Fiction Friday | Getting to know Carol Ashby with Giveaway

Carol Ashby is the latest in the getting to know you interviews for Fiction Friday. Welcome Carol as we get to have a little fun getting to know you. Carol is also giving away one of her new books.

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I live in New Mexico in a rural area near Albuquerque where summers are nice and warm (80s mostly) with afternoon thunderstorms and winters can bring 2 to 3 feet of fresh snow in single storm. I’m retired from a SciTech career, so I write full time now. I like to travel, especially long road trips in a pickup camper in the western US with my husband and sometimes our grown kids.

2. When you were a child did you have a favourite book or books?

We had dozens of kids’ books and beautiful hardbound collection of classic stories. I didn’t have a single favorite, but there was one particular version of Beauty and Beast that had striking pictures. I’ve loved that story in movies and books every since. There was also an illustrated version of Aesop’s Fables that I liked.

3. Do you have a favourite Genre to both read and to write?

My favorite genre is historical where the author has done deep research into the time period to get the details right. While I like many different time periods, I write Roman-era Biblical. One thing I love is doing the research to nail the details. Then I can  share that research in Roman history articles at carolashby.com that I keep PG-13 or cleaner for teachers and students. I always include a three-to-four-page article at the back where an aspect of Roman society is related to what my characters have just gone through.

4. Did you have any favourite authors growing up who have influenced you?

I read a lot of nonfiction, especially natural history topics, but I’ll just describe my fiction forays. We lived 3 blocks from the library between my 7th and 10 grades, and I checked out a new book probably every other day in the summer. One summer I read mostly westerns, especially Zane Gray. Another summer I read mostly mysteries with Ngaio Marsh being my favorite. I still love a good British-style mystery, and I like Christian suspense authors like Colleen Coble with her heroines who are scientists. Another summer I read mostly scifi with no particular favorite there.

I discovered Jane Austen my junior year in high school, and I’ve loved her books ever since. I liked Georgette Heyer because of her similar writing style. But I read many different kinds of fiction. Mostly I liked those with strong plots, and I still do prefer plot-driven to character driven. That is probably why I like multi-POV novels best, and those are what I write. But a plot-drive novel is at its best when the characters are 3-dimensional and very realistic, even the secondary ones who might never have their own POV scenes. But it’s those 3-D secondaries who send my mind off into the plots for future novels, and they often become important POV people in the future.

5. When did you know you wanted to be an author?

If you mean a dedicated author of fiction, September, 2013. I was in a tech career where I wrote all the time: journal articles, book chapters, even a full book. Around 2011, I toyed with the idea of a Christian biotech thriller where the quest for a Nobel prize in genetic engineering unleashes …(can’t reveal because I might still write it.) But it was the last Friday in September, 2013, when I was thinking about the parallels between Roman times and current events with Christians suffering and sometimes dying for their faith. The plot for what became Blind Ambition, the second volume of the Light in the Empire series, took shape in my mind, and I knew I needed to write it.

6. How did you go about becoming an author?

I did a lot of formal scientific writing, which is basically nothing like writing a novel. One of the hard parts about shifting to fiction was unlearning all the good habits I’d developed for using formal English very precisely. It took me at least a year before I could start a sentence with “but” instead of “However,” without cringing. I started writing fiction seriously in 2013, but I was writing in the classic omniscient narrator style, like the great authors of a few decades ago.

I started following blogs for authors and learned about the ACFW Genesis contest for unpublished novelists. After entering my three finished manuscripts in 2015, I learned that I needed to switch to the 3rd person limited POV to succeed in today’s market. When the judges kept chanting the mantra, “show don’t tell,” I figured I’d better learn how. So I got several how-to books that were highly recommended and studied them. Then I totally rewrote the first three in the newer style. I still like omniscient narrator when I read, but I must admit deep POV is more fun to write. I’m constantly watching for what I can learn that will make my writing even better.

7. If you were not a writer what would you like to be?

I’ve been what I wanted most, a research scientist. It’s a job where the work is fun and totally consuming. Now that I’ve retired from SciTech, I write full time. I find writing novels is the same: fun and totally consuming.

8. Outside reading and writing what do you like to do?

I enjoy watching wild animals. I started birdwatching and keeping records when I was 12, and that’s a few decades ago. We take short day drives in the New Mexico mountains with the Jeep and long road trips through the western United States in our pickup camper. I saved for months to buy my first SLR camera in high school, and I still I like to shoot scenery and animals. I like sewing, and I’d lock the kids out of the room when I was sewing stuffed animals and doll clothes for Christmas. They could come up with the wildest reasons for me to let them in. I play piano and was the substitute organist in my church when I was in high school and college. Playing for a few minutes is not only relaxing; it uses your hand muscles differently than typing on a keyboard. Great for preventing carpal tunnel problems.

9. Do you have a place you love to visit or would love to visit?

Australia and New Zealand are at the top of my want-to-go-there list.

10. If you could have a meal with 3 living people who would you choose and why?

My husband and my two kids. They’re grown, but we try to get together for a meal at a restaurant every week.

Finally can you tell us about your latest release. Where can buy the book and where can we find you on the web?

May 27 was the release date for the latest in my Roman-era Biblical series, True Freedom. It’s the story of one man’s faithfulness to Jesus, even after his family was destroyed and he was enslaved by a conquering Roman army, and the impact that has on others. When he saves his master’s daughter from a kidnapping planned by her brother to get the ransom money, her world and ultimately his own are turned upside down. Lots of action and danger, some lifechanging decisions, faithfulness to the point of sacrifice, and an ending that should bring an “aaah” to most readers. [bctt tweet=”The tagline captures the essence: the chains we cannot see can be the hardest ones to break.” username=”acwriters”]

My books are available in paperback and hardcover at Amazon Australia and the other Amazon sites and at Barnes & Noble in the US, and they can be ordered into your local bookstore. E-books are available from Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

My Roman history site is https://carolashby.com, and my author website is https://carol-ashby.com. My Facebook author page is at https://www.facebook.com/CarolAshbyAuthor, and profile is at https://www.facebook.com/carol.ashby.50.

Giveaway

Carol has offered a giveaway of her latest book to one person who comments on the post. You have till June 30 with the winner announced in the July new releases. This will be for an ebook.