The Femme Fatale Buried inside Me… Deeeeep Inside

Today the Femmes Fatales welcome Kate Carlisle as our guest blogger. A lifelong love of old books and an appreciation of the art of bookbinding led NYT bestselling author Kate Carlisle to create the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Kate is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She loves to drink good wine and watch other people cook. Connect with her online at www.KateCarlisle.com and www.Facebook.com/KateCarlisleBooks. Take it away, Kate.

I’m thrilled to be a guest here with the Femmes Fatales, and more than a little bit intimidated. Femmes Fatales sounds exotic. Exciting. Sexy. Danger in a red stiletto, with a slash of dark lipstick across a pale face. I do have the pale face going for me, but other than that… The truth is, the heroine of If Books Could Kill, the second book of my Bibliophile Mysteries, is much more formidable than I am, though I doubt she realizes it.

Think about it. How would you react if you tripped over a dead body? And not just any dead body, but the body of an ex-lover who could still make your toes curl? And he wasn’t just dead, he had clearly been murdered…and you were standing in a pool of his blood.

How would you react?

Me, I would run screaming into the night, knocking over chairs and tables and probably small children in my haste to get away. My fingers would shake wildly, frustrating my attempts to call the police. When I finally got through, I’d spout gibberish in a high-pitched voice, speaking in circles while the patient 9-1-1 operator tried to discern a kernel of sense from me.

Brooklyn Wainwright, on the other hand, is much cooler in If Books Could Kill. Well, okay, “cool” probably isn’t the right word. She freaks out pretty good. After all, she’s a rare book expert, not a cop. Come to think of it, her immediate reaction is pretty comical. Screaming, check. Scrambling, check. Shaking, check.

But then… ah yes, from there on out lies the difference between a true femme fatale and, well, me. Once Brooklyn gets over that initial shock, she – unlike me – rises to the occasion. Imagine that! If I were a murder suspect, I would hole up in my house and refuse to answer the door to anyone but the best lawyer money could buy. Brooklyn is not one to wait to be saved, even though a very yummy detective is quite hot to save her.

Brooklyn will save herself, dammit, come hell or high water. And she’ll do it in a foreign country. (If Books Could Kill is set in my favorite city in the world, Edinburgh, Scotland.)

Probably the best part about being a writer is the freedom to live an exciting life through the characters we create. That’s the best part about reading, too, for that matter. We put our characters into a “what if” situation, and we refuse to allow them to make safe choices. How boring would that be? Through our characters, we become the femme fatale we always dreamed of being.

Tell me about a situation in a book – whether one you’ve written or one you’ve read – and how the character’s choices differ from the choices you would make in real life. Or how about a situation in your real life, where you wish you would’ve behaved more like a character in a book. Have you ever wished you had made a braver choice? Have you ever made the brave choice and then wished you had stuck with the safe route?

Thanks again to all the Femmes (and a big smooch to Kris!) for having me here today!

Comments

[Jeanne AKA La Duchesse]

Hey Kate!! One of your Bandita Pals swinging by to say Howdy!

What a great post. I think you're so right that one of the wonderful things about being an author is the ability to live vicariously through our characters. Be braver, bolder, and sometimes choose to heal the hurts that trouble us all.

As to your question, yes, I've wished I'd behaved more like a brave heroine in several occasions. I've played it too safe in the past, not taken chances. Taking the safer road usually leads to MORE heartache in the end. You know, staying in a relationship longer than it can survive, staying in a joby until it makes you sour and pissy.

Thankfully I learned my lessons there, so I travel a bit more boldly now. Still, I'm no Brooklyn Wainwright!

[Jeanne AKA La Duchesse]

That should, of course, be JOB, not joby. Grins.

[Jen Lyon]

Hey Kate! All my heroines are braver than me!

Okay this might sound sillyish: but right before Christmas I was behind this older woman in line at a big box store. She was buying groceries and she must have been somewhat disabled. The clerk and manager gave her such a hard time because her license was expired, forcing her to pay cash (instead of her credit card) and she had to put a lot of the food back. I wish and wish I had just paid for her food. My heroines would have, and I should have.

It still bothers me.

[Jo Robertson]

Hi, Kate, another Bandita swinging by. (Waving madly to Jeanne who's toppling under crazy-a** feet of snow!

Great topic, Kate. There is nothing even remotely femme fatal about me. Although I'd like to think I have a bit of the siren in me, the truth is I'm way too tame to draw men irresistably into danger and daring situations.

I like to read about those risk-takers, however. Like Jeanne, I think that's what makes writing those characters so much fun.

But I am calm in a crisis, I have to say, probably due to all the bumped heads and nasty gashes and broken bones of my children through the years.

[Maureen Child]

Hey, Kate!!

Allof my characters are snarky and sarcastic...hmm, wonder where they get it?? But they're immensely more brave than I!! I'd be right with you, scrambling over tables and chairs, running for the hills....or hill similarities.....

[Kate Carlisle]

Hi, everyone! Thanks so much for hosting me here today! I hope you'll all check me out online at www.KateCarlisle.com and www.Facebook.com/KateCarlisleBooks

Jeannie, You're so right that taking the safe route can often lead to more heartache. And doing so all the time inevitably leads to the heartache of "if only." If only I had tried harder, done more...

