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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

AN INTERVIEW WITH EDITH MAXWELL'S MIDWIFE SLEUTH ROSE CARROLL

Today we’re joined by Rose Carroll, from author Edith Maxwell’s Quaker Midwife Mystery series.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?
I was happily working as a midwife, with murder nowhere in sight.

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself?
I like that I’m independent, in my midwifery and my investigations. It’s not common for a young woman, but being a Quaker gives me more freedom from society’s strictures.

What do you like least about yourself?
I experienced an emotional trauma when I was younger that still haunts me, and I find it hard to completely recover from it.

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?
She had me on a wild horseback ride to the beach, but that’s not too strange. I suppose it was when I was abducted by a villain. After some time I managed to both overpower him and help a baby be born. Not the usual birthing scene!

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?
She puts me in harm’s way, and I don’t like it. In the new story, I walk to help a birthing client I’ve never met before – in a snowstorm – and end up with a concussed head by way of thanks.

What is your greatest fear?
That something will happen to my beloved family or my darling betrothed, David Dodge.

What makes you happy?
Witnessing God’s miracle of a healthy baby born to a healthy mother always makes me happy. A successful birth never fails to bring joy to my heart.

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?
See my answer about the head injury! Good heavens, did I need that?

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?
I’m afraid David’s mother Clarinda Dodge and I don’t see eye to eye. She doesn’t approve of us courting and is most unhappy about the prospect that we might marry. David blessedly doesn’t let her sway him, and his father is also fond of me.

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?
I confess to a bit of envy about my friend Bertie Winslow’s carefree, eccentric nature, which she somehow combines with a professional position of some influence. She rides her horse astride, she isn’t concerned with gossip about her living arrangements with her dear Sophie, and she runs the Amesbury post office with a firm and cheerful hand.

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?
Edith also writes two mystery series set in thy modern times, as well as short crime fiction. Our second tale, Called to Justice, is nominated this year for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. Edith is president of a group called Sisters in Crime New England and is, like me, a member of the Religious Society of Friends. She lives with her man and two elderly cats right here in Amesbury, Massachusetts – in the same house where I reside! All of her writing is well represented at her website, and Dear Reader, she hopes thee might sign up for her quarterly newsletter there.

What's next for you?
My next story is Charity’s Trouble, which will be available to read a year from now. In it a mother of six dies from an apparent miscarriage, but Rose discovers her death was caused by something much more evil.

I believe Edith will use the fifth book in the series (to appear in 2020) to describe a case I worked on with Jeanne, a blind woman I cared for in her pregnancy. Humans can be so stupid – many believe she has a lack of intelligence simply because she cannot see. But such beliefs let her be privy – and therefore me, as well – to hearing a great many secrets. We found the killer, delivered her baby, and have remained fast friends.

Turning the Tide
During Presidential election week in 1888, the Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and Quaker midwife Rose Carroll joins the protest. When she finds a prominent suffragist dead the next morning, Rose must deliver more than babies. Her own life is repeatedly threatened as she sorts out killer from innocent.

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