Carol Roddy – Author

Today, I wish to welcome my friend, Caroline Warfield, to the Every Woman Dreams blog. Caroline Warfield has at various times been an army brat, a librarian, a poet, a raiser of children, a nun, a bird watcher, an Internet and Web services manager, a conference speaker, an indexer, a tech writer, a genealogist, and, of course, a romantic. She sailed through the English channel while it was still mined from WWII, stood on the walls of Troy, searched Scotland for the location of an entirely fictional castle (and found it), climbed the steps to the Parthenon, floated down the Thames from the Tower to Greenwich, shopped in the Ginza, lost herself in the Louvre, gone on a night safari at the Singapore zoo, walked in the Black Forest, and explored the underground cistern of Istanbul. By far the biggest adventure has been life-long marriage to a prince among men.

She sits in front of a keyboard at a desk surrounded by windows, looks out at the trees and imagines. Her greatest joy is when one of those imaginings comes to life on the page and in the imagination of her readers.

I asked Caroline some quirky questions so you might learn more of her.

What’s the craziest, bravest, or stupidest thing you’ve ever done?

What an interesting question. Risk comes in a variety of forms. I am terrified of heights so, in one sense, the bravest thing I ever did was step off a ninety-foot cliff and rappel down it. “Feel the fear. Do it anyway,” became a life motto for me at one point.

In another sense, however, the bravest thing was allowing myself to love and marry. The utter exposure of one’s vulnerabilities to another takes immense courage. The “danger” from the titles of all the books in my current series is to the human heart. I believe this strongly. The tag line for all my writing is “Love is worth the risk.”

How long have you been writing, and how did you decide this was a career you wanted to pursue?

I completed my first novel in 1998 after diddling with it for a few years. I sent it off to the Harlequin critique service (with a hefty fee, of course). What came back told me essentially that the work wasn’t publishable as it was, but that my writing held promise. I believed them. At that point, I began to think of myself as a writer.

That novel, by the way, is upstairs in a closet and also deep in my laptop files. I recently pulled it out, sliced it, diced it, and massaged the pieces into a novella called A Dangerous Nativity. It is included in the Bluestocking Belles’ boxed set, Mistletoe, Marriage, and Mayhem.

What do you write? You’re welcome to include your latest title (shameless plug)

If a fiction genre has a historical setting, I’ve probably tried it. I worked on a long historical novel set on a medieval pilgrimage. An agent is reviewing one of my historical novels for the middle grades as I type this. Those will carry the by-line “Carol Roddy.” As Caroline Warfield, I write historical romance. My first series is set in the Regency era. The next will be set in the early years of Victoria’s reign, and carry over characters from the first. History and geography are important elements in all my books but in romance, the love story comes first.

My latest title? Dangerous Weakness is set in 1818. It tells the story of a man learning to trust and a woman learning that sometimes love is shown by action not words. It skims over a backdrop of the seething upheavals of the Mediterranean basin in that era, including revolution in Greece, Barbary corsairs, and the weakening grasp of the Ottoman Empire. Readers of my previous books will enjoy seeing the Marquess of Glenaire taken down a peg or two and learning to let his kindness and caring heart out into the open.

Introducing Dangerous Weakness

How far will he go to protect her? How far will she run from her fears?

If women were as easily managed as the affairs of state—or the recalcitrant Ottoman Empire—Richard Hayden, Marquess of Glenaire, would be a happier man. As it was the creatures—one woman in particular—made hash of his well-laid plans and bedeviled him on all sides.
Lily Thornton came home from Saint Petersburg in pursuit of marriage. She wants a husband and a partner, not an overbearing, managing man. She may be “the least likely candidate to be Marchioness of Glenaire,” but her problems are her own to fix, even if those problems include both a Russian villain and an interfering Ottoman official.

Given enough facts, Richard can fix anything. But protecting that impossible woman is proving to be almost as hard as protecting his heart, especially when Lily’s problems bring her dangerously close to an Ottoman revolution. As Lily’s personal problems entangle with Richard’s professional ones, and she pits her will against his, he chases her across the pirate-infested Mediterranean. Will she discover surrender isn’t defeat? It might even have its own sweet reward.

Excerpt: 

If women were as easily managed as the affairs of state—or the recalcitrant Ottoman Empire—Richard Hayden, Marquess of Glenaire, would be a happier man. As it was, the creatures made hash of his well-laid plans and bedeviled him on all sides.

“What did we miss now? I can tell you’re unhappy.” Will Landrum, Earl of Chadbourn, and one of the handful of men who would call Richard ‘friend,’ was not fooled by the cool façade and bland expression with which the marquess surveyed his ballroom.

“Who invited Lilias Thornton?” Richard demanded under his breath. His eyes followed a slender young woman who paced out the steps of the Quadrille across the parquet floor of the earl’s ballroom.

“No ‘thank you for turning your country seat into a diplomatic snake pit for an entire week so the haut ton can mingle with exotic visitors from the East while the foreign secretary manages the fate of Greece over Brandy and cards?’” Will demanded.

Richard looked at his friend, one eyebrow raised. “Chadbourn Park fit the need precisely. I thanked your Catherine this morning.”

Will grunted. “My Catherine worked miracles when Sahin Pasha showed up with six extra people in his party.”

“We can’t predict how many retainers the Turks will impose,” Richard growled. The Ottomans danced to their own tune; the Foreign Office never knows what to expect. Richard loathed the unpredictable. He went back to surveying the overheated ballroom.

“Who invited Lilias Thornton?” he repeated.

Purchase Links (Kindle only)
US
UK
Canada
Euro
India
Aus
Learn More of Caroline Warfield Here:
Visit Caroline’s Website and Blog
Meet Caroline on Facebook

Amazon Author Page

Follow Caroline on Twitter @CaroWarfield
Email Caroline directly warfieldcaro@gmail.com
Play in the Bluestocking Bookshop

Caroline’s Other Books
Dangerous Works 
Dangerous Secrets 

Now, for the Giveaway: 

Caroline will give Kindle copies of both Dangerous Works and Dangerous Secrets, one each to two randomly selected people who comment.

Mistletoe, Marriage, and Mayhem can be pre-ordered for the remarkable price of 99 cents at
Amazon


Amazon UK

Amazon Australia

Amazon Germany