. What were you in your life before you became a writer? Did this influence your writing?
As near as I can pinpoint that time, I had a full time career and three teenagers, a challenging time in any family. My background is in library and information science, and the bulk of my career focused on information technology for libraries. While I found work absorbing and satisfying, family drained the kind of energy I need for creative writing. Madeline L'Engle once observed that she wrote an entire novel in dressing rooms while on tour with a play, but she could not write with children in the house. That seemed to be the case for me also. Most of my prose in those days consisted of technical documentation, business communication, and articles for professional publications. It took forever to write that first, long-forgotten, novel, and courage to have it critiqued. By the time my nest began to empty (at least between college semesters) I joined the Central Ohio Fiction Writers and began to take myself and my fiction seriously.
2 Are you genre specific or general? Why? I don't mean genres like romance, mystery, fantasy etc. There are many subgenres of the above.
My two interests and passions are history and family. My published works are all historical romance, and all involve family in some way. However I also have a historical novel outlined in detail; the research for that is partially done. In addition, I have completed three middle grade novels set during the great depression and World War II—completed, but not published. I'm finding the pace of publishing historical romance has put a temporary hold on the other two genres. I have little interest in fantasy generally, but steampunk tickles me. While I love historical mysteries as a reader, I don't have enough of a detailed plotter in me to actually write those.
3. Did your reading choices have anything to do with your choice of a genre or genres?
Absolutely. Even as a child I gravitated toward biography, history, and historical novels. As a young mother with a busy household I fell in love with historical romance because it was comfortable, easy to read, and emotionally satisfying. I liked what I called "bathtub books," historical romance just the right length for a bubble bath. At some point I began to think, "I can do that!" Of course it is much harder than it looks and the learning curve was steep.
4. What's your latest release?
The Renegade Wife is the first of a new series called Children of Empire. Since most of the books in my Dangerous Series involved children, I thought it might be interesting to imagine what might happen to them as adults, during the height of the empire in the early Victorian era. Renegade, the first, actually takes place in 1832, just before Victoria. The era bristled with social upheaval, reform movements, and changes in women's lives; it is ripe with material for stories.
The heroine escapes an abusive relationship. The existing laws, which gives her no right to her own children, were on the brink of change in 1832. The hero, who first appears as a boy in my Christmas novella, A Dangerous Nativity, is a reclusive businessman living in Upper Canada. Circumstances, however. force him back to England, or what is more important to me, back to family.
5. What are you working on now?
The hero of the next book in the series, The Reluctant Wife, is the brother of the hero of the first. He is a officer with the East India Company. His story is in progress now.
6. Where can we find you?
Since I retired to the urban wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania (ok ok—suburban Philadelphia) I spend my time in an office with windows on three sides and bookshelves under the windows.
You can find me on the Web at:
LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/pr
Amazon Author Page http://www.amazon.com/Carolin
Good Reads http://bit.ly/1C5blTm
or contact me through:
Twitter @CaroWarfield or https://twitter.com/CaroWar
Email warfieldcaro@gmail.com
My Newsletter: http://www.carolinewarfield.co
Much thanks for asking me such great questions.
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