Sondra Allan Carr
Sondra Allan Carr lives in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky with her husband of more than four decades. Sondra loves to travel and has been to Europe, China, Australia, and India. She recently spent time in the rainforest of Belize, an experience reflected in the setting for her second book in The World of Pangaea saga, The Savage.
A confessed word nerd, Sondra has “read all of Shakespeare” at the top of her bucket list. She believes truth is stranger than fiction and fiction is often truer than real life—or at least most of the time it makes more sense. When she isn’t reading or succumbing to the allure of the internet, she spends her time writing and trying to make sense of the world.
Sondra’s fiction is a blend of fantasy and romance that has been described as dark, emotional, and “not your usual romance.” Her first novel, A Bed of Thorns and Roses, is a Beauty and the Beast-themed historical romance set during America’s Gilded Age. Readers have called it “a page-turner,” “very moving,” and “one of the best romantic stories I have ever read.”
She is currently writing a fantasy series, The World of Pangaea, a projected five-volume family saga set in an alternate pre-history. The family patriarch and hero of the first book, The Beast, is a tortured character who may or may not redeem himself by the end of Book One. But he has four more books, and a few decades’ time, in which to prove himself while the stories of his three daughters and his brother unfold. Each book in the series has a short story prequel, published separately, featuring a minor but pivotal character from its companion novel.
“He fell silent, a silence with edges like broken glass that scraped across her heart.”
“I’m a coward.”“No—”“Don’t deny what we both know to be true.”Richard put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “You are worn down by your burdens. Tired, not cowardly.”Jonathan shook his head. He didn’t argue the point. Was it because he was too tired, or too cowardly?”
“What was wrong with him?Nothing. Everything.”
“Her shame, she was certain, marked her in ways apparent to anyone who looked closely. It had grown to her like a second skin”
“Day by day, the constant solitude drove him deeper inside himself, with only his thoughts for companions. Soon he might lose the capacity for social intercourse altogether. The possibility of such an eventuality brought him to his feet”
“Jonathan’s arm jerked to the side in clumsy reaction, tipping over the bottle of ink that sat on the desk beside his papers. He watched the dark liquid obliterate in a moment what had cost him an afternoon of painful effort to complete. It was a fitting metaphor for his life, he thought, like the despair that spread inexorably through his being, a creeping blackness that threatened to blot out what small hope or purpose was yet left to him.”
“We must hold our secrets to ourselves. They define us. They are all we have.”
“Beautiful. Belle is French for beautiful.”“Oh dear.” She could never live up to her name. The thought made her want to cry. “Please, sir.”“But you are beautiful. It mystifies me that you don’t seem to believe that fact.”“My mirror tells me otherwise every day of my life.”“Then accept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes tell me you are beautiful.”
“I prefer the keen edge of truth to the dull comfort of lies.”