Carolyn Brown--not all romance!

Our Borders Book Club just read and discussed The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee (Cadillac, Texas #1) by Carolyn Brown for our June 2015 meeting! In addition, I read The Red-Hot Chili Cook-Off (Cadillac, Texas #2) by Ms. Brown. And I am looking forward to reading the third book of the series, The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop once it is released on July 14th! You can pre-order/purchase at IndieBound, BAM, B&N, or, I suppose, Amazon. I am placing an order with my local used/new bookstore! :) 

Although Ms. Brown had a prior commitment and was unable to speak with our book club when we discussed this first Cadillac book, she graciously consented to an interview to be posted here! Yay us!!
You can always find her on Facebook or her website.

Let's get a glimpse into her past and future...

1. Do you live in the southern U.S.? If not, what gave you the idea to use it as the setting for 
    this series? 

Ms. Brown: I was born in Texas and then Mama jumped the Red River back into Oklahoma to raise us three kids so I'm a Tex-Okie. My heart and soul has always been Texan and writing about that area was as natural as drinking sweet tea.

~This is as good a time as any to draw your attention to Ms. Brown's blog, 
  A Little Sweet Tea and Sass with Carolyn Brown! :) 
It is very entertaining! And she has some big giveaways coming up, too!

2. How did the idea for this book come to you?
Ms. Brown: One day Agnes showed up as a voice in my head and brought her two nieces and their friends with her. By the end of the day she'd convinced me that I needed to write the story and we had a such a good time throughout the entire process.

~Just a note...Agnes was a favorite character for our book club! We all loved her spunk! 
  I have heard many authors describe this same phenomenon with characters inhabiting 
  their thoughts. 

3. Are any of your characters patterned after people you know? 
Ms. Brown: Maybe not in physical appearance but many of my characters are combinations of people who have influenced my life. Agnes is a mixture of my mother, my daughter, my fictional great aunt that was a character in the newspaper columns I wrote for fourteen years, and a couple of my dear elderly friends...with just a touch of Shirley Maclaine thrown in.

~What a great description of characteristics! Love the Shirley tidbits too!

4. Do you feel the writing process for "women's fiction" is any different than that for 
    "romance" novels? If so, how? Were there any unexpected challenges to writing fiction 
     vs. romance for you? 
Ms. Brown: Women's fiction is about the struggles of friendship whereas romance is boy meets girl, overcomes all the obstacles that fate can throw at them, falls in love and ends happy ever after. I just adjust my thinking and enjoy the ride in whichever genre I'm writing. 

~A great philosophy for life, is it not? Just "enjoy the ride"!

5. Which of these two genres do you prefer to write? 
Ms. Brown: I love writing in both genres and it's very nice to be able to switch back and forth to avoid burn out in either. I write a cowboy romance or two, then a women's fiction, and then I'm ready to go back to the wild and woolly ways of the cowboys. Sometimes cowboys even show up in my women's fiction stories. 

~Sounds like a nice balance!

6. Why did you choose a different group of people as the main characters for each of these 
    first two books in the series as opposed to using the same main characters for each 
    book, as so many authors seem to do? (You appear to have also done that with the third 
    installment in this series.)
Ms. Brown: I like to build a new world with each book. So the setting in the Cadillac series is the same, the secondary characters (Violet and Agnes and Darla Jean) are the same but the main characters change to keep things fresh.

~Personally, I like this! It gives some connection to the other books, but the opportunity to 
  develop and enjoy totally new characters, too! Each book is a truly new adventure!

7. Will this really and truly ONLY be a trilogy? Or might you extend the series beyond three 
    books? If you did write book number four, who might the main characters be? 
Ms. Brown: Right now it's a trilogy and ends with The Yellow Rose Beauty Shop which will be published on July 14, 2015. However, if my editor asked for another one, there is a brand new owner of the flower shop there in Cadillac who just might have a story to tell. 

~How fun is that answer! ;) I am intrigued! I definitely need to know more about that flower 
  shop! :)