[Kate Carlisle]

Jen, Oh, those moments can haunt us! You're living in that sort of frozen moment, trying to decide whether to put yourself out there to help someone (and maybe make a little bit of a scene), or whether to fade into the background. While you're thinking about it, the opportunity passes, and you're left with the regret of missing your chance to do something kind. Next time, I'm guessing you'll make the leap!

[Kate Carlisle]

Jo, Yes, motherhood makes tigers out of kittens. :) I think most women are surprised by how fierce they can become in protection of their children.

[Kate Carlisle]

Maureen, My snarky and sarcastic sister! LOL I don't know about you, but I think my humor is often one of the ways that I show my cowardice. I get nervous, and out burst the jokes.

I kind of like that about myself. ;)

[Anna Campbell]

Hey, Kate, I think you're a femme fatale! Well, at least you have a killer sense of humor. Is that what you meant?

Nuh-uh, no femme fatale here. Only in my wildest dreams. Physically I'm a complete wimp - which is why it's such fun to write such valiant souls in my books.

Actually I don't think I'd do a lot of things that people in books do. I sure wouldn't go looking for the madman in the attic of the haunted house wearing only a towel, for a start!

[Kate Carlisle]

Anna, LOL on the killer sense of humor!

You nailed it. The people in our books have to be proactive enough to seek out danger, or at least run the risk by putting themselves on the line. The safe thing to do is often to run away, but that would make for a boring book.

[Suzanne Welsh]

Hey Kate!

My copy of IF BOOKS COULD KILL is sitting near the top of my TBR pile...(Julie Garwood and Jayne Ann Krentz have you beat out)...waiting for me to do a much needed reading break. I have been looking forward to this book ever since the end of the last one.

I think the bravest thing I ever did was go to nursing school. I graduated at the ripe old age of 20 and was petrified that in an emergency I'd kill someone. Luckily for me, and the pt., when the first emergency occurred, I did the appropriate actions...stayed calm and called for help. From those people who came to help me, I learned more lessons and the pt. survived!! But for the first few seconds, I felt like Winnie-the-pooh..."Think, think, think!"

[Kate Carlisle]

Suzanne, Everyone in the medical profession must be incredibly brave because your actions impact other people's lives, not just your own. That's much scarier than personal risk!

[Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy]

Hi Kate!

Sorry to be so late for your party. Of COURSE my heroine's are much braver than I am. If they weren't, I'd probably be out there living an adventurous life instead of just writing about it! ;-)

Don't worry, even if you aren't as brave as Brooklyn, me and the rest of your buddies love ya anyway!

AC

[Donna MacMeans]

Hi Kate -

My heroines are braver than me. They may have reservations, but they go forward. There aren't many decisions I've second-guessed, but there's still a lot of things I want to try. Maybe after I attempt some of those, I'll have more reservations about choices made (grin).

[Kate Carlisle]

Hi, Cindy! No worries! Latecomers are welcome, too. And thanks for forgiving me for my yellow streak. :)

[Kate Carlisle]

Donna, I truly believe that we're more likely to regret the risks we didn't take. Try something new and then report back to us! LOL

[Sheila Connolly]

Love the series, love the setting (I lived in northern California for years), love the books...

I hate to say it, but these days if I stumbled over a body, I'd probably pull out my camera, or start taking notes. Writing does make us weird!

I try to make my heroines confused: they want to do the right thing, but they don't always know what that is or how to do it. But they all take on new challenges (you go, ladies!).

[krisneri]

My sleuth, Tracy Eaton, revels in finding a body, but she's pretty reality-challenged.

As for me personally, I'm with Sheila. If confronted by the real thing, my first impulse would probably be to take in as much as I could so I could use it in a book. But then, I'm probably somewhat round that reality-challenged bend myself. Write what you know. ;)

Thanks for being with the Femmes, Kate!

[Kate Carlisle]

Sheila,

LOL! I love the image of you taking notes over the dead body. Kind of reminds me of the TV show Castle. Nathan Fillion gets a gleeful look in his eyes at the most gruesome events.

[Kate Carlisle]

Kris, "Write what you know" can be a dangerous challenge to those of us who write murder mysteries. ;)

Thank you so much for hosting me here at the fabulous Femmes Fatales! It's been a lot of fun. I've truly enjoyed myself.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Hey Kate! Thank so much for being here! Oh, that's the whole point--Charlie McNally can do and say things that I would NEVER do. I would think of 'em, though...and then---I just get her to do them.

(Once she yelled at the Attorney General. I would never do that! And, frankly, I was surprised when SHE did.)

Hmmm...characters as--what would you call them? Self-surrogates?

[Avis]

My favorite quote:

"The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next." (Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966)

I try to remember this when my courage falters. I think I admire characters like this, too.

[Dana]

Kate, thanks so much for blogging with the Femmes! Hmm, I guess my characters may have more physical courage than I do, but maybe I have a little more emotional courage. I'm always wondering if I could trade off, and balance the two out...