Hello! Welcome to my new website, featuring my (kind of) new name.

The name change is a long story that deserves a longer essay, but for now, I’ll just give you the short—and incredibly bizarre—version.

In 2013, a reader sent me an email. “Do you know that if you Google your name,” she wrote, “it says you died in 2010?”

I did not know this, but a quick Google search confirmed my untimely death (insert cheesy Mark Twain joke here). The screen showed a photo of me, the name of my alma mater, the date of my birth, the year of my alleged death, and the covers of several romance novels I most definitely did not write. It was, to say the very least, creepy as hell. After reassuring myself that I had not been unwittingly pulling a Weekend At Bernie’s, I managed to get the erroneous information taken down.

But the incident lingered in my mind. Clearly, there was another author named Karen Abbott (dead or alive, I have no idea) whose books were being conflated with mine. Plus I was approaching forty and felt like a change. Many old friends already called me “Abbott,” which always appealed to me as a first name. I especially liked it coupled with my husband’s surname, Kahler (pronounced Kay-ler); Abbott Kahler, I felt, had an appealing Weimar Republic vibe. In 2014, I went to the courthouse in Manhattan, filed a sheaf of paperwork, paid all of the requisite fees, and my new moniker was official. Abbott Kahler will be the name on all of my books from now on. Until then, you can learn more about my books published under the pen name “Karen Abbott” here.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope to meet you one day, either virtually or on the road.