New York Times bestselling author Karen White is coming to the Silver Coast Winery, 6680 Barbeque Rd, Ocean Isle Beach, on July 25 for a meet and greet and book signing. It’s part of a regular lineup of such events hosted by Pelican Bookstore in Sunset Beach (check the calendar pages for a list). White’s latest book, “That Last Carolina Summer” makes its debut just a few days before the event. Described on the author’s website as “an unforgettable family drama and mystery about the unbreakable bonds of family and the gift of second chances,” the latest from this prolific author taps into Southern culture and the family relationships that form the foundation for many of her stories. We had a chance to chat with Karen about her writing process, how the South works in her stories almost as its own character, and what to expect from this novel.
“I was lucky,” Karen said. “Both of my parents are from Mississippi. I was lucky because I was able to look at the South as an outsider because I never lived in the South until I married my Yankee husband and we moved to Georgia. My dad was an executive with Exxon, so we got to live all over the world — Venezuela, London, the Netherlands…but that’s what made summer vacation, when I visited my maternal grandmother in Mississippi, and all my cousins and aunts and extended family…I was able to see the South from that perspective. I think if I had been raised in it, I might not have understood or appreciated how special it is.”
She said it was the neighbors knocking on her grandparents’ door to share some extra tomatoes, and running around barefoot and going downtown where the druggist knew whose daughter she was and gave her a soda. She said that was just an unusual, different kind of thing that she thinks she would have taken for granted if she were born and raised in the South.
Karen is usually publishing a book a year, and that’s when she makes appearances at book signings and other events. And how did that tour manage to find Brunswick County, North Carolina?
“You’d have to ask my publicist,” Karen said. “She has all these connections with libraries and book clubs, and she always does a great job of placing me where I have readers, or, maybe they don’t know me, but they’re readers. And this introduces them to Karen White. It’s nice going to familiar places, because I am going to recognize people. I’m going to know the bookstores or the librarians, but it’s really nice also to go to new places and think gosh, I’ve never heard of this place or been here before, but I have people here.”
There are actually two Karen White books coming out this year, the other one, called “The Lady on Esplanade,” the third in the Royal Street series, is set in New Orleans. Karen said that caring for elderly parents kind of derailed her writing for a year, and now she is catching up.
“I like to bring new readers into the fold,” she said of traveling to promote her books. “I used to joke with my mom at the church she went to. They would say turn and greet your neighbors because strangers are only friends you haven’t met. That’s kind of how I feel. If you love to read, then let me meet you. I have 36 books — there’s bound to be one that you’ll enjoy. Meeting my tried and true readers is really special, because when you’re an author and you’re creating these characters in your head, they’re very real, and it’s so neat when you meet readers who have read everything, or just a few books, and they start talking about these characters as if they were real, and you’re like, oh my gosh, they’re real to me too. That kind of makes them even more real.”
When she is ready to start a new project and bring new characters to life, Karen said she doesn’t plan out the whole plot or use outlines.
“I have absolutely no idea where the book is going when I start. It makes it so much harder and I have tried to do it in a more reasonable way but that’s just not how my writing and my creative brain works. I always start with the main character. I know who she is, her internal and external conflicts, where she comes from, and I’ll have the setting, because the setting to me is always a big part of the book, a main character, actually. And I kind of go from there,” she said.
And even though she has spent so much time with these characters she created, Karen said when it’s time to wrap up a book, it’s time.
“Writing a book is hard,” she said. “Normally by the time I get to the end, I am so ready to say okay, you’re on your own now.” She said that her book tours are usually about a year after she has turned over a completed novel, so she has had some distance and can enjoy being with the characters once more. “I get to revisit them again when I talk about them,” she said.
Asked if there is one book she is most proud of, or if there was a point when she could call herself a successful writer, Karen quickly said she was still working on the second part of that question, then said each and every book had a different feeling, a different writing process, and was usually geared to where she is in life. She settled on “The Last Night in London,” saying it was her Covid book that no one even knows came out.
“I am so enormously proud of that, because it takes so much of my own life and puts it there — the seven years I lived in London. The building is sort of front and center of that story. It has that rich history of England, and I also threw in the Deep South, all of these elements I love into one book.”
Karen said the release was delayed, and then it came out but she didn’t go on tour.
“It was kind of sad. It was what I consider a beautiful book, and probably one of my best books,” she said.
But she said “That Last Carolina Summer” is a special one as well. She had been dealing with health needs of her elderly parents, and while the book isn’t about that, she said it is central to what one of the characters is going through. She said she remembers thinking that she didn’t want to write a book about it, but she did want to explore the struggle of being an adult dealing with an ailing parent.
“The struggle is real, and I thought I could really put some emotion into that, so I am proud of that book as well.”
While promoting her latest release, Karen is already working on her next book and has another
idea “percolating” in the background as well.
“My best writing, and I say that with air quotes, usually happens in my head before I actually start the book,” she said. “It’s usually when I’m working on another book, so the book I am working on right now is Book 4 in my New Orleans series, which will probably be out in 2026, but the book that’s starting to simmer in the back of my head is my next big single title.” She said it was like seeing ghosts, when you see something out of the corner of your eye, and you turn your head and it disappears — that’s what happens with her book ideas. “If I start really thinking about it, it’s going to go away, so I just kind of let it simmer a bit until I’m ready to capture it.
“I love writing about families, especially Southern families because it’s what I know,” she said. “I particularly love to write about sisters and the sister relationship. I think there’s something very special about that, and it’s funny since I only have three brothers.” She said her mother was one of five, and her aunts were “beloved” to her.
“I just remember my happiest memories, and these are the voices I hear in my head, when I would be at my grandmother’s house, sitting at her kitchen table and listening to my mom and her sisters, and my grandmother and her sister, and all the female relatives crowded around my grandmother’s tiny kitchen, just doing their Southern sister girl talk.” She said she always knew that God had gifted her with so many blessings, but the one thing he forgot was to give her a sister.
“For writers, it’s not to what we know. It’s to write about the lives we wished we had, and that’s why my books are always, always about sisters,” she said.
Look for copies of “That Last Carolina Summer” on July 22, and “The Lady on Esplanade” coming out in November. Find the link to buy tickets for Karen White’s July 25 book signing at the Silver Coast Winery at https://pelicanbookstore.com/july-25-2025-karen-white-book-signing/. Tickets are $45 and include a copy of the book, a glass of wine and light hors d’oeuvres, and the event starts at 5:30 pm.
