Carolyn Hart Books

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Carolyn Hart is an American author that writes mystery novels. She was born Carolyn Gimpel in 1936. The author spends her childhood in Oklahoma City. A former student at Cleveland Elementary and Taft Junior High, Hart knew from a young age that she wanted to write.

However, she never thought that she would spend decades writing mysteries. Because she was a child during WWII, Hart was convinced that journalism was the most important field in the world.

She couldn’t imagine anything better than becoming a reporter and writing stories that mattered. Hart started practicing immediately by volunteering her skills to the school newspaper. She did the same thing in college.

She pursued journalism at the University of Oklahoma. The author met her husband during a European trip in her junior year. After graduation, she joined The Normal Transcript. Her husband was in law school at the time.

Even though Hart was doing what she had always dreamed of, she abandoned her reporting career when her son was born. She finally turned her attention to fiction in the mid-60s when she participated in a writing contest and won.

The competition, which Dodd, Mead, and Calling All Girls sponsored, wanted participants to write a mystery novel for adolescent girls. After realizing that she had a knack for entertaining young readers, Hart wrote several young adult mysteries in the years that followed.

But her attempts to write suspense and mystery novels for adults did not work, not initially. When she wrote ‘The Devereaux Legacy, Hart was desperate. She couldn’t sell her books because adult audiences did not care about mysteries written by American women.

The author was tempted to surrender. At the time, the romance genre was booming, and Hart considered changing lanes. This attitude gave birth to ‘The Devereaux Legacy.’ Hart took a mystery and reworked it as a romance novel.

The novel injected new life into her career because it had southern Gothic elements that got the attention of Harlequin’s Gothic wing. Her editor told her to lean into the Southern Gothic genre, and Hart tried, but it was difficult.

She was not accustomed to dealing with the destructive emotions that drove the family elements in Southern Gothic stories. Fortunately, she eventually created ‘Death on Demand,’ a series of novels that combined romance and mystery components.

It was the winning formula she needed to carve out a place for herself in publishing. Hart has spent the last several decades writing mystery novels. Despite what some people think, she doesn’t plot extensively.

The author doesn’t want to overanalyze her stories. It makes the writing process far too complicated. She knows authors with an intellectual approach to writing, but she doesn’t want to emulate them.

Additionally, she doesn’t give her audience too much thought. She assumes that the right people will find her books. Hart doesn’t go out of her way to appeal to a specific group of people. She wants her stories to provide an escape for readers.

Carolyn Hart Awards

Carolyn has won Agatha and Macavity Awards.

Best Carolyn Hart Books

Even though she has written fiction for several decades, the author still gets stuck while writing. She has moments of doubt where she worries that her manuscripts won’t come together. But she is always wrong. Carolyn’s best books include:

Death on Demand: Elliot Morgan is dead. The author died during a gathering at a bookstore. This is a problem for Annie because she owns the bookstore in question. She inherited the ‘Death on Demand’ mystery bookstore, and she allows a group of mystery writers to use it as a meeting place. When one of their members dies, Annie becomes the prime suspect.

Ghost at Work: When she was alive, Bailey took great pleasure in solving mysteries. Her death hasn’t changed anything. She won’t hesitate to lend a helping hand whenever the need arises.

This time around, her target is Kathleen. If people find the dead man on her porch, her husband, the pastor, will take the blame. Bailey can’t let that happen. She will rush back to earth and pull Kathleen out of the fire.

But helping the pastor’s wife isn’t easy. To succeed, she has to break some rules, and Wiggins, her supervisor, is watching.

When Does The Next Carolyn Hart book come out?

Carolyn Hart doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is Ghost Blows a Kiss and was released on June, 1st 2021. It is the newest book in the Bailey Ruth Series.

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