KD ROBICHAUX Updated: Jan 17, 2022 By: Krysta Kearney Romance novelist KD Robichaux has been gracing the shelves with her critically acclaimed books since 2014. Now having published 21titles, her merits are a true measure of her success. As a USA Today best-selling author, her books are reaching hands and touching the hearts of readers worldwide. They have enthralling storylines with compelling plots and twists that captivate her audience. As a romance novelist, she continually conjures the next best story, keeping her readers excited for enticing new stories. Recently, she turned to the social media platform TikTok as a means to connect with fans and the response has been beyond what she ever would have imagined. It’s been a true testament to how readers feel about the books and also, her personality! Little did she know how much TikTok would help her career and open her books to a whole new audience.
Robichaux grew up in Fayetteville, NC which is located right next to Ft. Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the country. With her father in the navy, they lived the quintessential military family lifestyle. Being the only girl and significantly younger than her three brothers, she claims she was a retirement gift to her father, as she was born the same year. One by one, all of her brothers joined the military, left home and they all ended up in Texas. Very young, she married a military man and as quickly as they married, they divorced. Looking back, it wasn’t a good relationship, it had nothing to do with the military, they split because of various other reasons. There she was, stuck in her hometown of Fayetteville, NC and with the encouragement of her brothers, she moved out to Texas. She found the true meaning of home, she identified easily and felt comfortable. Immediately, she became much closer to her brothers and in ways rebranded herself. Having spent her whole life in her hometown, it was refreshing to see a new way of life and get a new start. “Being a military wife, it’s a very hard lifestyle, it’s not for the faint of heart.” Once in Texas, she hit the ground running and went to San Jacinto College in Houston. She obtained her degree in Business Technology in hopes to become an executive assistant. It was during this time that she met her husband. She jokes that she had to go all the way to Texas to find a man that wasn’t in the military. Once she graduated college she decided to put her career on hold and became a stay-at-home mother. At the time, she had two girls and she was (and still is) the best mother she could be, tending to all their needs, making sure they have the best lives she could give them. Robichaux says she always knew she wanted to be someone’s helper (with wanting to be an executive assistant) so being a mom was the best use of her degree. Some years went by and with a heavy desire to write again, she started a blog, reviewing all the new hottest reads. This eventually opened more doors for her. Once the girls were in school, she became a full-time editor. “With me being a virgo and having OCD, I always thought I’d be a very good executive assistant, so that’s what I went to school for, was business technology in hopes to be an executive assistant and then after I became an editor. I went back and got all the training I needed to be a romance editor, which is The Chicago Manual of Style. It’s basically the textbook we (editors, writers, publishers) use for fiction editing.” She became friends with a lot of the authors that she edited for. Through conversation, she would talk about the story of how she and her husband met and they would say, you need to write this! This sounds exactly like a book! With the encouragement of these women, she took the leap and did it. That’s when the trilogy was born. Since she was 12 years old, since the moment she picked up one of her mom's Sandra Brown books, she knew she wanted to be an author, so here she was making it happen. From here, she went on to write fictional books. At first, she was very intimidated, she never thought she would write anything past the trilogy. Doubting herself she thought, ‘How can I come up with a whole story, with characters, and scenes?’ Well, she did just that and as time went on she gained more confidence and expressive freedom. She allowed herself to open up to the world, identify with her surroundings and combine her influences and own desires to create. “You always find inspiration somewhere. My first fictional book was inspired by my love of New Orleans. I combined New Orleans and my obsession with Don Wildman who is the host and narrator of Mysteries at the Museum on the travel channel. Him...as a hero in New Orleans?!? OH MY GOSH!!!” She became increasingly more excited to write. It started to pay off, her readers were leaving her positive reviews, she began to have a very loyal following. Considering that her first published title was her own personal story, without holding back literally any details, readers have always felt connected to her. She doesn’t even change their names, it’s raw, unfiltered, and honest. Most of the book’s cover art is of her and her husband, she figured why not, it would almost be strange if they weren’t since everything else is exposed and the story is 100% about them.  