Carol Mason fascinates us and has some books to give away

**Giveaway is now closed**

Carol Mason was born in Northern England and worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming a novelist. She took a trip to Toronto when she was 21 years old and met her (now) husband there, sealing her fate of where she would be living. She now lives in British Columbia with him and their dog and cat. She is the best-selling author of "The Love Market" and other novels.

She's here to talk to us today about what makes for fascinating novel material and she has two copies of "The Love Market" for some lucky readers in the US and Canada.

To learn more about Carol and what she finds fascinating, visit her at her website, Facebook and Twitter.

Why Women's Lives Make Fascinating Material for Other Women to Read About

After a night out with a girlfriend, my husband will always ask: What did you talk about? (Funny. Because after the guys have had a night out, I am NEVER curious about what they talked about.) When I am on the phone with a friend for an hour he’ll say: How can you witter on for all that time? I tell him I don’t know. We just can.

I tell him we discuss our feelings about any given thing that we are not happy about. Sometimes just one harmless comment starts it – the necessity to dissect details to death. Then of course we discuss our feelings about our feelings. Then we try to analyze how the subject of our conversation might be feeling - about themselves, and about how we feel. So it’s easy to understand how we can gab forever.

Sometimes it’s repetitive. Often it doesn’t change anything. But by the time we are done, we have a certain clarity on things. More importantly, we feel a tiny little bit closer to one other human being who we allow to know us inside out. Friendship between two women is like being part of an exclusive club with a membership of two: you don’t need, or want, anyone else to join – a lot like being immersed in a great book.

Weird, says my husband. Girls are plain weird.

Maybe. But women like to gather feedback from people they admire and trust. Most guys would be more likely to confide in a lamppost than confess troubles or misdeeds to someone they knew. Someone who would care, remember, and know them well enough, perhaps, to help – or worse: to judge. We all know the old cliché about male drivers who are lost but won’t ask for directions. Men generally don’t seek out help, advice, or enjoy trying to learn from how others navigate the major thoroughfares of life. They are happy to plug away blindly, giving the impression they know exactly what they are doing. But women see, if not an easier way, then a more collaborative one.

Women are more verbally and emotionally reactive, quicker to reveal pain and hurt feelings, yet we have all given and received the silent treatment. They can be ambitious without being competitive, and can be competitive without being mean. But sometimes they are unkind. How many of our friendships exist wholly on an appreciation of similarities and differences of each other, without ever crossing over into occasional pettiness or spite? Sometimes women are best friends and worst enemies simultaneously. Yet when two great friends fall out, it can be as traumatic as a break up between lovers.

When all this juicy stuff finds its way into fiction, it makes for a compelling, intimate read. We all know that feeling of having met a character in a novel to whom we can entirely relate. She thinks like we do, speaks like we do, wants what we want, gets frustrated about the same things as us, and there is an honesty and sincerity to her that makes her as real as anybody we know.

Once in a while a book comes along that’s written by a man, and it’s honest and real and shows perceptions and sensitivities that we never knew men were capable of (Tony Parsons, Nick Hornby, Jonathan Tropper to name a few). But mostly it’s left to women’s fiction to do that job - to feed a need we all have to pry into someone else’s conflict - the situations they put themselves into, or find themselves in, and what they do about it - because generally-speaking, their problems could be ours.

We love to live vicariously through the central character’s journey. Because women like to imagine lives other than our own. We might not desire to have an affair, but how many of us are not agog when hearing about someone else’s? We might never regret our divorce, but what happens if that happens? We like to watch the rollercoaster of others’ lives – the ebb and flow of their new romances, marriages, friendships. How they navigate crazy bosses, unreasonable in-laws, aging parents, parenthood, their own illnesses, dreams and disappointments. How they find time to be true to themselves when they so often have to adapt to the beat of others in order to make it through life’s challenges. We enjoy hanging out with women in fiction because we are observers of human nature, and good women’s fiction mines the dark and light side of how people tick: quirks and all.

When CS Lewis said we read to know we’re not alone, I am pretty sure he was talking about women’s fiction, even though he probably didn’t know it.

Special thanks to Carol for sharing her thoughts with us and her books with you!

How to win "The Love Market":
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US/Canada only. Giveaway ends August 15th at midnight EST

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