Kieran Kramer Guest Blogs: Secrets

Please welcome Kieran Kramer to the Dark Walk! I met Kieran through Twitter. Kieran's one of the nicest and most positive people I've met. And I'm so excited that WHEN HARRY MET MOLLY releases today! Congrats on your debut, Kieran!

Secrets. We all have them. And most of us are fascinated by other people's secrets—if we could only find them out! I spent a couple years working at the CIA, where secrets abound. So it's no wonder that in my stories, my characters are often hiding something. In my debut novel from St. Martin's Press, When Harry Met Molly, the hero and heroine work together to keep their secret: that they're not truly "together" romantically, as the other couples in the story are. For the sake of winning a contest, Molly has to pretend to be Harry's mistress, and he has to pretend he finds her the most alluring woman he's ever known.

But often secrets have a way of biting their owners in the backside—Harry and Molly can attest to that. And it's a rare secret that doesn't get out! I'll tell you about a funny one of mine that was exposed when I was trying to get into the CIA: the authorities there asked me if I'd ever stolen anything, and I had to confess that I had. Gulping back my mortification, I told them that once in college, my sister and I, who waited tables to pay for our apartment and tuition, came down with bad colds. We wanted to make some chicken soup, but money was always tight. To avoid adding a couple of dollars to our grocery bill, when we were at the store getting the chicken, I opened a jar of bay leaves and…

I stole one. The chicken soup recipe called for it!

I often wonder what happened when those CIA employees left the room and conferred about me later. Did they laugh at me? Do they still talk about the Dreaded Bay Leaf Stealer? I know stealing is wrong, but that was a funny secret, and I'm amazed they were able to keep a straight face when I told it with such trepidation!

Do YOU have a secret you can laugh at now? Feel free to share it here! Or maybe you'd like to confess a little secret that you don't really feel like laughing about yet. Maybe it still causes you a bit of embarrassment or chagrin, and it would be a relief to finally get it off your chest. Of course, you also might say, "No way!" to this unorthodox suggestion.

Whatever you decide to do, remember that—like Harry and Molly—we've all got a bit of mystery about us, and we should celebrate that fact. Secrets make us more interesting, more alluring. The compelling back-and-forth tug toward true intimacy is fueled by disclosed revelations, isn't it? So don't give all your secrets away. Keep a few.

I promise I won't tell.