Her most popular books have been the Club Alias series which are about a therapist who forms a mercenary team, specializing in sexual assault survivors. He no longer can tolerate the disturbing reality that rapists are getting away with their own crimes and takes matters into his own hands. What drove her to write this series was a direct response to the People vs. Turner case that was happening at the time, in 2015. Brock Allen Turner was a Stanford University student that sexually assaulted an unconscious woman. In disgust, and in her own form of protest and raising awareness, she felt the need to share a story. Little did she know how much of an influence the book would have on women, to help sexual assault survivors with their own PTDS overcome some of their trauma. Through the years she has had many women write her saying things like, ‘Thank you for your books, I am a sexual assault survivor and I have gotten closure just from reading your books.’ It’s comments like this that touch her so much and encourages her to keep writing. “The message that I really want to get across especially with my Club Alias series is the healing behind it. The reason I started my Club Alias series was as a form of therapy for myself because I am a survivor of sexual assault. The alpha men in my books, I use them to hype up the woman’s power.” Most of her book's characters are damsels in distress, (women who need to be rescued from danger) and alpha men who want to help in some way. In all her books, the women are strong, they are the true heroines of the story. She emphasizes that they are powerful. Even though they are typically in vulnerable positions, they are risk-takers, defeating societal norms, doing something to better their lives. She doesn’t leave any of the hardships out of any of her characters’ profiles. Most of her books also have some sort of military influence in them whether it be that a character was or is in a branch, their partner is, or a family member is. She wants to share with people how hard a military relationship is and relate to readers who are part of one. Robichaux says thankfully, there is huge respect for military wives, as they literally hold down the fort while the husbands are gone. They are the wife, the mother, the rock, everything for the family. “My heroines are like Girl power. Clarice (the main character from Club Alias) is an overseas photographer and went over into the Afghanistan war and took photos of the war and fell in love with one of the soldiers, so she’s a badass!”  Robichaux also writes BDSM, which stands for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism. These are all components of what makes up erotic romance novels. All of her books are hot and sexy with BDSM scenes but also have an overall powerful message about romance and self-love. In fact, in one book, the main character Doc, uses BDSM as a form of therapy. In the book, it’s all about women getting their power back and taking charge of their own lives. Robichaux calls her books lady porn, a play on terms. The big difference between pornography and her romance novels is that ‘lady’ on the front, before the word porn. The books speak the heart and soul of a woman...of a lady and also details erotic and euphoric sex scenes. “The thing with BDSM, you think of whips and chains and leather and this dark thing but it’s actually...once you get past that little exterior of it, the submissive is the one in power because he or she has the power. As soon as they say no, the dominant has to stop. They have to! You are not a real dominant if you don’t stop when that submissive uses their safe word. In my books (so far) the woman has always been the submissive, but she has all the power. She has all the power! No matter how far someone has taken that power from you in the past, you can get it back.” Many of her books have been co-written with one of her best friends, C.C. Monroe. When they first met, Monroe was so sweet and supportive. Naturally, she wanted to be her friend! They ended up having a bond they could never share with anyone else, they went through three years of infertility together. Robichaux and her husband wanted another child and couldn’t get pregnant and Monroe could either, both of them struggled.
