Tag Archives: Caroline Warfield

Caroline Warfield’s Dangerous Secrets

Updated on April 22, 2015 by Janet Mullany

Today we welcome back Caroline Warfield, who’s here to talk about her most recent release Dangerous Secrets and she’s giving away a copy of her first book Dangerous Works (Kindle/US only). The winner will be chosen from those who participate by adding a comment or by other means (see below).

Buy the book:
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And now let’s talk to Caroline…

I loved the setting of the book–Rome after the Napoleonic wars. Do you have any stories about your research trip there?

Rome to me meant Cicero and Caesar growing up. I took Latin for four years in high school. I remember winning some sort of medal in a competition. Rome also meant church and on my first trip there I expected churches and ruins. I discovered a complex city with layers of history. (In some cases literally layers such as the excavations below San Clemente that cover 1500 years of history)

It was the Keats/Shelley museum that made me think perhaps I could set a English regency story in an Italian city. I sat by the Spanish Steps and thought, “What if I put an impoverished hero here?” The art of the Grand Tour made it clear that the upper classes went to Rome in droves in the early nineteenth century. I knew I was on to something. One of the challenges of writing to the Regency Period is keeping it fresh. I think Rome helped me do that. Traveling there twice enabled me to envision it.

Any advice on writing children as secondary characters? (I think you did it rather well!)

Thank you! I rather like Isabella, Nora’s niece, myself. I love bright verbal children. I don’t know that I understand the process of creating them on the page, however. I suspect one tool in the writer’s collection has to be a good ear. If you listen carefully to how people talk and act it is easier to breathe life into your characters. That is particularly true with children. If you sit and talk with them you get a feel for how their minds work. I like the scenes where Isabella holds court after the kidnapping. She loves the spotlight.

Did you find writing a book that’s part of a series but also a standalone difficult? How do you keep track of everything?

I don’t think the standalone part is difficult. Each individual has a unique story. The challenge, as you know, is managing the characters across several books. I began with a clear back-story for the characters, but I have not done a good job of tracking them book-to-book. I confess to being a pantser. Planning plot doesn’t come naturally. I’ve had to do some rapid searches through whole manuscripts when a question or two arose. I’m currently indexing them all in preparation for planning a new series. As an added complication, the stories are being published out of chronological order forcing me to be particularly careful. Because they are standalone, I was able to submit some that were finished early even though they were out of order series-wise.

Who would you cast as hero/heroine in the movie version of the book?

I pictured several actors before settling on Ewan McGregor for Jamie. He has the right look and feel for the story. For Nora? That one is tougher. She needs the right combination of vulnerability and spunk. I think I would choose Michelle Williams. She would convey Nora’s longing for a child effectively and still stand up to the forces around her.

What’s the last great book you read?

“Great” is an intimidating word! Lately I’ve been enamored of C.S. Harris’s Regency mysteries. I’m also reading my way through Grace Burrowes’s entire body of work. The sheer volume in a short period of time is stunning, stunning because the quality is so high.

Tell us a bit about your next release.

Dangerous Weakness has been scheduled for a September 2015 release. It takes place in 1818 and tells the story of the Viscount Glenaire. He is the managing brother in Dangerous Works and interfering friend of Dangerous Secrets. He also plays a similar role in a prequel holiday novella I have in process. Cold, aloof, convinced he could fix anything for those he cares about; I knew I needed to do more than muss his hair. This boy needed to get knocked down.

It begins, “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.” The heroine leads him a merry chase that involves London, Constantinople, the Sultan’s Seraglio and some Barbary pirates.

Ooh! And … Carolyn wants to know:

Those of us that love the Regency era read many books set in that world. The author’s greatest challenge is finding ways to tell original stories. What tropes do you like most in a Regency novel? Which do you miss when if they are gone?

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Risky guest Caroline Warfield + Contest

Updated on October 13, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Since I’m going to be messing around on planes and stuff today (off to the JASNA AGM in Montreal, which I’ll tell you all about next time) I invited debut author Caroline Warfield to visit. You’ve gotta love a writer whose tagline is “love is worth the risk.” Caroline will be giving away a kindle copy of her book Dangerous Risks (many choices of entering below) and I’ll announce a winner on Monday.

