IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN ... Blog Tour: Guest Post by Carole P. Roman

When I heard that The Children's Book Review was working with Carole P. Roman to organize the blog tour promoting her wonderful IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN... books, I couldn't wait to participate. Bianca Schulze at TCBR sent my questions off to Carole, and the rest is history - just like Carole's books! Please enjoy this peek into a writer's life and remember to enter the giveaway.

Could she tell a little about how she began writing the series, or about becoming a writer in general? And what sort of books she enjoyed when she was a kid - favorite authors, titles, or genres? What does she read now, when she's not busy working on her own books? Does she have plans to go to the Olympics in Brazil, or just watch on television like the rest of us? I would just like to let fans get to know her in a little more personal way.

I have been an avid reader my entire life. I started with Nancy Drew and took off to adult fiction by the time I was twelve. There was no YA genre then, so it was books like The Godfather, Exodus, The Source, and James Bond, whatever was lying around the house. I remember one of my teachers contacted my mother because I was reading something rather inappropriate, she thought it was too old for me. My mother replied, that if I could read it and understand it, then it couldn't be too old for me. So, our home was always filled with books along with a kitchen table where we discussed them. It was no surprise when I decided I wanted to be a writer. It didn't happen then, though. I became a social studies teacher for about an hour, left to get married, have a child, and help my husband with our fledging business that consumed the next forty-four years. 

I continued to read, all the time. My mother, grandmother and I had a sort of book club. I devoured books, any kind, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, popular fiction, anything I could get my hands on. When I enjoyed them I read them twice, sometimes even more. Books are like a scrapbook of my past; I can remember what was going on in my life when I read Gone With the Wind (my first trip to Florida without my parents, resulting in a severe sunburn because I stayed on the beach too long reading). The summer of James Clavell that started with Shogun and ended with every book he wrote, Robert Ludlum, Frank Yerby's Judas, My Brother, my mother's favorite writer, Sidney Shellaberger to awaken a love swashbuckling. Tracey Chevalier,  Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's series about the Peninsula War, anything by Phillipa Gregory, Liane Moriarty, Jojo Moynes, Sandra Guilland and a slew of history books I read nightly. I always end my night with a textbook,reading history relaxes me, the facts and theories, the people from the past complete my day. I have other favorites, too many to mention. They are like old friends that bring me comfort and warm memories of my past.

My kids dared me to write the first book. I wrote Captain No Beard: An Imaginary Tale of a Pirate's Life based on a game I played with my grandson. I followed with the non-fiction cultural series because I wanted to create an introduction to customs and culture for my grandchildren. I never expected it to win all the awards or take off the way it has. I didn't consider myself a writer until KDP called and asked me to attend a roundtable to discuss my books. Me, they wanted me to talk about my experience as a writer.

Researching and writing the books have taken over a large chunk of my life, but I still run a rather large business, take care of my growing family. (They may not live with us, but there is still a lot of maintenance). I handle all the promotion and publicity for my books as well as my son, who is a prolific fiction writer. (Michael Phillip Cash, FYI) I don't travel as much as I'd like to, so it's a lot of armchair traveling. I have been around the world a couple of times and have pictures, memories, and adventures to prove it.

My kids call me a receptacle of useless information. Ask about a time period and I will wax poetically about what they wore, ate, their religion, you name it. I like that stuff, so my husband said put it in a book. The third series was born. If You Were Me and Lived in... does for history what my original series did with culture. I started with Ancient Greece, moved to the Italian Renaissance, onto Elizabethan England and then to Colonial America. I began work right away on Ancient China, Viking Europe, The Mayans, American West, and the Middle Ages. I did four of them in the first weekend. I had a ball. I was in history heaven!!!!

So, writing is just another hat I wear. Being an indie writer makes it possible for me to do what I like and not what I'm told to do. I get a great sense of accomplishment and joy when I look at the legacy I am creating for my kids and grandkids. I wish my old reading partners, my mom and grandmother, could have lived to see it.

GIVEAWAY

One (1) winner receives the grand prize:

• A set of all 6 books in the IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN … AN INTRODUCTION TO CIVILIZATIONS THROUGHOUT TIME series
• A set of all 18 books in the IF YOU WERE ME AND LIVED IN … AN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURES AROUND THE WORLD series
• A $50 Amazon gift card

Value: $359.75

Four (4) winners receive:

• A choice of one book from either series.

Value: $10.99 +

Giveaway begins July 20, 2016, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends August 20, 2016, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

Giveaway open to US and Canadian addresses only.

Prizes and samples provided by Carole P. Roman.

Enter for your chance to win: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you to The Children's Book Review and Carole P. Roman for including the Fairview Review in this awesome blog tour.