Monday Feature: Interview with Caryl McAdoo

Hi, everyone! Be sure to read my review of "Lies" by Oliver Dahl, which I posted earlier this morning.

Now, I have an interview with my friend and fellow author, Caryl McAdoo!

Hi, Caryl! Thank you for being here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I sure can, but first, let me thank you for having me, Heather. I’m so excited over 

the launch of VOW UNBROKEN this month and so appreciate that you wanted 

to help make it a success! I’m a Grami with fourteen grandsugars, living in the 

peaceful woods of Peter’s Prairie south of Clarksville, Texas, Red River’s County 

seat. O’Pa, my high school sweetheart husband of forty-five years, and I are rearing 

four of those sugars, all boys. We’ve had them eleven years, so they’re ours. So I 

still have plenty of sports events and parent/teacher conferences. My greatest love is 

for God and His Son, and any glory or accolades that come my way, I turn straight 

back to Him, because He’s the essence of any good in me. 

Awesome! When did you first realize that writing was for you?

I remember my favorite granddaddy, reading from a story he wrote. His character 

was a cat who was trying to win the princess’ hand. He often told us stories at nap 

time until we’d fall off to sleep. So I’d have to say he was my first inspiration and 

the one who awakened story telling in me. ‘Writing’ came as a by-product of that. 

English was always my favorite subject in school and in the seventh grade, for a 

homework assignment ‘What will you be doing in the year 2000?’ I wrote about 

hopping planets to autograph my books. I was an intergallactically famous author. 

J What can I say? I’ve always been a BIG thinker! Wasn’t until the mid eighties 

that I began writing with the idea of getting published in mind, and fifteen years 

later when the first title was published. It’s been a long journey, but God’s been 

faithful.

I love the intergalactic famous author. Hahaha! What is your book about?

VOW UNBROKEN is a historical Christian romance set in 1832 East Texas, and 

I’m so honored that Simon and Schuster’s Howard Books has published it. It’s 

about the faith and struggles of a young woman who came west with her new 

husband to start a new life.

He and his brother are killed in a logging accident leaving her a pregnant 

nineteen year old widow with an orphaned five year old nephew to raise. She blames

herself and counts his death as God’s punishment for her marrying without her

father’s consent.

She focuses her life on pleasing God after that vowing never to marry again 

without her daddy’s blessing, but that promise seems to doom her to a lonely life as

he’s back in Tennessee and none of the men who’ve come courting want to make the 

arduous trip on the chance of her father’s approval. 

VOW UNBROKEN opens ten years after all this, and she’s just harvested 

her best crop ever. Blessed to have sold her cotton to a local businessman, she waves 

goodbye to all her neighbors who’ve joined together in a wagon train to take their

harvests to market in Jefferson, about a hundred miles south.

The scoundrel buyer reneges when she goes to deliver her lint and only

offers half his original bid. Should she sell to him and barely break even, meaning 

scratching out one more year on the prairie and most likely selling off some of the

land, her children’s inheritance, or someway, somehow, get her cotton along the 

Jefferson Trace to the buyers who are paying in gold coin.

Spunky, stubborn, and infuriated that the man is trying to cheat her, she

takes the latter path and determines she can do it herself, but her best friend 

convinces her she must have help, a man to go with her, but there aren’t many 

available since most are already on the way.

Against her better judgment, she hires ne’er-do-well Henry Buckmeyer, a 

mama’s boy with a reputation of being a lazy drunk. The trace proves dangerous 

indeed, but none of those can match the trial of her heart when she falls in love with 

the heathen Henry.

Sounds great! What can we find you doing when you are not writing?

It seems like marketing would be the answer. It’s amazing what a writer is 

required to do to help make their book a success. Not that I don’t love this part of

the career because I love people, but where a manuscript eventually comes to THE 

END, marketing said manuscript never does. J My husband drags me away from 

the computer often. And a Grami/Mama of four must cook meals and do laundry. 

