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Kate Willoughby

USA Today Bestselling Author

  • USA Today Bestselling Author

11.10.2009 All In, Research

Real Life Imitates Art

Wow! I’m checking my email today and I see a headline, “21-year-old becomes youngest WSOP champion ever.” I immediately click on the link because, if you look at WSOP and scratch your head in confusion, it stands for World Series of Poker.

I know. You’re probably still confused. So, Kate’s into poker. So what?

Well, in my very first Be-Wished book, All In, the hero was a pro poker player, but when I was researching I couldn’t really look up the average salary of poker players. I had to just look at the winning pots and speculate. I watched a few hours of the WSOP and was surprisingly engaged. So today, I read the article. Most of it was a summary of the head to head combat between the two lead players throughout the tournament, but the cool thing I found out is that Joe Cada “chose cards over college.” And that’s kind of what my character did too, despite a full scholarship to Stanford. And the pile of chips Joe Cada ended up with? EIGHT POINT FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. Yeah. My hero, Tucker, could easily afford the lifestyle I had him living.

It’s probably not any big deal to anyone else, but I was tickled.

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Kate Willoughby

USA Today Bestselling Author Kate Willoughby happily writes her contemporary hockey romances in Southern California. She is married and has two sons and a Chihuahua. When she’s not writing, she’s watching hockey. When it’s not hockey season, she whines a lot.

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