Caro Fraser

 

I was born in Carlisle in 1953, but my family moved to Glasgow shortly afterwards and I was brought up there until my mid-teens, attending Glasgow High School for Girls. Then when I was 15 my father, George MacDonald Fraser, author of the 'Flashman' books, wrote the first book in the series and the family moved to the Isle of Man, where I went to the Buchan School.

I've been writing all my life, for as long as I can remember. When I was very young both my parents were journalists, and the house was always full of books, and reading and writing stories and poems seemed to me to be the very stuff of life. I thought it was what everyone did.

I started writing professionally in 1992, between babies. Before that I was a commercial lawyer, and before that an advertising copywriter. I originally went into advertising because, having ambitions to become a writer of books, I assumed it was logical to work in some creative capacity connected with writing before I got round to penning my first novel. It also sounded like fun. In fact, it turned out that after writing copy for reclining armchairs and whisky all day, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was write more fiction. So, after working in Scotland for three years, I moved back to London and became a lawyer, which not only stretched me further intellectually, but also provided me with the background against which many of my books are set.

My first novel The Pupil was based on my time spent in pupillage - which is something akin to an apprenticeship for becoming a barrister - and was written largely from a male standpoint. I don't know why this was; possibly because at that time most barristers' pupils were male, or perhaps because it lent the necessary distance to enable me to find a voice I was comfortable with. The novel deals with the trials and fortunes of Anthony Cross during his six month pupillage at Caper Court, and the various characters he meets in the eccentric world of the Inns of Court in London. Chief among these is Leo Davies, an attractive, talented, charismatic and extremely successful barrister, who happens to be bisexual, and under whose spell Anthony quickly falls.

Woody Allen once said that the advantage of being bisexual is that it doubles your chances of a date on Saturday night, and by the same reasoning a bisexual character doubles the number of possible romantic plotlines, something I exploited to the full in the Caper Court series of novels - of which there are presently six, The Pupil, Judicial Whispers, An Immoral Code, A Hallowed Place, A Perfect Obsession and A Calculating Heart.

Dealing with the same set of characters book after book is quite gruelling for a writer, so in between each Caper Court novel I have written six 'stand-alone' novels, which I like to think are romantic fiction for the thinking woman - The Trustees, An Inheritance, Beyond Forgiveness, A Little Learning, Familiar Rooms In Darkness and A World Apart.

I live in London with my husband, who is a lawyer, and my four teenage children, and find time to write in between driving, cooking, shopping, washing, ironing and tidying. I try to eat and sleep as well.

At present I have four books waiting to be published. One is a long, slightly gothic children's poem called 'The Songs Of The Three Kingdoms' -I'm hoping that the new film Eragon is going to make dragons big again! The second is called 'Hanging Fire', and is a quasi-feminist novel of an experimental nature, in that I conduct a dialogue with my main character throughout. Sounds odd, I know, but everyone who's read it so far has been incredibly enthusiastic - publishers, however, are apparently wary of 'high concept'novels. The third is called 'The Girl In The Yellow Dress' and is an old-fashioned yarn about a family from the 30s to the 80s. Last but not least, I've just finished my latest Caper Court novel, provisionally entitled 'A Breath Of Corruption', in which my charming hero Leo walks his usual amoral tightrope.

I've had a stream of emails from lovely people asking when the latest Caper Court is due to be published, but since leaving my previous publishers, Penguin, I'm finding it hard to get even this book published -times are tough in the book world right now. So it would be a help if you'd email me and let me know if there's a market for this book - I believe there is!

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Other Books by Caro Fraser

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  Breath of Corruption

  Caro Fraser

  Price: £7.99 - Saving

  Part of the Caper Court series, this novel recounts the lives and loves of a group of London barristers. It offers insights into London's legal world.
  Format: Paperback  -  Released: 01/10/2007

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• 

  Familiar Rooms in Darkness

  Caro Fraser

  Price: £6.99 - Saving

  The voices which are still talking at the end of someone's life don't tell the whole story. The ones that have fallen silent along the way, the people from forgotten parts of a person's past - they tell another kind...
  Format: Paperback  -  Released: 29/04/2004

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• 

  A Perfect Obsession

  Caro Fraser

  Price: £6.99 - Saving

  For all those who adore Joanna Trollope's cool, honest writing style comes the fifth novel in the hugely popular Caper Court series. Leo Davies QC - charismatic, attractive and sexually ambiguous - inspires powerful feelings. Feelings that sometimes border on...
  Format: Paperback  -  Released: 05/06/2003

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