The Gilded Cage

THE INTERVIEW:

Why did you write this book - LOVE WILL FOLLOW?

I’ve always been moved and motivated by historic women of consequence. Many of them had the advantage of family fortunes or the backing of charitable organizations. But the woman who used her own resources - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual - is the woman who truly inspires me. Nobody said, “Here, let me help you.” In a male-dominated world, she had to use her own devices to rise above the hardships and dangers that life thrust before her. That’s who Kittie was, and that’s why I chose to write her story.

How did you come up with the title?

We hear all the time how we must take a step on faith that something will work out for us. Do this one important thing, and the thing you are hoping for will follow. That’s what happened for Kittie. She took her survival, and the survival of another endangered child, and made the hard journey toward changing their lives. And while two men were tracking her, both for very different reasons, it was love that followed.

How did you choose your genre?

That’s a good question! But the elements that have always made up my favorite “reads” are the elements of suspense in an historical setting. The American setting in which I write is less common in historical suspense. I write in the 1890’s, that wonderful time when women threw off their corsets and began riding bicycles, which gave rise to the phrase “free wheeling”; when women went abroad unchaperoned to study. It was an amazing time for women, and a rather unique time period for historical romantic suspense. Then, too, I always want a loving outcome for characters of whom I have become so fond, so romance just naturally finds its way into my writing. Hence, Historical Romantic Suspense!

What inspired you to be a writer?

I’ve spent a lot of my life in creative avenues: as a director of opera and music theater, as a graphic artist, and as a writer. In each case, I’ve felt motivated to create something that speaks a message greater than its individual parts. I want to move, to inspire, to reassure, to leave a message, a promise that there can be something grand just around the corner. Writing fiction may not result in a “how-to” book that changes someone’s life, but perhaps in reading it, one might begin to feel just a bit more liberated from whatever it is that keeps them from taking that first step, that step toward the corner. Because there’s always something grand waiting, just around the corner.