Featured Interview With Helen Carey
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Oxford, England. Since then I have lived in quite a few different places and countries including Switzerland, Germany and Antigua. I now live in west Wales in a beautiful location overlooking the sea towards Ireland. My husband and I have a small farm which we run as a hobby conservation project, trying to maximise biodiversity, wildlife and rare wild plants. To help us we have a lovely lurcher dog called Maisie, although she mainly prefers chasing a stick in the fields!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
As a child I read voraciously. I still do. I love all different kinds of books from sweet romance to classics to exciting spy thrillers and back again. When I was a child I wrote lots of adventurous pony stories, in my teens I moved onto romance! I think my books now reflect some of those earlier interests. My wartime LAVENDER ROAD books always contain some adventure, romance and excitement. But I also like to include things that affect our day to day lives, things like friendship, family relationships, the difficulties that women sometimes face in a man’s world, and how people cope when things get tough.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
One of the authors who most inspired me was the Irish writer, Maeve Binchy. I love her characters and how they always seem so real. A lot of people have compared my books to hers, and I consider that a great honour. I also love Georgette Heyer for her subtle humour and period detail. Jane Austen is one of my favourite classical writers, I can read her books again and again. On the other side of the spectrum I love Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories, and I grew up adoring Ian Fleming’s James Bond!
All of these have almost certainly influenced me. I like to write novels that people enjoy reading, in which they can identify with the characters, experiencing their highs and lows. I like to make my readers laugh and cry. I also like to include some excitement, or a small thriller element just to keep everyone on their toes!
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Each of my LAVENDER ROAD books has taken about a year to research, write and edit.
My latest book is called THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET. It is my fifth Lavender Road novel. Set in London in 1944, it can either be read alone or as part of the series, and like its predecessors it follows the lives of several people living in one London street. This time the focus is on two young women, who now, as victory finally begins to edge nearer with the Allied invasion of France, find that the war seems determined to throw a spanner in their plans for future happiness.
I love writing about the Second World War. For me it is a fascinating period of history. So much happened in those eventful years, even for those who weren’t actually fighting. With almost constant Luftwaffe bombing, plus Hitler’s V1 and V2 revenge missiles, people on the Home Front were also in considerable danger. I have always been impressed by the extraordinary courage and resilience that Londoners showed at that time, and I think, more than anything else, that is what has always drawn me to the period. As well as the almost constant fear of death or injury, they had to cope with hardships that most of us would certainly find unacceptable these days; rationing, the black-out, property damage or destruction, reduced fuel and water, lack of petrol and gas, conscription into boring (or sometimes even hazardous) war work, restrictions on clothing and make-up, censorship, and of course the worry about loved ones serving overseas.
My research this time led me to the fact of young women being enlisted, often against their will, into the female sections of the armed forces. It made for fascinating reading, and then, by a stroke of luck (something which often seems to happen when I am embroiled in research!), I discovered that one of my neighbours (now a celebrated artist) actually served in the ATS, the Auxiliary Territorial Army, and she kindly allowed me to base some of my character’s exploits on her own real life experiences.
Putting characters in difficult circumstances is always interesting, and for the pretty, well-to-do, and somewhat self-centred young widow, Louise Rutherford, the grim realities of an ATS training camp come as a nasty shock!
My aim in writing is always to entertain, and to try to evoke the atmosphere of the war years, but I am also keen to focus on more general issues that my readers might find interesting, and I have used Louise to explore an aspect of life that I think we probably experience from time to time. That what we think we are like is not always the same as what other people think we are like. I’m sure we all occasionally feel misunderstood, especially perhaps by our friends and family. (In my experience doggedly held presumptions and faulty suppositions are often at the root of many a family rift!) It’s as though people have made up their minds about our innate character and can’t or won’t ever really accept that we might have the capacity to change. In THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET, as well as struggling with military discipline and other wartime issues, Louise also finds herself struggling to try to convince people that she has (for various reasons) become a nicer person.
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