My Inspiration Behind the Broken Face

Yesterday was the Facebook launch party for my debut historical novel, Broken Faces - a

massive thank you to all those that joined in. It was four hours of fun - for me - sharing my inspiration behind my four main protagonists: 

- Freddie Chevalier (beautiful man who becomes the broken face),
- Meredith (Meri) Sutton (his best friend's fiancee with whom he's secretly in love),
- Charles Baldwyn (his best friend and heir to a Shropshire estate and many problems), and;
- Lexi Baldwyn (Charles's younger sister, who desperately wishes she was more like Meri and that Freddie would see her as the woman she has become). 

I was able to share some of the discoveries I made while researching about the masks made in the studio in Paris by Anna Coleman Ladd and Francis Derwent Wood for the severely disfigured men for whom doctors were unable to satisfactorily restore their looks. This left most of them with no option - or so they believed - other than to either hide themselves away or cover the more damaged parts under copper masks.

One of these brave men I was drawn to use as inspiration for Freddie was William Kearsey (see pic above), a beautiful Australian soldier who, at the age of 25, was severely disfigured in Belgium  on 3 October 1917. He had 29 operations to repair the severe damage and ended up looking very different, but also went on to build a life for himself eventually marrying in his fifties. If you'd like to find out more about him and his life story, here's a link to the Inverell Times. 

I discovered many harrowing stories during my research and because my paternal great-grandfather, was a Lancer in the cavalry and because I've always loved horses, I placed my male protagonists in the cavalry. I've been lucky enough to own five horses while growing up and so enjoyed the special bond that horse and rider experience. I can only imagine the intensity of that relationship when you're confronted with death and destruction and consequences when the worst happens. Hopefully I've conveyed those emotions in Broken Faces. 

My maternal great-grandfather was a stretcher-bearer, an intensly dangerous job where men risked their lives constantly to rescue those soldiers lying badly wounded at the Front. What they experienced must have been both harrowing and devastating. My great-grandfather was shot in his ankle but survived the war, so was one of the luckier ones. I've tried to convey the dedication of these men through Meredith (Meri) Sutton's work as a nurse in Amiens.

Broken Faces is out now in e-book only, but will be out in paperback in the summer.

Game of Thrones Journal & New Book

Being an avid Game of Thrones fan, I was thrilled when my son bought me this Stark journal for Christmas. Unfortunately we're going to have to wait until late April to start enjoying Season 6, but in the meantime there's a lot to be getting on with. Being a writer and lover of stationery I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled I was with this gift. I'm still deciding what to write in my GoT journal, but maybe it'll be ideas for future books, or something similar.

Now that Broken Faces has been published in e-book - with the paperback coming out later this year - and the Christmas/New Year festivities are over, I'm working on edits for my next historical romance. It's a standalone novel set in WW2, called Splintered Lives. The story is set during the occupation of the island of Jersey, but it also follows on from the main characters that you meet in Broken Faces. Once again, I'm loving the research and this time I have people I can ask about the Occupation who lived through that dark time rather than having to simply rely on books and the internet for my research.

New Website/Good Books

Firstly, Happy New Year! I hope that 2016 is full of bookish loveliness, long sunny days and much time spent reading and writing, or maybe that comes under the bookish loveliness?

I began the New Year by setting up Happy New Year posts on my Debs Carr and Georgina Troy Facebook pages using a 2015 picture! No one mentioned it and I thought that maybe no one had noticed, then as time moved and I spoke to people it turns out that the only person who hadn't noticed my 'deliberate mistake' was me! Quelle surprise, not. Great start to the year and so typical of me.

Having spent days fretting about not being able to access this blog - although it turns out that I needed to access it via a defunct email address... long, very dull story - I set up a new website: https://deborahcarrblog.wordpress.com/ Now for a non-techy person this takes time and not a little confusion, but it's getting there, slowly.

As for resolutions, I usually aim to lose weight, write more books and read as many books as I can, do more/any exercise, etc.

This year, I'm going to aim to do something I know I'll enjoy doing and that will be writing at least one more book and reading as many of my talented friends' books that are waiting for me on my Kindle as possible. I began reading Girl Number One by Jane Holland last night and only stopped because the battery on my Kindle died! It's a brilliant book and I'm going to say bye now and carry on reading it. If you haven't read it yet, you're missing a treat.

Happy New Year, once again! x

Broken Faces and Excitement for 2016

2015 has been a year of getting used to changes. Firstly at home, with the loss at the end of 2014 of my beloved Miniature Schnauzer Max, and the addition of three Spanish rescue dogs from the brilliant Company of Dogs charity based in Jersey who rescues dogs and finds forever homes for them. Our house is now constantly busy and mostly noisy thanks to the playful tactics of Jarvis, Claude and Rudiger.

It's also seen changes for my writing. After beating 7,000 other entrants to be a runner-up in the Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition 2012, with my book Broken Faces - a WW1 based romance about unrequited love, betrayal and learning to live with a terrible disfigurement - the book then received a Special Commendation from the Harry Bowling Prize.

