My preferred form of story-telling is the old-fashioned historical novel. I like what it requires: a focus on the lives of other people. I also like research, being an historian by training. The past offers ways to explore the choices women have had to make in times when they were not supposed to have those choices.
I write slowly. It takes a good three to four years or more to produce a novel. Writing is now my full-time work. When not replying to your lovely messages, of course.
I have not completely ignored the short story, and have had these published in various anthologies. My poetry has also been included in anthologies, but I don't write much verse these days. Finally, you have to choose your art form.
East Tennessee, 1931
Published by Sapphire Books in 2021, MY HOME IS ON THE MOUNTAIN can be purchased as an ebook or in paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, iBooks, Googlebooks, and from your local bookseller.
My website for the book:
www.myhomeisonthemountain.com
offers more information, including the history behind the story, the music, and more about me and my approach to writing.
Western Europe, 1945
Germany, in the last months of WWII, was not a safe place to be. Pascale Tailland, a translator in the WAC, makes a split-second decision to rescue a stranded refugee as her unit heads out of the war zone.
The young Polish refugee, Bron, is a woman who masquerading as a man to survive the horrors or German and Russian occupation. Gaunt, hardened, and bleak, she sees no law in life but the law of the wolf. She also knows that Pascale touches depths she thought dead, and seizes her words as a lifeline when they are torn apart.
Pascale uses every helpful person she can find to help her hunt for Bron, including a well-known American reporter willing to help for a price, and an upper-class U.S. Army officer with her own agenda. Bron uses all the survival skills she has used through the war, finding dubious allies in a U.S. Army nurse and then a French prostitute shunned as a Nazi collaborator.
But when Pascale and Bron thinks that happiness is within their grasp, they must make a decision that will bind them for the rest of their lives.
"diverting, unabashedly sexy" (Publishers Weekly)
"has the most convincing love-at-first-sight plotline I've ever read" (Bay Area Reporter)
"Fast-paced action, finely drawn characters struggling against a backdrop of ravaged Europe, and a gripping portrayal of love in all its forms triumphing against the odds combine in a hard-to-put-down lesbian romance that ought to please mainstream crossover readers, too." (Booklist).
My website for the book:
www.thewolfticket.co.uk
Eastern Europe, 1892
Dora, spinster, swordswoman, and cheerful seducer of women, arriving in a small kingdom for the coronation, is beseeched to aid her distant cousin, the king.
For there is treachery afoot at court: a scheming, ambitious prince, a cold and hostile queen, too many courtiers with dubious loyalties, and murder afoot.
Dora finds herself surrounded by danger. Who or what can she trust, beyond her own blade? So much hangs on her wits and her skill. So much hangs on her own heart. Her vow to her royal kinsman must, of course, come first. Or must it? Where does her destiny lie — with love or with honour?
www.caroclarke.com