Kate Cole on High Voltage - Author Interview
I'm excited to welcome Kate Cole to the blog to celebrate the release of High Voltage! Kate shares the inspiration behind her latest Women in Trades Romance®️ novel, the importance of representing women in skilled trades, and the research that went into creating Greta's story as an electrician.
Keep reading to learn more about the opposites-attract romance between Greta and Ellis, the representation woven throughout the story, Kate's distinctive cover design process, and what's next in Kate’s author journey.
About High Voltage
The world is not what it once was.
Greta is wired to please.
As operator of High Voltage Electric, ever loyal to her friends and family, she’s built a life around making others happy. And it’s a fine life, an acceptable life. A predictable life. Until an anonymous note is left behind for her on a university job site, and Greta feels compelled to answer.
The resulting correspondence leads her down a mysterious path to a tweed-jacketed geography professor named Ellis Gladstone. But just as fate puts them on the same map, she learns that there’s more to him than his horny-rimmed glasses; he’s been keeping secrets.
While the truth he hides might have darker elements, the way he makes her feel is pure light. Ellis Gladstone could be the type of hazard Greta’s always been warned about: powerful and dangerous, best marked with a lightning bolt and a caution sign. Or theirs could be the once-in-a-lifetime coupling that wields the potential to change their arcs.
How can their connection be wrong, if it feels so right?
Release Date: September 26, 2026
Pages: 332
ASIN : B0H7CB2JJB
Series: Women in Trades Romance Series Book 3 (Interconnected Standalone)
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Electrician, Forbidden/Secret Relationship, Horny-Rimmed Glasses, Opposites Attract, Spicy Scrabble, Tools, Not Toys, University Professor, Oops, We…
Content Warnings: This book contains discussions around chronic health challenges, epilepsy, and seizures. It also describes a seizure event on the page. Scenes that take place in high-risk electrical work environments are also depicted.
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Interview
Tell us about your new release, High Voltage! What can readers expect from Greta and Ellis's story?
High Voltage is the third book in my Women in Trades Romance®️ series. Readers have met Greta in the earlier instalments, but High Voltage is a standalone novel in this interconnected series, and you don’t need to read the previous stories to enjoy Greta’s. High Voltage is an opposites-attract, forbidden romance that features Greta (an electrician) and Ellis (a university professor), who are both people-pleasers, and who need to learn to put their own desires first in order to find true happiness.
Greta is a woman in the skilled trades, which isn't something we see often in romance. Why was it important for you to write her story, and what kind of research or personal experience went into creating her character?
As a woman who works in the construction field, who also happens to be a voracious romance reader, I never saw women in the trades or other hands-on construction jobs in romance books. Just like women in STEM deserve to be represented, so do women working in trades. I know a lot about trades, but I’m not an electrician.
This is highly technical work. It takes 9000 hours of instructional and on-the-job training to qualify to write the exam to get your red seal. Fortunately, what I lack in technical knowledge for this specific trade, I make up for in fabulous relationships with tradeswomen. I interviewed and consulted with several electricians to make sure that I got all the technical aspects right. Especially what being an electrician as a woman is like.
I also did plenty of background research about things like arc flashes, and safety and training requirements so I could write that with confidence.
Greta and Ellis come from very different worlds: she's an electrician, and he's a university professor. What made these two such a compelling pairing, and why do they work so well together?
I loved playing with the opposites-attract dynamic. People make a lot of assumptions about the trades: about who does this type of work, and what the job entails. I loved showing how an electrician can keep a PhD university prof on his toes, subvert his (and the reader’s!) expectations, and even show our sharp electrician winning at Scrabble.
What was also lovely was showing how—no matter what we commit our 9-5 lives to—people can have so much in common. Our struggles and dreams are universal, after all. Greta and Ellis might be opposites on paper, but the reality is, theirs is a perfect pairing.
High Voltage features epilepsy representation. Why was it important for you to include that representation, and what do you hope readers living with epilepsy, or learning about it for the first time, will take away from this story?
A very good friend of mine has epilepsy, and I’ve watched as she was diagnosed and has had to modify all aspects of her life around this chronic illness. When it came time to develop one of my character’s backstories, epilepsy just seemed like the right choice. It’s a chronic neurological condition that is shrouded in mystery, and one that is not often seen or described on the page.
