About the Book:
Caroline Daniels must marry, and marry well. But in her remote corner of England eligible suitors are few and far between, and none hold a candle to her closest friend, Diana Fitzroy.When Sir Edward Masterson arrives, he seems the answer to Caroline’s financial worries, though she instinctively dislikes the reticent, older merchant. Soon Sir Edward has set his sights on acquiring both Caroline and the decaying Harkworth Hall.
Caroline’s future seems secure, save that Sir Edward’s enigmatic secretary hints at a dark secret, and Sir Edward shows an unusual interest in the nearby bay. To discover Sir Edward’s true purpose, Caroline will have to face the horror beneath Harkworth Hall—and the woman who will change her life.
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Author Interview:
1: Tell us a little about yourself and what got you in to writing?
I began reading at a very early age, and writing was a natural progression. I won awards in high school for my fiction, and I took fiction workshops in college and after, but my stories were pretty terrible … I thought you had to write what you know, and my life has always been quite Boring. Still, I found that I could express myself far better on the page than in speech, to the point where I started seeing everything in my head as text: even when I’m speaking, I can see the words as I utter them. It became very natural for me to watch some event unfold, and start writing it out in my head even as I was observing it. So writing became part of how I made sense of the world.
2: Do you have a favourite time and place where you write?
Late afternoon on the loveseat in my house, with a big cup of tea and a cat next to me.
3: Where do your ideas come from?
Oh goodness, I have NO idea, heh. Everything goes into the hopper. I have notebooks full of images, clippings, essays; I keep journals and constantly email myself stuff. I keep trying to make a sort of mega-wiki out of it all, but it’s a pretty daunting task at this point.
4: Do you have a plan in your head of where the story is going before you start writing or do you let it carry you along as you go?
In my youth I just pantsed everything, and would have told you a lot of rubbish about how outlining kills a story blah blah blah. Now I know that I had no idea what I was talking about. That being said, my outlines are still pretty open-ended—sometimes they’re as sparse as “X dies; Y goes in X’s place to fight; chaos; everyone eats ice cream.” But it’s drastically helped my productivity to have some idea of where I’m going.
5: What genre are your books and what drew you to that genre?
I generally write fantasy. Fantasy was my favorite genre well into early adulthood, but then I drank the academic Kool-Aid that says the only Real Writing is Literature, meaning Realism. I lost a lot of years trying to make myself feel the same enthusiasm for writing about everyday life that I did reading a good fantasy novel.
6: What dream cast would you like to see playing the characters in your latest book?
That I will leave up to readers. I mean, I know what they look like, but of course they’ll look different to you, and your vision of Caroline is as valid as mine.
7: Do you read much and if so who are your favourite authors?
Too many to list, I’m afraid!!
8: What book/s are you reading at present?
I’m reading Becca Gomez Farrell’s Wings Unseen, Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina’s Black London: Life Before Emancipation, and the most recent volumes of Attack on Titan. At some point I’m hoping to clear my decks for IQ84, but I’ve got a fair amount of research-y stuff to do before then. And I’m waiting with bated breath for the final book in Hilary Mantel’s study of Cromwell.
9: What is your favourite book and why?
Again, too many to choose. At some point I should really pin these things down, but my brain just explodes when I try to come up with some kind of list.
10: What advice would you give for someone thinking about becoming a writer?
Writing advice is generally useless, because everyone’s paths are so very, very different. For everything I might encourage you to do, I can think of an equally good reason not to. So perhaps my advice is: don’t beat yourself up for not doing what another author advises, no matter how famous and brilliant they are. Every process, every path, is different. Every single one.
11: What are the best Social Media Sites for people to find out about you and your work?
I update my website most frequently: www.traversingz.com. You can always contact me there too!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lsj1750
Twitter: @ls_johnson
About the Author:
L.S. Johnson lives in Northern California, where she wrangles four cats and a spouse; in her free time she writes weird fiction and fantasy. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Long Hidden, Fae, Lackington’s, Strange Tales V, and other venues, and her first collection, Vacui Magia, is now available. Currently she’s working on a fantasy trilogy set in 18th century Europe.
