It is my pleasure to have Carmen as a return guest.
If you've not met her, you're in for a treat. Guess where she lives!
If you've not met her, you're in for a treat. Guess where she lives!
And if you have had the pleasure of meeting her here,
you'll learn new things about her today.
you'll learn new things about her today.
Welcome to An Indie Adventure, Carmen. Tell us, what inspired you to write your book Till Life Do Us Part?
Hi, L.A., thank you for hosting me again. It's always a pleasure to be on your blog. My strong belief that there is something more for each of us after we leave this human world led me to thoroughly reading books on this topic - rebirth, past life regression. I also was inspired by an article I read some time ago about the last witch in Europe. This is how Till Life Do Us Part paranormal, part mystery, part romance came to life. I wrote it using the story within story technique.
How do you use setting to further your story?
I love using setting to create emotional triggers for my characters because we're not just affecting the character's feelings, but the reader's too, and this draws them deeper into the story and makes the experience much more compelling.
I also love incorporating historical settings into my paranormal stories to add a little Middle Age flavor. I think it adds interest and depth, and it's also a lot of fun for me, too.
How do you construct your characters?
I start with their names. I try to create character names that sound different from each other, by starting with different letters of the alphabet. Thus the reader is not confused.
Another important technique I use is to give my characters “tags”- things which identify a character and set him or her apart from other characters.
On a first draft, I often feel that all of my characters are speaking like I do. Even though they do things I wouldn’t do, they still explain things like I would, complain like I would, or argue like I would. So I try giving each character a few unique verbal tics, or habitual words.
How is your main character completely different than you?
Most of my feminine characters have something from my personality. I must confess I myself lived some odd moments in my life that may be called as paranormal events. But unlike Barbara in Till Life Do Us Part, I have never had the fortunate event of being contacted by a departed soul to give a message to a dear one left behind. I wish I’d had.
Tell us something about yourself we might not expect!
Except reading and writing, my other “hobby-horse” is playing computer games! Role play games especially, where I am the good, wise wizard saving the world from evil forces.
Barbara Heyer can hear voices of dead people. They whisper of their deaths, seek comfort for those left behind, and occasionally even warn her about future events. But when Barbara’s brother, Colin, is accused of murder, it will take more than her gift to prove his innocence.
Becoming smitten with the handsome investigator, Detective Patrick Fischer, is a serious complication given his assignment to her brother’s case. Barbara senses there is something far deeper—and perhaps much older—than the surface attraction between them. Could that be why she’s visited by a mysterious woman named Emma in her dreams? Could past life regression tie all the seemingly unconnected events together?
Barbara and Patrick must overcome heartache to find the truth to save Colin, and perhaps themselves.
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Carmen Stefanescu resides in Romania, the native country of the infamous vampire Count Dracula, but where, for about 50 years of communist dictatorship, just speaking about God, faith, reincarnation or paranormal phenomena could have led someone to great trouble - the psychiatric hospital if not to prison.
High school teacher of English and German in her native country and mother of two daughters, Carmen survived the grim years of oppression, by escaping into a parallel world of books.
Several of her poems were successfully published in a collection of Contemporary English Poems, Muse Whispers vol.1 and Muse Whispers vol.2 by Midnight Edition Publication, in 2001 and 2002.
Her first novel, Shadows of the Past, was released in 2012 by Wild Child Publishing, USA.
Carmen joined the volunteer staff at Marketing For Romance Writers Author blog and is the coordinator of #Thursday13 posts.
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