Interview with
M. S. Spencer
Author of
In the Crosshairs: The Body on Leffis Key
Today I have a pleasure to present an author who has lived or traveled on five of the seven continents. Much of M.S. Spencer’s life was spent in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter, editor, non-profit director and parent. She has published fifteen best-selling murder mystery romance and contemporary romantic suspense novels.
What do you begin with when starting a book—Characters? Plotline? Something else?
Actually I love writing about the setting: scenery and weather descriptions, local birdlife, etc. In fact I often choose the setting before I come up with a story line. The setting doesn’t just contribute to the story, it informs it. For example, The Wishing Tree: Love, Lies, and Spies on Chincoteague Island is set on Chincoteague Island, across from the secret research NASA facility on Wallops Island. Eureka! Spies. And what do you find at the Ghost Hotel in The Pit & the Passion: Murder at the Ghost Hotel but a ghost? My latest cozy mystery, In the Crosshairs: the Body on Leffis Key, uses the interplay between water and land in the mangrove islands of Florida to enhance the mystery and build the suspense.
What part of writing a book do you most enjoy—Building the tension? Inventing red herrings? Humor?
I love developing the secondary characters. Unlike the main protagonists, who are propelled by the story, the author has a freer hand with them. I like making them quirky, or intriguing—or even the principal in a plot twist. In the Crosshairs has a group of eccentric birders for humor, as well as a couple of unconventional daughters, who dunk a couple of red herrings into the pot.
What was the inspiration for In the Crosshairs: the Body on Leffis Key?
I am a news junkie and have been concerned for a few years about the Chinese quietly buying up American farmland, to the point that they are one of the largest landowners in the US. I thought a thriller based on the China-US rivalry would draw attention to the issue. Since I started writing the book it has made headlines. So I want to state here that I thought of it first!
Any particular scene that was fun to write?
It would have to be when Carson’s daughter unexpectedly appears. She’s a typical teenager—alternately assertive and comfort-seeking. Here’s a little excerpt:
Her eyes lit up. “This was so neat. Bobby Pipit got me this fake ID, and I used it to rent a car at the airport.” She ignored Carson’s shudder. “I drove out here all by myself!” She turned to Palmer and stated with sublime complacency, “I have a learner’s permit.”
Carson’s voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion. “Setting aside—for now—the dangers of your little junket, as well as all the laws you’ve broken, why are you here?”
Nestor’s eyes grew moist. “Mama and me—we had a humongous fight.”
“Over Bobby Pipit?”
“Uh-huh. He wrote me this letter with”—her blush went to the roots of her hair and floated toward the ceiling in hot pink waves—“some dirty words in it, and she found it.”
I see you have children’s rhymes heading every chapter. What’s that all about?
At one point Carson likens their adventure to a nursery rhyme, Who Killed Cock Robin and I thought using children’s songs to foreshadow the chapter would be cool. I also often give my characters names that are relevant to the theme, but I try to make them fairly obscure. Since Palmer is a birder, In the Crosshairs characters are almost exclusively bird names—a fact that the proofreader really appreciated.
Is there anything autobiographical in the book?
There are always some bits—massaged of course—in every book of mine (“write what you know”). Lapses of Memory contained significant autobiographical elements. In In the Crosshairs, Palmer Lind is a birder, as am I, and the hero is a former Senate aide, as am I. I weave in bits of my experiences Inside-the-Beltway, as well as life on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
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In the Crosshairs: The Body on Leffis Key
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Today I have a pleasure to present an author who has lived or traveled on five of the seven continents. Much of M.S. Spencer’s life was spent in Washington, D.C. as a librarian, Congressional staff assistant, speechwriter, editor, non-profit director and parent. She has published fifteen best-selling murder mystery romance and contemporary romantic suspense novels.
CommissionsEarned
Interview with
Kurt D. Springs
Author of
Today I have the pleasure to present an author who is n an adjunct professor of anthropology and archaeology in New Hampshire. Kurt D. Springs holds a PhD. in anthropology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a Master of Literature in archaeology from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and a Master of Liberal Arts in anthropology and archaeology from the Harvard University Extension School. His main area of interest is megalithic landscapes in prehistoric Ireland.
To start with, I understand this isn’t your first time publishing these novels.
No. I first published Price of Vengeance in 2014 and Promise of Mercy in 2015. My first publisher went out of business in 2016. It was a shock, though it probably shouldn’t have been. I was actually doing quite well, selling over 20 books combined at Barnes & Noble. I’d finished the New Hampshire stores and was working on Massachusetts. In the meantime, I wrote Legacy of Valor, which became my new book 2. Last year, my agent lined me up with Black Rose Writing, which took on all three books. Price of Vengeance relaunched in February. Legacy of Valor launched in June. Promise of Mercy will relaunch in October.