But for fun, I love crafting and gardening, and for my spirit, I love praise and 

worship. I’m a psalmist and cannot live without getting regularly in his manifest 

presence.

Marketing can be very time-consuming. What time of day do you feel you get your best writing done?

With my daily schedule, I write whenever I can, early in the morning before 

the boys wake up, or a little later after they all get off to school. All through the 

afternoon up until supper needs cooking, and after into the early morning hours 

when I have trouble getting to sleep. Mostly the hours I usually DON’T write are 

between 2 and 5 in the dark morning. J

You are very dedicated to the craft! Your books are Christian Historical Romance. What role does your faith play in your writing?

It has been a great joy to discover this genre and I owe that in full to Mary 

Sue McAdoo Seymour, my agent. Can you believe she grew up a McAdoo? God has 

such a sense of humor! And of course, meeting her was His divine plan for us both, 

so He ultimately gets credit for me writing historical Christian romance.

readers write of drawing closer to Him or examining their hearts anew because of 

my writing is such an awesome reward. 

never repay the debt I owe to Him, but thank Him so much for preparing a way for 

me to be in relationship with Him. That He loves me the way He does and blesses me 

and sends His favor before me never ceases to overwhelm me.

allows me to advance His Kingdom here on earth. Believing time is short and that 

His Son is coming again soon to reign in Jerusalem, I set my focus on bring the 

Good News to all who are lost and don’t know Him as I do. I don’t know how they 

even get through a day without Him. I sure couldn’t.

What do you most look forward to about being published?

As above in question six, it’s all about the platform. When I first started 

this new ‘digital marketing’ experience, I kept hearing the words platform and 

branding. Shameless, I asked many exactly what they were and researched online to 

further understand.

When Phil Robertson was removed from the wildly successful Duck 

Dynasty for his standing for God’s Word and Way, I understood it all the more. 

Our platform consists of the people we get to talk to and hopefully influence. Mr. 

Robertson has been given an awesome, huge platform, and in my humble opinion, 

used it to glorify our Maker.

You, Heather, have been God’s servant in extending my ‘platform’ through 

this interview. I pray that some of your readers will also become mine because 

they’ve read this interview and liked what I have to say. I love it how authors are 

so open and ready to help other writers to success instead of thinking there aren’t 

enough readers out there for all of us. Well, at least Christian authors! I’m so very 

blessed to have met so many wonderful sisters-in-Christ who also love to write 

stories that glorify Him. Blessed, blessed, blessed!

Where can my readers find you and your book?

Find CARYL at:

Website - http://www.CarylMcAdoo.com

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/CarylMcAdoo/author

Blog - http://www.CarylMcAdoo.blogspot.com

Google+ - https://plus.google.com/u/0/

116386927782468472563/posts

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/CarylMcAdoo

Pinterest - http://www.pinterest.com/gramilady 

LinkedIn - http://www.linkedIn.com/CarylMcAdoo

Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/

181587.Caryl_McAdoo

“Giveaway - https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/71736-vow-

unbroken

Angie’s Diary - : http://angiesdiary.com/texas-tender/point-view-whos-

head/

S & Schuster - http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Caryl-McAdoo/

411169289

Amazon Author Pg - http://www.amazon.com/Caryl-McAdoo/e/

B00E963CFG

Buy VOW UNBROKEN at:

AMAZON

http://www.amazon.com/Vow-Unbroken-Novel-Caryl-McAdoo/dp/

1476735514 

BARNES & NOBLE

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vow-unbroken-caryl-mcadoo/

1115884744?ean=9781476735511 

MARDEL http://www.mardel.com/search/default.aspx?

Keyword=VOW+UNBROKEN

CHRISTIANBOOK

http://www.deepershopping.com/item/mcadoo-caryl/vow-unbroken/

5982209.html 

DEEPER SHOPPING

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