It was an incredibly rough time in their lives, there was sadness, depression and feelings of being defeated while never wanting to give up. One evening, the night before Robichaux’s husband was going to get his sperm tested, she lost it and was in emotional distress. (When telling this story, Robichaux reminded us that the fertility medicine she was on will make you very, very loopy.) She had a horrible panic attack and thought up so many things that could go wrong. “I told my husband, ‘The doctor is gonna think you’re so hot that she is going to steal your sperm and she is going to impregnate herself and she is going to give you the baby that I am unable to give you!’ I was so crazy, but then it switched and I thought that would be a crazy book!!” She talked to Monroe about her dark, twisted crazy idea. Monroe loved it and thought it would be a great book. Robichaux asked if she would want to write it with her, she felt it could be therapeutic for both of them with everything they were going through. Of course, she was ecstatic and they started writing. They made the book from the doctor's point of view though, which was fun for them. It did just as she thought, and helped them get through those dark times. It became very obvious that they worked seamlessly together and it was the perfect partnership. After the first book was published, readers said they couldn’t even tell who wrote what. “A lot of readers are saying that when you write together, it writes magic.” Since then, they have written many titles together, always with one common theme, doctors. Both of them have always had an obsession with Grey’s Anatomy, so of course, they had to. You have to write something you're interested in! Right now they are working on a mafia romance together. By the way Robichaux described it to us at Moxxi, it sounds pretty epic. “It’s a damsel in distress, enemies as lovers, mafia romance, and that came from TikTok! We’re taking their (followers) suggestions, smushing it all together, and making a book.”  An even better story though, a real-life one, is that both Robichaux and Monroe have since been able to conceive! Monroe adopted a little boy after thinking she was never going to get pregnant and now, she is 26 weeks pregnant. For Robichaux, she and her husband said they would give it three years of taking fertility medicine and if nothing happened by then she would stop. She was in her early 30’s and knew by the time she reached her mid 30’s it would be considered a geriatric pregnancy. Three years came, it was her 35th birthday and just after she was off the medicine, well what do you know, she got pregnant! At first, she thought it was crazy that it was considered a geriatric pregnancy but once she was, she felt the stark difference of being pregnant during her 30’s versus her 20’s. Jokingly she said, ‘Once you’re pregnant in your mid 30’s it's 100% A GERIATRIC PREGNANCY hahaha!’ Now, they have three beautiful girls! What a miracle for both she and Monroe. Not only is there a cute little toddler running around the house now, but there have also been a lot of recent changes for the family. In the wake of the pandemic, there were two major shifts for them. First, her husband got laid off from the successful job that he had been at for years in the oil industry. Second, Robichaux’s books started to gain a lot more recognition due to her following on TikTok. At first, with her husband's loss of his job, the family was in shock. For years, she was the stay-at-home mother and her writing brought in some money but they considered it their ‘play money.’ The family's livelihood was reliant on his income. While interviewing with Moxxi, her husband chimed in for a few minutes. He explained how from a guy's perspective, his wife was the stay-at-home mother for 13 years, the boss of the household. He felt it was his duty to take it upon himself to support his family financially. When she started writing books, he was all for it, she was so passionate about it and it made her happy, he loved it. Life was great, they were comfortable, everyone was happy and doing what they wanted to be doing, then he lost his job and it was shocking. He politely asked Moxxi if he could swear on camera and said, “It was pretty much a punch in the dick! As a guy I had always had a job, I had always been employed. She really stepped up and I think from a female empowerment side, it's a testament to me. She took something that started as a blog and turned it into this empire. If anything, it makes me just even more hot for her. I’m really super proud.” Robichaux was super supportive of Jason when he lost his job. Those first few months, she figured she would do everything she can to hype her business up while he took care of the girls. As far as she and her husband, it's really something special, it's not typical that a married couple is both successful in business and at home. When they initially married, she put her career on hold while he went to work every day and now he gets the chance to be home with the girls. The two older ones are grown, at 14 and 12 they can take care of themselves but it has been such a rewarding experience for him to be part of everything that he missed with the older two growing up.  “At first it was (my husband was) like, ‘Oh my god babe, how did you do this by yourself for so long? I completely understand why I would come home from work now and you would be dead, or in a bad mood, or don’t touch me, I now understand that. But as long as you are willing to do this as long as you are willing to be the head honcho of the household I want to continue to do this because I missed this with our older ones and I feel so close to our little one because I’m actually here.’” As far as TikTok, the social media platform has been a game-changer for her. She explained that in the author industry usually, you can only rely on your new book release, mainly because of marketing platforms like Facebook. Once people have seen your new book they say ok, I’ve seen that already and they scroll past. Facebook doesn’t allow you to reach a new group of people easily, your main audience is the core group you started with. With TikTok, she hasn’t even written a book recently, it is reaching new readers, therefore all of her books are new again in a way. Her books have been exposed to a whole different audience, people who have never even been into romance novels! There are even people in their 40’s who say they haven’t read a book since high school and are totally hooked. “I went from, oh my god I’m never gonna hit 50,000 followers, that would be crazy, I would feel like such a big deal if I had like 20,000 followers. Now I’m almost to 180,000 and I’m just like (whoa). The best part, it’s not even the numbers that matter…it makes my day when I can turn someone’s day around. I put on a 7 second video that brightens someone’s day.” A book that was published back in 2016 just now hit bestseller, due from TikTok! It has breathed new life into her backlist of books. Now that she has been on TikTok for over a year she knows it’s time to write a new book, readers are getting caught up. This is the first time since she started writing that she has been able to take a break. It freed up a lot of time for her to spend with her family. Taking the time away and allowing for reviews and responses to collect has been beneficial in understanding what her readers want. All the feedback fuels her creativity. The whole experience has been very empowering for her. Not only does she hype the viewers up, but they give her confidence and drive too. She couldn't be more thankful for her group of followers. 99% of them are women and all the comments are encouraging and supportive, it makes her get excited about lifting other women up. She feeds off the strength of a community of women, of girl power. Even the comments from men are positive and encouraging, she loves seeing them. She referred to a video where she and her husband were going on an anniversary trip, just the two of them, to Jamaica. She bought a tiny bikini to wear down there for him and posted his reaction on TikTok. Her fans were so supportive and hyping her up, both the men and women, not only were they saying things like, ‘You look good girl!!’ but also in reference to her husband saying, ‘More men need to talk to their ladies like that.’ It got over a million views. People asked for her to show the backside and she was like, ‘NEVER!’ After all the encouragement and positivity from her fans, once on vacation, she did a backside reveal! She never once got a single negative response. It goes to show how powerful a community of support can be.
I can admittedly say, K.D. Robichaux is honestly one of the kindest, sweetest, and most fun-loving people I have ever spoken to. Her gratitude towards her fans and just life, in general, is incredibly apparent and the love that she has for her family is undeniable. What she has created for her life and her daughters is inspiring. Her comedic demeanor mixed with her charismatic personality is a breath of fresh air. She and her family have been through many hardships but this has only made them stronger. Having written such a large amount of books in such a short amount of time, we know that she is going to continue to do great things. K.D. Robichaux is one fearless female to keep out a look for!  Q + A Any words of advice? Treat people the way you want to be treated. I’ve had to learn the hard way in this industry (not to put a bad light on it). I do a lot of favors, I give a lot of advice, I try to hype people up and when I ask for it in return it doesn’t always get returned. The big thing is that you got to remember is who you are as yourself and try not to turn into a Petty Betty! Don’t turn into them, stay your genuine self where you are still treating everybody the way you would want to be in return even though you know that it's not going to be returned. What does the word Moxxi mean to you? I love the word Moxxi because it’s a synonym of sassy, I give my heroines a dose of sassy and Moxxi because those are my favorite heroines, you got to have Moxxi! Any quotes you abide by? Be the type of person that when someone starts talking shit behind your back they don’t believe them. Through everything in your life what motivates you the most? “I’ll make it honest. About 95% is our family, keeping our head above water. The other 5% is it feels good that people look up to me. I never thought I would be a person someone looked up to. I’m just Kayla Robichaux from podunk Fayetteville NC, no one's going to look up to me! For people to make the comments, ‘You made my day brighter,’ and ‘You’ve inspired me to write’ (thats a big one)...the other one I absolutely love is when these beaten-down women come to me and say, ‘You’ve put into words what I’ve never been able to tell my therapist.’ I'm like wow, and now they’re on the road to recovery! It feels so good, I'm actually doing something good for the world and not just my family.” What are some of your favorite characters in your books? Astrid is probably my most beaten down heroine. Anything bad that could happen in life, has happened to her. I paired her with my most dominant alpha, Doc. Even though she was the lowest of the low, she ends up being this amazing fearless female.” Doc is actually based on my therapist, his name is Dr. Neil Walker, my doctor (in real life) is Dr. Walker, but she is this tiny Jamaican woman and has this strong, big presence that I made her the hero of the whole entire series. I told her don’t feel bad I turned you into a man, but I needed you to be this big man….I needed you to be the big patriarch of this book. In my acknowledgments, I say, ‘Dr. Walker is real but ladies don’t get your hopes up she’s a tiny little Jamaican woman.’ haha”
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