Hi Carol! I am so excited to welcome you to my blog for the very first time – I hope you enjoyed it 🙂 I am very much looking forward to finding out more about you and your latest release JEANNIE’S WAR. Okay, let’s grab a cuppa and start things off with my questions…
1.) What was your first job? Did you like or dislike it? Why?
I worked as an au pair and loved it because of the opportunity to travel, meet new people and learn another language.
2.) Do you have a pet peeve? If so what is it?
I’m not sure it’s a peeve so much as a pang of sorrow each time I see litter left in the countryside. People come to the wild places to enjoy their beauty so why do they spoil them by leaving their rubbish?
3.) Do you spend more time researching or writing?
It takes me a year to write a book so definitely more time is spent on writing but I do take 2-3 months to research and think about plot and characters before I begin to write.
4.) Tell me about your book Jeannie’s Warand where you got your inspiration for it?
I started to write this book in 2020 during lockdown when I was recovering from an operation and couldn’t walk very far and, because of Covid, couldn’t go very far anyway! I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and then began to think of other people in far worse situations and how they drew on their inner reserves of toughness and resolve to get them through.
That took me on to thinking about how people managed during the second world war and I decided to write about an ordinary family and their experiences, starting from the very moment that war was declared.
5.) How much of your book is realistic?
All of it! I did a lot of research into WW2 locally in Glasgow and although the factory where Jeannie and her friends work is fictitious, it is based on my reading about munitions factories all over Britain at that time.
6.) What are your ambitions for your writing career?
I want to continue to write family and romantic historical sagas – if I could write one a year and continue to be published I would be very happy.
7.) Who is your role model? Why?
My mum is my role model – she has always been a very positive person, cheerful and practical, getting on with things without complaint and being kind to everyone. I try to do this too although I have to admit to a bit of moaning at times!
8.) Share one fact about yourself that would surprise people.
I speak fluent German – from my year as an au pair – see question 1 😊
Jeannie’s War blurb
Glasgow 1939: Jeannie Dougal accepts a marriage proposal from handsome soldier, Arthur Dunn. Though she is unsure if a girl from the tenements will suit Arthur’s middle-class background. But as WW2 takes its toll, her wedding must wait…
Her job at the munitions factory widens her social circle, and while her new friends bond together in war work and stories of romance, Jeannie is grateful to be settled with Arthur.
Until she meets charming Canadian soldier, Bill, and realises she has found a spark she was always missing. But how can Jeannie tell Arthur? And is she strong enough to fight her own battle, with the country already at war…?
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3q0Ooir
Apple: https://apple.co/3dWDtRi
Bio
Carol MacLean lives in the Glasgow area. She began by writing pocket novels, having 18 published before deciding to write an historical saga. She enjoys weaving social history into fiction and imagining how life must have been for ordinary people living through different times.
When she’s not writing, Carol can be found visiting museums or walking around the city looking for traces of old Glasgow to inspire her next novel.
Carol is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.
Carol MacLean | Hera (herabooks.com)