author.
MH: I do that too, definitely. Kennedy, thank you so much for your time today. It has truly been a pleasure to talk to you. Dreams come true.
KR: Yes. Yes. For me, too. Thank you, Margaret, for having me. It's been so great talking to you.
MH: I love your love stories. And this romance, set at an HBCU and featuring music from a real HBCU marching band, is so very special. Coming Home is available now exclusively on Audible. Thank you.
KR: Thank you. Thank you.