I wanted to show its impacts to the reader, partly out of respect and admiration for my friend who has struggled so much with it, but also for others who similarly have had to give up so much of their lives and personal freedom because of the condition. It didn’t occur to me until the end of the book that I had fittingly chosen a chronic illness that is really the result of faulty electrical signals in the brain—one electrical problem that Greta, our capable electrician, simply cannot repair.
Which character was your favourite to write, and why?
Without question, it was JT. I adore him. He’s appeared in two of my books now, and every time I write his scenes, I feel like I get to tap into the more mischievous side of myself. He has an absolutely wicked sense of humour, loves to give the tradies a hard time, but he’s a true ally to all of them. He’s their ride or die with slightly Roy Kent vibes.
Was there a scene that surprised you while writing?
I have two highly technical scenes in industrial electrical scenarios. When I set out to write those scenes, I feared that I wouldn’t be able to pull the highly technical aspects off while still producing compelling moments that the reader could get invested in. When I finished writing them, I actually cried from both relief and joy, having accomplished that task.
The covers for your Women in Trades series have become incredibly recognizable and are unlike anything else in the romance genre. Could you tell us about your cover design process and how you bring each concept to life?
When I set out to design my first cover, I was really torn. My books are mature in nature, about real life, sometimes complex subject matter, and about grown women. They also have strong feminist themes. The illustrated covers that are very popular today just didn’t seem like the right fit either. Using photographs of real people seemed too serious to me, and didn’t seem to capture the lighter, more humorous aspects of my stories. I’ve always been a fan of discreet covers, or covers that show themes with symbols. I took that idea and ran with it, leaning into the construction signage idea, and using drafting font you find on architectural and engineering drawings—a huge part of a tradesperson’s work.
Then I asked Paige Moreland to work with me to develop the pen-and-ink drawings behind the signage and put my ideas together. She’s done an incredible job. The colours I select are always a fun part of the process. Pink was the first book’s choice because the FMC in Under Construction loves the colour pink. I must admit, it was so much fun to juxtapose a book about tradespeople with the colour pink. (I’m all about subversion, after all!) I think at first, people wondered what I was doing with my covers—it was something they’d never really seen before and didn’t know what to make of it. Now, each time a new book comes out, they’re eager to try to guess the signage, title, and colour.
If you could describe High Voltage in three words, what would they be?
Kismet. Kisses. Connections.
What's next for you?
Everyone is eagerly awaiting Larry’s story—the fourth and final book in the WiTR series. And it’s coming, I swear. But I might have some other surprises in store first.
Where can readers connect with you online?
The best place to reach me is on Instagram at @katecoleauthor. As a busy woman in construction in the streets, spicy romcom writer in my desk seat, I have to focus my time and energy in one place. The con to this: no splashy TikTok videos. The pro to this: a degree of authenticity drawn from a career spent working alongside the trades that extends to all my creative endeavours.
About Kate Cole
Since meeting Mr. Darcy in English 101, Kate Cole hasn’t managed to shake her obsession with all things happily ever after. A sucker for romance, Kate is a woman in construction on the street, spicy romcom writer in her desk seat. When she isn’t reading or writing, she’s also a wife and mom in suburbia who can’t get enough of Duran Duran or pedicures that match her current reads.
Connect with Kate
Instagram: @katecoleauthor
Wrapping Up
Thank you so much to Kate for taking the time to chat with me and for sharing more about High Voltage! I loved learning about the inspiration behind Greta and Ellis's story and the care Kate put into researching both the technical and personal aspects of Greta's work as an electrician. I also loved hearing about the creative process behind the series' covers and getting a glimpse at what's next for the Women in Trades Romance®️ series!
Kate will also be attending Royal City Romance in Guelph, Ontario, this October. If you're in the area, be sure to check out the event and stop by her table, where you'll be able to pick up a copy of High Voltage along with her other books.
If you're planning to attend, you can also save 10% on your ticket by using my discount code: JESSBEYONDTHEPAGES.
Are you an author interested in being featured in an upcoming author interview? I'd love to hear from you! Send me an email at jessbeyondthepages@gmail.com with the subject line “Author Interview Inquiry.”
Until next time, happy reading!
