Instead, she is likely on the deck of her Kings Mountain home, looking over blue hills leading to the ocean and tapping away on her computer.
Life in the mountaintop enclave is fine with Culver, a novelist with a dazzling, ready smile. She takes hour-long morning walks along redwood-lined trails, planning the day or pondering her writing, and "by the time I get home, I have them figured out." She finds the very smells of a redwood forest help tap her creative sap.
 Kings Mountain author, Carol Culver, releases next romance and branches into writing for teens. |
She calls it a great life, working from home, traveling and meeting new friends, she says. She meets with peers in a writers' group.
Culver writes romance novels as Carol Grace, using her middle name, since her first Harlequin book, "Make Room for Nanny," inspired by Lintt's Trout Farm just outside of Half Moon Bay. A fictional trout farm, whose owner's son is looked after by a nanny, became its setting.
"It was perfect for those days, because single parents were becoming more and more common," she said.
Also in those days, Harlequin required its authors to use pseudonyms.
Culver's new one, "Their Greek Island Reunion," is her first under Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance, Harlequin's London British office.
At 184 pages and $3.99, it is what Culver calls a "marriage rekindled" tale: Olivia and Jack are archaeologists whose careers got in the way of their marriage and are contemplating divorce - until they find themselves teamed up for a dig on an exotic Greek island.
"Harlequin loves foreign settings, especially Mediterranean," Culver said. "And I love to travel, so it works out fine."
Romance novels, she said, follow tight parameters. There must be one hero and one heroine, obviously meant for each other but kept apart by clashing backgrounds, mistrust, tragedy, or physical or mental or emotional barriers.
Gone are the days, Culver said, when romances featured wispy heroines in need of salvation. "There's no longer a hero that comes along and saves her," she said. "Women are strong. They bring as much to the table as men, in that they help each other and contribute to each other's lives."
As far as sex is concerned, she added, some romances are steamy while others are restrained, with sex scenes "but the bedroom door is closed." Culver describes herself as "middle of the road" in that way, and says potential readers can check the cover to see how the couple are dressed and positioned to gauge the steam factor.
One thing is for sure, she said: "When you buy a romance novel, you know there is going to be a happy ending."
That's not necessarily true in young adult books, like Culver's other new one, in which she switches gears from sunny Greece to angst-ridden teens at a prep school.
"Manderley Prep," (Berkley Jam, a division of Penguin Putnam, 223 pages, $9.99 trade paperback) begins Culver's "BFF," or "Best Friends Forever" series, which taps into today's teen trends. "When girls have a BFF, it's best friends forever, only it never works that way for teenage girls," she sighed.
This novel is "a Cinderella story" of Cindy, who finds herself an outcast as a scholarship student in a private prep school set on the Peninsula and modeled after Atherton with a different name.
Having left her former BFF behind, Cindy finds herself facing snarky popular peers - until the school's heartthrob notices her.
The book follows another kind of formula for YA writing. Protagonists and other characters deal with school, relationships with peers or parents, romantic attachments and the rollercoaster that is high school life.
"There's so much angst," Culver said. "I don't think anybody has a good time in high school. There's problems with parents, boyfriends, teachers, problems with money, prestige, everything."
But there's no problem with readership. As a girl, Culver liked reading Nancy Drew, and her own daughter, Nora, now 31, liked the Babysitters Club. "I think series are very popular," she said.
"Manderley Prep" will be followed by "The Guy Next Door" in January and "Rich Girl" in May.
In a literary quirk, Culver borrows its first sentence - "Last night, Cindy dreamed she went to Manderley again" - from noted author Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) by paraphrasing from her novel "Rebecca." That novel is set in Menabilly, a mansion in Cornwall, the model for Culver's fictional Manderley.
She did not draw from her own teen memories - but those of her children. "It's not so much what I remember, but I do remember theirs," she said.
She turned to her son, Andrew, now 27, to help her write a scene with a jazz band like the one he'd played with in high school.
She hopes her new series will please the young readers. "I hope they get a kick out of reading about teems who have problems worse than the ones they have," she said.
She could have tapped her own life for literary color.
Originally from Chicago, Culver spent her junior year of college at the Sorbonne in Paris, getting a bachelor's degree in French. She spent three years on the hospital ship HOPE, working in Guinea, Nicaragua and Tunisia as a translator and in public relations. Then she headed for San Francisco and work as a switchboard operator and receptionist for public television station KQED, doing on-air promos for her idol, Julia Child.
Eventually, she and husband Craig taught English in Algeria and Iran. Thirty-one years ago they settled on Kings Mountain to build a home and raise their children.
In the 1980s she joined the Cupertino Writers group, and met a romance novelist. "I was blown away," she said.
In January, her book club on Kings Mountain will hold a weekend afternoon book signing event for her at the Kings Mountain community center, at which she will give a talk about writing and sign copies of her books.
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AN AUTHOR'S FAVORITES
As a novelist, Carol Culver has done her homework - by reading widely in her genres. Here are some of her favorites and what she says about them:
Romance:
• "Lord of Scoundrels" by Loretta Chase: Often called "The perfect regency historical romance," it's a funny and memorable story set in regency England with a complex hero and a feisty heroine. Watch the sparks fly!
• "Ain't She Sweet" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips: A contemporary romance set in the South. The heroine, Sugar Beth Carey, a spoiled Southern belle, is on a mission. Phillips writes her popular novels with wit and intelligence. A perennial favorite.
• "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte: This 1848 masterpiece features a plain, intelligent and passionate heroine and a moody, charismatic hero to end all irresistible heroes.
Young adult:
• "Peaches" and "The Secrets of Peaches" by Jody Lynn Anderson: No glitz, no snarky heroines. Three young women deal with family, school and social problems in and around a Georgia peach farm.
• "Rules of the Road" and "Best Food Forward" by Joan Bauer: Bauer creates endearing characters who confront their problems with zeal and humor.
From her own collection:
"That's Amore," "The Magnificent MD," "Their Greek Island Reunion," "Cinderellie!", "Lonely Millionaire."
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