I would like to extend a warm welcome to Anne Carrole and thank you for interviewing with Fallen Angel Reviews. Anne, I am thrilled to be able to get to know you with this interview. I know you have a book that is getting rave reviews. Let’s start out with a few questions about that book.

Your book Re-Ride at the Rodeo has had a very positive reception, how has that made you feel?

Ecstatic, grateful and humble. As a writer, you put a lot of yourself in every book with the hopes that readers will relate and respond. When they do, you feel positively euphoric.

What was the inspiration for your book, Re-Ride at the Rodeo?

I had a rodeo book rattling around in my mind for some time. I love the rodeo—for reasons I can’t really explain except perhaps the fact that nowhere else can you find so many cowboys with such true grit in one place. But the rodeo life is a rough life—for the cowboy and the family he necessarily must leave behind. I remember reading about one rodeo cowboy’s wife who struggled to keep things together for her family while her husband hit the road. I wanted to capture those sacrifices in the story and show how that can affect someone who grew up with a largely absentee father—especially when it came to the very persistent rodeo cowboy trying to woe her.

And then I read Rita Thetford’s Hot Night at the Blue Bug Saloon, the first Wayback series novel, and saw that The Wild Rose Press was accepting rodeo-themed manuscripts and knew it was time to tell the story of Re-ride at the Rodeo.

I know you have a love of Western Romances, what can you tell us about that love affair? How did it start?

I started reading Linda Lael Miller’s contemporary romances and then picked up her western historical One Wish and was swept back to the Old West. Western historicals and contemporaries became my hands-down favorites. They are what I love to write and also the reason I co-founded lovewesternromances.com

I’ve always been a history buff with one of my favorite periods being the western expansion. I don’t think we can fully appreciate, with our 21st century sensibilities, just how challenging and difficult survival was in the West of that period where law was mercurial at best, corrupt at its worst. Too often the only way to get justice was to enforce it with your own gun. Women, ironically, were often afforded more freedom out west than they were in the more civilized east. There weren’t so many rules and societal norms to follow. But that freedom came at a price—survival was difficult, life precarious. And therein is fodder for some wonderful stories. A lot of that independent spirit and self-reliance, that grit and gumption, has carried forward to the west of today where a favorite expression is to challenge someone to “cowboy up.”

Could you share the links to your website, myspace, and your blog?

Love to, thanks for asking. You can find me at
annecarrole.com, myspace.com/annecarrole, annecarrole.blogspot.com

If you had to pick only one book that you could keep to read over and over, what would it be?

Wow, that is such a challenge. I love so many books and authors, both contemporary and classic. I m having trouble choosing between a novel of Jane Austen’s or one of Anthony Trollope’s. I guess I’d have to go with Jane’s Emma—which, along with all her novels and Anthony Trollope’s forty-seven novels, I have read over and over.

How has becoming a published author changed your life?

I’ve met so many wonderful authors and readers on this journey that life is much richer as a result. Just getting your work out for others to read is both intimidating (what if no one likes it?) and cathartic (a sense you can do this again).

If you could give a bit of advice to an aspiring author, what would it be?

Keep writing. It can be discouraging to get rejection letters, no matter how positive the comments are when they tell you no. But those rejections likely have more to do with the state of publishing that the quality of your work. And each time you sit down to write, you know you’re growing and improving. And when that call does come, you’ll have several manuscripts ready to submit to your new publisher.

What is your favorite part of a book to write?

I love creating the characters, or rather, I love bringing their story to life because, as a pantser, I often feel my characters are just letting me tag along so I can record their story. As such, I love writing dialog probably the best because that’s when my characters really come to life.

Can you tell us a little about your other upcoming works?

I’m currently working on a historical romance that begins in Saratoga Springs and ends in Texas called In the Hands of A Texan and a contemporary western about a woman who is heir apparent to her grandfather’s rodeo stock company until the man who walked out on her ten years ago is tapped by her grandfather to run it, tentatively titled Broken Fences.

Do you feel as if the characters live with you as you write? Do they haunt your dreams?

Absolutely. And worse, they nag me if I’m not at the computer writing their story. They are a very demanding bunch—especially when I get to the love scenes and I don’t finish it in one sitting.

If we could take a look at your "to be read" pile what book would be sitting on top?

Well, I was recently sent advanced reader copies of Linda Lael Miller’s Montana Creed series—a contemporary western series about some of the modern McKettrick clan. I cannot wait to get to them.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Just how happy I am that Fallen Angel Reviews asked me to do this interview. Great questions, by the way.

Thank you so much for taking the time to interview with Fallen Angel Reviews. It has been a joy to get to know you.

Thanks for having me Dawnie.

Interviewed by: Dawnie