Blog Guest Post + Giveaway: India Black by Carol Carr

I am delighted to welcome Carol Carr, author of India Black, to Let Them Read Books!

Thank you, Jenny, for inviting me to do a guest post for your blog.

India Black may be based on historical events, but I took a rather tongue-in-cheek approach to the facts while writing the book. We have been conditioned to regard history as a serious subject (it is), but in retrospect, lots of historical episodes are ironic or coincidental, or even downright funny. I wanted to be accurate in my facts, but humorous in my approach. I also chose the light-hearted method when dealing with the experiences of my heroine, a brothel owner in London. Let’s face it, without a bit of comedy, a story about prostitution would be pretty grim.

I’ve read a great deal about the Victorian era, but when I began researching India Black, I had to learn something about prostitution in one of the most rigid and conventional societies in history. This caused a few raised eyebrows at the local library as I ordered book after book about sado-masochism in Victorian England, streetwalkers in the East End, and sexual deviance in Bloomsbury. We shouldn’t believe that Victorians didn’t have sex, or that they didn’t think about sex, or that they didn’t pay for sex. They did all those things. There was a thriving sexual underworld in Victorian England. Of course, polite society ignored this activity, except when it was engaging in it.

That was an aspect I wanted to play up: India would be cut dead by most of the men she encounters in the book if she were to meet them on the street, but it wouldn’t be surprising at all if they appeared on her doorstep with cash in hand. Their wives would have treated her worse. India has no illusions about human nature, and she takes several swipes at the hypocrisy inherent in the Victorians’ staid public image and their private behavior.

Many Victorians were religious folks with a zeal for good works. Unfortunately, they sometimes went about it with a heavy hand. India doesn’t mince words about the Victorian zest for charity. She has only contempt for Reverend Calthorpe and his scheme to provide prostitutes with work as seamstresses. India knows what Calthorpe doesn’t; that the wages of seamstresses were insufficient to support a woman, and many seamstresses added to their income by moonlighting as prostitutes. She’s unimpressed when the reverend arrives at the brothel enraged at the massacre of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, since he had to wade through a crowd of unwashed, unfed, and uneducated children to do so. India also has a few choice words about a society that tolerates starving children while its wealthiest members gorge on champagne and oysters.

As for politicians, India never misses an opportunity to skewer them, whether for imposing their religious beliefs on foreign policy (Gladstone) or supporting an oppressive regime to protect British commercial interests (Disraeli). Things haven’t changed much, have they? And that’s a point I wanted to make through India, and her cynical observations about her world.

Thank you, Carol!

To learn more about India and Carol, visit Carol's website.

Click here to read my 4-Star Review of India Black!

And now here's your chance

to win your own copy of

India Black!

To enter, leave a comment with your email address. My Followers double their chances to win :) This giveaway is open to residents of the US & Canada, and ends at 11:59 p.m. March 19.

The India Black blog tour continues through March 17--click here for the complete schedule and more giveaway opportunities.

Thank you to Premier Virtual Author Book Tours for inviting me to participate!

This giveaway is closed and the winner has been selected.

Congratulations Theresa N.!