Friday's Guest - featuring Eileen Charbonneau with Genres #MFRWauthor #Romance #historical

1.  What's your genre or do you write in more than one?

I write historical fiction, YA historical fiction, YA mystery, and Romantic Suspense

2. Did you choose your genre or did it choose you? 

All my historical writing choose me!  I love to travel and study the deep history of places I’ve lived or traveled to.  Tidbits of fascination soon become seeds of story.  I was asked to write a YA mystery series by an editor, so that one I learned on the job!

3.  Is there any genre you'd like to try?  Or is there one you wouldn’t?

I’ve dabbled a little in sci-fi/fantasy.  How I loved The Shape of Water…I’m a sucker for a good Selkie story!  I would be open to writing in any genre I enjoy reading and I read them all, except horror, so I’d steer clear of that. 

4.  What fiction do you read for pleasure?  I always enjoy reading romance author friends’ beautiful books.  It is such a hope filled genre!  YA is usually a pleasure for me, too.

5.  Tell me a bit about yourself and how long you've been writing,  

I’ve been writing professionally since my eldest child was a year old and I started writing about our live together for women’s magazines.  What I discovered was that I worked hardest and did my best work on subjects I felt passionate about—like her!

6.  Which of your characters is your favorite?  

I like discovering who my characters are as they interact with their plots, so I’m usually most in love with my work-in-progress hero and heroine.  I loved Ethan Randolph of The Randolph Legacy because he was very bright and it was a challenging struggle to keep up with him!  He was also a quintessential Pinnochio, discovering what it is to be a “real” man thorughout the book, which charmed me and reminded me of my son.

7.  Are there villains in your books and how were they created?  

Yes, there be villains!  I try to understand them and they are, of course, the heroes of their own lives, but I’ve gone to some dark places to find them.  They block my heroes and heroines at every turn and are often their opposites…If my heroine is a generous spirit, her antagonist only cares about acquiring wealth.  If my hero honors women’s wisdom, my villain is disdainful of the notion of equality among the sexes. 

8.  What are you working on now?  

I’m working on a Civil War love story and researching my third Code Talker Chronicle novel (Romantic Suspense set in World War II)

9.  What's your latest release and how did the idea arrive?  

My latest release is Watch Over Me, whose idea arrived when I put together two loves…my love of Native American culture and service to America in World War II and my love for my 98 year old mother.  The result: a great affair between a character based on her and a slow talking Navajo Code Talker.  As my mother is a city born-and-bred, fast talking New Yawker…I had an opposites- attract story built in!