One of the judges in the GH competition, the brilliant and lovely agent Luigi Bonomi, asked to read the rest of Broken Faces and then offered me representation. Needless to say I didn't have to think this through for more than a millisecond. I thought 2013 would be 'my year' - it was a good year but not in ways I'd expected. Luigi was wonderful and when Broken Faces almost, but not quite found a home with a publisher, I then wrote two psychological thrillers for him. Both were well received, but didn't get taken up.

Because Luigi only represented me as Deborah Carr and not my alter ego Georgina Troy, I had to keep the two personas separate. The books I write as Georgina Troy are contemporary romances based in Jersey, and books 2, 3, and 4 of The Jersey Scene series are also based in Sorrento, South of France and Vietnam. This series is published by Accent Press with book 4, A Jersey Bombshell coming out next April.

I was also Deputy Editor for Novelicious.com looking after the Alternative Thursday posts, interviews, reviews, etc for six years. But after six years promoting other authors and amicably parting ways with Luigi a few months ago I thought it was time to rethink my days a little and focus on my own writing, although I'll still be contributing and reviewing for Novelicious - because they are the greatest team ever.

However, as of two days ago I saw my debut novel Broken Faces by D M Carr being published by a new imprint, Green Shutter Books. To finally see this book that is so close to my heart finally published it a dream come true. Roll on 2016, I've already been contacted about three exciting events during the year, but none that I can share with you, just yet.

Still Writing...

So much happened last year, both good and bad, but whatever happens I'm still writing and loving every second of it. This year, I'm about to start working on my third psychological thriller. This isn't a genre I'd considered getting into until recently, but after writing romances, historicals and even a YA novel, I have to admit that I've loved getting absorbed into dark and twisted storylines.

Even though I don't have Max here to snore while I spend hours at the laptop, I now have two rescue dogs, both scoundrels, Jarvis and Claude, who keep me busy and ensure I step away from the screen... rather too many times on occasion, to take them outside for walks, feed them and just pay them attention. It's a good distraction and oddly enough, stepping away from what I'm doing allows ideas and twists I hadn't previously thought about to enter into my brain.

I've been working in the house this winter, but now that the weather is getting warmer again, I'm looking forward to getting back to my shed and my pink Lloyd Loom chairs. I'm not so sure a third chair is going to fit in there though, so maybe I'll have to think about taking the dogs' beds for them to lie on while I write.

Do you have company while you write?


Happy writing! x

Christmas Tree Dilemma

This is last year's Christmas tree. There are no doors to our conservatory, it leads onto the living room and dining area, so I can't close it off in anyway to keep Jarvis from, shall we say, snooping!

So far he's decided that Rob's Ipad cover, various cushions, books (yes, books!) and my glasses are fair game, so I'm a bit concerned about glass baubles on the tree and even the more child-friendly wooden ones!

He's also a bit taller than Max  and incredibly inquisitive, so not only can he reach further, he wants to check everything out and then eat it.

Maybe the hallway will be the place for the tree this year?

The Christmas tree will only be up for a few weeks though and I'm a little concerned about the how to deal with the safety of all the books in the ??? bookcases I have throughout the house?

Life's Lemons & Lemonade

It's been seven months since my last blog post and in that time my family have gone through a few changes, the most noticeable one and one that was utterly heart breaking for all of us was the loss of our beloved, Max after two weeks illness and two operations. Now, this is not going to be a sad post - I think those of you that follow me on Facebook will have had more than enough of those.

Max was my companion for 11 1/2 years. He sat and dozed next to me in the shed as I wrote seven books. He interrupted me every so often wanting to go for a walk, a wee, or for something to eat and it made me step away from the laptop and ensure that I was also present in the real world as well as in my imaginary one. Whenever I wasn't at work he was with me, or walking on the beach with Rob. I've posted many pictures of him on this site and even now, two months after he died, I can't type this without crying. Sigh, I really need to stop this!

Days after Max died when I was in the very depths of my heartbreak, panic and loss, a very wise man suggested I think about getting another dog. I thought he was completely mad and told my husband what he'd said, which was that I had a huge amount of love to give a pet/companion and although I couldn't save all the dogs needing loving homes out there, I could save one. Rob looked up The Company of Dogs, a charitable non-profit making group in Jersey who rescue dogs from Spain's kill stations and bring them home - after they've been given health checks, been chipped, etc - and try to place them with forever homes. We saw pictures of Jarvis Leviticus, Zachariah Wilkinson!!! on their site, were home checked by them, and adopted him.

I was very nervous about bringing another dog into my home. I'd only ever had puppies before and what if he didn't like us, or if I couldn't get used to him after spending so many years used to one dog that I adored. We needn't have worried. He fitted in here very quickly and although he's taller than Max and so can reach items on the kitchen table... and it's like living with an excitable toddler who's woken up and found himself in a sweetshop, he is utterly adorable. He'll never take the place of my beloved Max, but he's his own character and already I can see that we made the very best decision when we adopted him.

So, you see, this post might have had the occasional wobble, but it ended up being a happy one!