Award-winning author Caroline Taylor, celebrated for her engrossing mystery novels, takes on new terrain with her latest book, Tough Love, a foray into mainstream fiction inspired by personal upheaval. In this revealing interview, Taylor opens up about the life experiences that shaped Tough Love, sharing how a medical crisis, the complexities of grief, and turbulent family dynamics compelled her to explore themes of resilience, loss, and self-discovery.
Lilac Larsen, the protagonist of Tough Love, is a character grappling with grief, family tension, and her own evolving sense of self. For Taylor, Lilac’s journey was inspired by a traumatic period in her life. “I had just survived a medical scare involving my husband,” she recalls. “It had us both talking about what would happen to me in the event of his death. Luckily, he survived, but those thoughts—how would a grieving widow get on with life?—inspired my first attempt at mainstream fiction.” This question of survival and transformation became the core of Lilac’s journey, as Taylor used the character’s struggles to navigate themes of resilience and reluctant self-discovery.
Taylor crafted Lilac’s character to reflect both strength and vulnerability, attributes that many can relate to in times of hardship. “Lilac thinks life without Steven is not worth living. She almost commits suicide,” Taylor shares. “I used Tulip’s arrival as a chance for Lilac to focus on the here and now, to overcome her tendency to avoid conflict and learn to embrace the messiness of life with a person she thinks she despises.”
At the heart of Tough Love is the fraught relationship between Lilac and her estranged half-sister Tulip. Taylor approached this sibling tension as both a source of conflict and a means for Lilac to confront her unresolved past. “I thought about how I would react if a relative I didn’t like showed up on my doorstep and more or less made herself at home,” Taylor says. “If I didn’t have the gumption to throw her out—mostly because she is family—then what, beyond setting house rules, could I do to manage the situation without making things worse?” Tulip, a source of painful memories and difficult truths, represents the parts of Lilac’s life she’s avoided confronting. “Tulip represents a past that Lilac has managed to ignore—her father’s death, Tulip’s exposé of his supposed abuse, and Caitlin’s constant reminders of the death of Lilac’s own child, Ricky,” Taylor explains.
This confrontation forces Lilac to see beyond her initial judgments. When she discovers damning photos, Lilac realizes that the “publicity hound” she thought she knew really was a victim of abuse, adding layers to both Tulip’s character and Lilac’s perspective.
Taylor set Tough Love during the Great Recession, using the period’s economic strains to enhance the story’s tension. “The Great Recession mostly set the stage for Lilac to take in Tulip and Caitlin, especially when it became clear that Tulip had no money to stay elsewhere,” Taylor explains. “But Lilac herself is feeling the pinch.” The recession’s echoes in today’s inflation challenges offer a timely parallel, reflecting on how economic pressures impact family dynamics and personal choices.
As Lilac confronts her role as an unintentional caretaker and mediator, her journey towards “tough love” comes into focus. Caitlin’s hospitalization becomes a defining moment, pushing Lilac to confront her long-standing tendency to avoid conflict. “Caitlin’s hospitalization is the moment at which Lilac realizes that avoiding conflict is not advisable,” Taylor says. “She can dish out advice in her weekly column, but she can’t seem to practice that sort of ‘tough love’ on Tulip or on Max. It is at this point that she also realizes that she cares about Tulip and Max.”
With Tough Love, Taylor artfully balances moments of humor and hardship, crafting a story that captures the unpredictability of life. “There has to be a rising and then a falling. The rising is when the tension ratchets up; the falling is when the characters can relax and take a breather,” she explains. The humor serves as a release valve, reminding readers that even in the bleakest times, laughter has its place.
Taylor’s journey as a writer was shaped by her upbringing in the Mountain West and her time abroad in the Foreign Service, experiences that broadened her worldview. “There’s a big, wide world out there where people live vastly different lives and hold widely different worldviews,” Taylor says. “It has taught me not to imagine that there is only one true path.” This perspective adds depth to her characters, who navigate complex emotions and life-altering choices with a blend of empathy and resilience.
Taylor’s work has earned accolades like the Firebird Book Award and recognition from the Freddie Awards, affirming her impact as a storyteller. This recognition, she says, motivates her to persevere through rejections and publishing challenges. Membership in professional communities like Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime has also been invaluable, offering a support network to share experiences and insights. “Otherwise, some of us would continue to beat our heads against the wall and wonder why it continues to hurt,” she notes.
As both a novelist and short-story writer, Taylor finds joy in working across forms, though each brings its own demands. “Actually, it’s the same,” she says of her creative process. “In novels, the protagonist has to transform in some meaningful way, even if it’s just solving the crime. In short stories, the prose is compacted, but there has to be a point at which the reader says, ‘Aha.’”
In Tough Love, Caroline Taylor invites readers to reflect on life’s unpredictability, the strength it takes to confront painful truths, and the courage needed to embrace the messiness of human relationships. Through Lilac’s journey, Taylor demonstrates that sometimes, love—though tough—is the force that helps us find our way forward.
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