Karen White – Hope In Darkness

Karen White is best known as the top selling author of so-called “Grit Lit” – the mysteries with a paranormal twist set in the South, like her Tradd Street series set in Charleston, South Carolina, or family sagas in Georgia. Her latest book, in contrast, The Last Night in London, is, as the title suggests, a departure – the first book she has set outside of the South. Hi there, I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler, and in Binge Reading today Karen talks about why she wants the full gamut of human emotion in her stories – laughter as well as tears, love as well as hate – and she shares how she confronted the dark period of her career when she almost gave up writing fiction altogether. Support Binge Reading on Patreon for as little as a cup of coffee a month and receive regular exclusive bonus content on featured authors and the making of the podcast. Bonuses include regular weekly Getting To Know You Five Quickfire Questions with authors including Karen, giving a fund candid snapshot of their likes and dislikes, as well as an exclusive monthly Behind the Scenes newsletter giving previews of upcoming books. You can join and get this bonus content and having the satisfaction of knowing you are helping pay some of the hosting and production costs for the show. The time I give to the show in sourcing guests and researching their books is still free. Become a Patreon supporter today by going to https://www.patreon.com/thejoysofbingereading/ SUPPORT BINGE READING ON PATREON Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: The book that "saved" Karen's author career Karen's long love affair with the South How she's moving on from Tradd Street Her fabulous collaboration with two other best selling authors Why she values stories that tug at our heart strings How fashion helped maintain morale during the Blitz Where to find Karen White:  Website: https://www.karen-white.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenwhitewrite/ Facebook: @KarenWhiteAuthor Twitter: @KarenWhiteWrite Pinterest:  @karenwhitebooks Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/160033.Karen_WhiteWhat follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions But now here's Karen. Jenny Wheeler: Hello there, Karen and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Karen White: Hello, Jenny. Thanks for having me. Introducing Karen White author Jenny Wheeler: You've got more than 30 books published so a fantastic backlist, and it's a mix of best-selling and award-winning historic fiction, mystery with paranormal twist, and women's fiction – quite a mix there. But it would be fair to say that they've probably all got one thing in common and that is they are emotional family stories, or there's a lot of emotion built into them, isn't there? Karen White Author Karen White: Yes. I like to write the kind of books I like to read, and I like to read books that pull on all the heartstrings. I want to make you laugh, but if I make you cry, or if I make you think, that's a bonus as well, because that's real life. That's what we're all going through. Jenny Wheeler: Your latest book is on the verge of being published in the U S. It’s The Last Night in London, a time slip story moving between the present day and wartime London. You set up a web of fascinating links between two women, one a fashion journalist in 1940s London, and the other a New York photojournalist in the present day. It's quite surprising that the fashion industry even continued during that very chaotic period of the war but tell us about the genesis for the story. Karen White: This has been playing in the back of my head for many years. My first two books were historical fiction, both set in the American South. Then I switched to contemporary fiction and I wrote them all set in the South. There were two of my most popular books,