Find out more about Caroline on Twitter @carowarfield, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Here’s a snippet of what the book is about:

Lady Georgiana Hayden has struggled for years to do scholarly work in the face of constant opposition and even outright derision from the scholarly community at Cambridge. Her family ignores her as long as she doesn’t draw attention to herself.

A little Greek is one thing; the art of love is another…

What brought you to writing romance?
Like most writers, I read. I read omnivorously, but I usually have a non-fiction (almost always history or biography) and a romance in process. What you read finds its way to what you write, and historical romance became inevitable.

What was the idea behind Dangerous Works?
I began with a “what if.” Women’s history and women’s literature have been much studied in recent years. I wondered what would have happened if a woman had tried that line of study in 1815. I pushed the year forward to give the hero, Andrew, some time after Waterloo. He is weary, wounded, and looking for meaningful scholarly work.

Your storyline is obviously influenced by Persuasion. What are your other inspirations?
It tickles me when people make that comparison. I had no thought of that when I was writing, but Persuasion has always been my favorite of the Austen books. My big influences are writers that explore the emotional growth of mature, complex, but damaged or imperfect characters: Mary Balogh, Carla Kelly, Mary Blayney. Can I brag a little? When Ms. Balogh read the book she said. “Bravo! …a day of happily absorbed entertainment.” That was super affirming.

Tell us about something interesting you turned up in your research.
Of course I spent some time looking for women poets in ancient Greece. In the midst of it I was very intrigued to learn about Locri, a Greek colony in what later became Italy. It was the center of a women’s cult around a temple to Aphrodite and also Persephone. In Dangerous Works, The heroine, Georgiana, struggles to translate epigrams by Nossis of Locri for two reasons. One is her lack of an understanding of some of the names and images. The other is her inexperience in love. Faced with a choice between ‘love’ and ‘eros’ to translate a particular word, she chooses ‘desire’ instead.

Nothing is sweeter than desire
All other pleasure is second to it.
Even honey I spit from my mouth.

Images in the rest of the poem about Aphrodite and those whom she does not or has not loved are full of possible double meanings and improper implications she has to puzzle out.

Tell us about the Dangerous Series. How are they linked, other than by title?
The heroes of the books grew up together, went to war together, and are all now trying to make a life for themselves. Dangerous Works will be followed by Dangerous Secrets, scheduled for Winter 2015. It tells the story of Andrew’s good friend Jamie Heyworth, a down on his luck former major. He longs to please and worships his friends, but a huge mistake fills him with shame so great he has run off to Rome to hide from them. Dangerous Weakness, still in process, covers Georgiana’s brother and Andrew’s good friend, the arrogant, interfering Marquess of Glenaire who thinks he can control everything. He is Mr. Perfect and I’m having fun tripping him up and leading him into folly. He will chase the heroine across the Mediterranean to Constantinople. Those two stories will be followed by a Christmas novella about their cheerful friend Will, an earl who would rather be a farmer.

What’s the last great book you read?
So many books; so little time! The last great book I read was probably The Island in the Center of the World, a history of New York. I’m hesitant to list the fun books I’ve read recently (aka historical romance) for fear of leaving someone off.

What do you do when you’re not writing?
My husband and I recently moved to the Philadelphia area to be near our grandson. We’re able to indulge the things we love most: time with the grandbuddy, history, and genealogy. We have along list of houses, museums and battlefields to tour that keeps us anchored, but Europe and more exotic locales are calling.

What’s risky about your book?
Love is risky! In the case of Dangerous Works, the heroine Georgiana has to overcome her fear of losing her independence and learn to trust a man who hurt her in the past. The hero, Andrew, risks his hope of a scholarly career by helping a despised amateur; he also risks his heart, trampled once before when he dared to love Georgiana. Family interference looms over them both. She is the daughter of a duke; he is a schoolmaster’s son.

Wow! Scholar heroines, exotic settings (in future books, not Cambridge!)–tell us what you like about those tropes.

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