An Interview with Caroline Bond; author of The Forgotten Sister and The Second Child

Caroline Bond was born in Scarborough and studied English at Oxford University before working as a market researcher for 25 years. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Leeds Trinity University, and lives in Leeds with her husband and three children.  Her debut novel was The Second Child which featured on the Simon Mayo Radio 2 book club in April 2018 and gets a score of 4 on goodreads and 4.5 on Amazon.  The Forgotten Sister was released in June 2019 when I had the pleasure of meeting Caroline during a time when I was very curious about the process of writing and publishing.  Caroline was kind enough to agree to an interview (my first author interview - eeeeeek a little bit excited).  You can find my review here Caroline Bond The Forgotten Sister

1.    Did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

Yes. It gave me the tools to structure my stories better and a whole new approach to editing my own work e.g. much more brutal. It also gave me, simultaneously, more confidence and more doubt. You think about your editor and your reader more with subsequent books.

2.    What did you learn from your agent in the quest to get The Second Child published?

That it is a combination of luck and hard work that wins out. That yes, publishers are inundated, but they will publish books by people that no one has heard of if they are good enough and fill a commercial niche. Also not to expect anything...fame, much money, praise etc.

3.    What role does an editor play?  What was edited out of The Forgotten Sister?

A good editor plays a huge role in reading your work ‘as a reader’. They know the market, what sells and what flops. They also know the mechanics of a good story and are ruthless in telling you want is redundant in your work. Less was taken out of The Forgotten Sister than The Second Child. A good sign. But there was still a lot of plot tightening needed. Actually my editor made me think more about certain characters in both books and asked me to give them more space, especially Leah. She also encouraged me to go darker.

4.    As you know, I loved The Forgotten Sister and it took me on an emotional journey!  What was the first book that made you cry?

A hard question.  There was a kids book about a rabbit called Pooky that had me when I was little. His owner used to wrap him up in his ears to put him to bed. As an adult....We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler is worth a read and I won't spoil it by telling you anything about it.

5.    What research did you do to help you with The Forgotten Sister?

Live, face to face research with a couple who had adopted recently. A lot of desk research into the adoption process and hours of You Tube, watching of people who had been through the Care system. I have also worked in youth offending services ages ago so that helped as well.

6.    Who is The Forgotten Sister?  I changed my mind every chapter…….

Leah and Erin, and to some extent every sibling that has been separated through fostering or adoption. I wanted the reader not to know. On a practical level the title was chosen by the publisher and I didn't like it as I thought it gave too much away, so in part some of the later re writes were designed to throw the reader off the scent.

7.    Who would you pick to read the audio book of The Forgotten Sister?

Maxine Peake or Sarah Lancashire. Us Northern girls have to stick together! And they are both fab actors.

8.    Does reading distract you from the writing process?

No, it helps. Mainly as a distraction and for fun/ leisure. Just finished The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. That was excellent. Also a dystopian story called The Farm, which was interesting, but I found it hard to get lost in the story.

9.    I am currently on a quest to read more classics.  How would you define a classic and what would you recommend I add to my list?  Please note, I am not an Austen fan.

If you're in the mood a bit of Dickens. Not Hardy, for me, too dour.  Vanity Fayre is a riot, though very long. Or how about some American Classics? I'm currently reading James Baldwin’s; If Beale Street Could Talk, which is v. good and, very different, anything by Maya Angelou. There is black emancipation theme going on here. Angela Carter for some dark fantasy.  Orwell; 1984. Still bizarrely relevant.  Oh and some Milan Kundera if you want to something really different.

'Classic' to me is anything that still resonates and that is well written. Though it normally means stuff that you had to read to pass A Level English Lit.

10. When do we get to read your third book?

I'm not sure. I have to deliver by September. It's in the lap of Corvus, my publishers, after that. At present it is a bit of a mess, but it is a work in progress.

Thank you Caroline (James Baldwin will be added to the Classic's list) and to everyone else, if you haven’t yet, please read The Forgotten Sister!