Kristen Ness and At Loggerheads

A Lowcountry Author and her Debut Novel

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Sitting down with Kristen Ness, a new local author, is like arriving on a Lowcountry beach on a summer day. She brings with her the most pleasant demeanor, a sunny personality and a warm smile. One cannot help but be invited in by her personable attitude and easy conversation. With her new book, At Loggerheads, surely following suit, the hearts and minds of its readers will certainly be quickly captivated.

​At Loggerheads is an age-old idiom which means in a dispute, a harsh disagreement or at odds and also happens to serve as the name of the native South Carolina species of sea turtles, making it a well-thought-out and perfect title for this murder mystery.

At Loggerheads tells the fictional story of a marine scientist, Brooke Edens, who works at a local South Carolina aquarium and volunteers for the local turtle team on Anders Isle.The story takes place in late May when native loggerhead sea turtles should be nesting; however, Edens is baffled to find that nesting patterns aren’t tracking. As she works to uncover this nesting conundrum, Edens finds herself caught up in a much larger mystery as a dead body and other crimes surface. As she works alongside a dear friend and endearing love interest, things take a turn when the happenings on this small, little island have a ripple effect on the larger, national stage as a favorite candidate, and the father of Edens’s ex-fiance, is emerging for the upcoming US presidential election.

Although At Loggerheads is her debut novel, Ness has a long history of writing.

“I don’t remember when I started to love writing,” said Ness. “It was something I just always did. [...] From the time I can remember, I would keep journals. I remember having this Snoopy journal that was yellow. It had Snoopy on the front on his little, red doghouse, and it had a lock on it. I think I was probably eight, and I believe that was my first diary. I still have it, but I probably only wrote in it a few times, mostly about big deals like my birthday, my friends, my neighbors, and just simple observations.”

“I kept journals from the time I was little up until, well even now,” added Ness. “I have an electronic journal that I occasionally go in and jot down what is going on with the day or even little bits of ideas. So, writing was something that I just always did and loved to do to figure out the world, figure out myself, express myself and vent about things going on. [...]”

“Eventually, I started coming up with ideas of my own,” continued Ness. “I’d maybe write a little poem or a short story and it wasn’t until I was out of college that I thought ‘I really want to write a book, and I need to find an idea,’ so getting into writing was natural for me. Finding the topic to write on, I really had to think hard about. [...] I had never written anything that long before.”

Ness eventually found the inspiration for her new novel from her love of sea turtles and her growing up in South Carolina and regularly visiting Isle of Palms where she would throw cast nets in the tidepools, pull things up and take them back to her aquarium at home. 

“I loved marine creatures from a very young age [...],” said Ness. “I was always fascinated by sea creatures, and I didn’t think I would actually do that for a living. I, instead, got an English degree in college but was trying to choose between two very different subjects.. English, writing and reading which I loved, and science, which was a totally different path. So that was always something I kept as a hobby, and when it came time to find an idea for my book, [marine life] was very much something I thought I would love to write about because then I could make my main character a marine biologist and explore that passion of mine through my writing [...].”

In fact, she eventually found her way to the Lowcountry region due to her love for the water and all of its inhabitants.

“I am a beach girl,” said Ness. “My favorite place in the whole world is the North end of Isle of Palms. I feel like it’s really my true home. I’ve seen it change [...], but I can just walk around that curve of the beach to the left with the inlet between it, and I go there just to find a sense of peace. I take my kids and husband there and have shown them my special place. It just feels like home to me. I love being by the ocean, I love sea creatures, I love to collect shells and I missed it when I was further away from it. I told my husband that my rule is that I can never be more than a four hour drive from the ocean.”

When she is not writing or finding refuge on a sandy beach, Ness has her hands full with a number of responsibilities. She is a full-time mom to her two kids, a practicing immigration lawyer and a member of the local Isle of Palms turtle team, herself, where she walks her section of the dunes to help protect the native Loggerhead sea turtle nests and sea turtle population.

Only about one in 1,000 hatchlings will live to be an adult sea turtle,” said Ness. “So, we do our part to help them achieve that as best

“On any given day, my life can look totally different,” added Ness. “I don’t set aside any specific writing time, so I really just find inspiration whenever it hits. Last week, actually, I was on a flight to New York, and I was going to settle in and watch a movie, but they didn’t have the screens on the seats so instead I pulled out my notebook and wrote the next scene for my next book that I’m working on.”

With that being said, Ness did divulge that she is currently working on another novel in her genre of murder mystery where she highlights yet another sea creature, the notorious pufferfish. 

If her new book At Loggerheads proves to be anything like its author, it will certainly be a well-paced and enthralling read that will keep readers turning pages. Those interested in At Loggerheads can find paperbacks at Buxton Books on King Street, The Village Bookseller on Coleman Blvd. in Mt. Pleasant, Zinnia Gift Shop in Belle Hall Shopping Center, and Barnes & Noble in Mt. Pleasant Town Centre. Paperbacks are also available online wherever books are sold and directly from the publisher online with free shipping at evepostbooks.com. 

For those interested in meeting the author, Kristen Ness, she will be having an in-store book signing at Barnes & Noble at the Mt. Pleasant Town Centre today, Friday, June 16 from 2:30-4:30 in celebration of World Sea Turtle Day.