When did you start writing?
That’s a complicated one. I first discovered my love of fiction writing in the Fifth Grade. I wrote stories for the English class, then started writing on my own. I tried my hand at novel writing off and on for decades. I attended writer’s workshops in the 1980s and 1990s, where I learned how to write a plot-driven story with a character-driven plot.
How did you come up with the plot idea for Price of Vengeance?
Between 2001 and 2003, I was working on my Master of Literature in Archaeology at the National University of Ireland in Galway. I did my fieldwork in the Summer of 2002. At some point, after I turned in my thesis, I was walking back to my flat in Mincloon when the idea hit me. A soldier finds himself cut off from a fortified city when monsters attack the city and breach its defenses. As the idea formed in my head, I imaged the soldier not being native to the city, with some special abilities. It would also make sense that not everyone in the city accepted him.
In the summer of 2004, I moved to Buffalo, NY, to start my PhD. I began a series of rough plotting outlines, but once the Fall semester started, I put it aside until I graduated in 2010. Back then, I hadn’t decided whether to make it Science Fiction or Fantasy.
Obviously, you decided on Science Fiction. What made you decide on that genre?
I’d gotten involved with the video game series HALO. It is a series I really enjoyed. When I finally sat down and created more extensive plot outlines, it seemed like a logical decision.
Besides the HALO universe, where else did you draw inspiration from?
I drew inspiration from History Channel’s The Universe and Discovery’s How the Universe Works. A big inspiration was the late Andre Norton. I’ve been a fan of her writing since the 1980s. She wrote science fiction, fantasy, as well as in other genres. Her Forerunner science fiction series was a huge inspiration for the ESP aspect of my work.
Focusing on Price of Vengeance, what would you consider the major themes of the story?
Vengeance is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Liam became an orphan at the age of 2 when the giant insects known as chitin attacked his parents’ farm and killed his parents. He was adopted by High Councilor Marcus and his wife Lida and raised alongside their son Randolf. When a traitor helps the alien intelligence controlling the chitin breach the city’s defenses, Liam is trapped outside the city. Upon regaining entry into the city, he learns this traitor has murdered his beloved foster parents. Four people who cared about him, as well as soldiers he trained besides, are dead. Giving into his rage drives him to exact retribution on the traitor. However, revenge is a treacherous path. Dealing with the remorse becomes a challenge to Liam. As the hero of the story, Liam’s courage in the face of certain death is on display as well.
I also deal with themes like the importance of family. Liam becomes very close to his adoptive family, and Randolf is quite protective of him, especially when he is bullied. Family will become even more important to the story as the series progresses.
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Kurt’s Frontier (Book Review Blog)
Newsletter (free ebook short story, “Way of Forgiveness”)
CommissionsEarned
Interview with
Taggart Rehnn
Author of
Today I have the pleasure to introduce an author who creates a genre-bender populated by unconventional beings, an eclectic mixture of science-fiction, urban fantasy, horror-fantasy, thriller, action-adventure and historical fiction. Welcome into Taggart Rehnn’s unusual world, introduced by his first three sagas "Vampires and Spies", “The Council” and "Gods at War".
When did you start writing?
Many of the ideas I’ve used in my novels were often written in scraps of paper over a number of years. They languished first in two boxes, then a large chest, alongside trinkets of all sorts. Scores of them eventually met an inglorious demise, on the wastebasket or fireplace or even the barbeque. The surviving ones clamored to become something each time I opened that chest, until I surrendered and started writing regularly, then tried to get it published and was rejected a few times in the mid 1990s. Writing was then an itch I had to scratch, but professional life left little room to do it consistently. As an indie author, I started writing regularly in 2015 or so—but even then, waited a few years to publish on Amazon.
What genre do you feel at home writing and why?
After working on scientific R&D for over 30 years, I produced an eclectic mixture of science-fiction, urban fantasy, horror, thriller, action-adventure and historical fiction novels, the emphasis on each genre varying from book to book. Imagine “Dune” meets “Dracula”, with a healthy dose of Indiana Jones, spies aplenty, secret societies, commandos, and international political intrigue. This hybrid approach came about gradually, through evolution, not by design.
My novels tend to be more dark-fantasy/thrillers/action-adventure than horror novels, with gore used very sparingly, never as the main course; the characters in them, both human and supernatural, tend to be flawed yet rarely irredeemably evil or over-the-top righteous. Since they often venture substantially into sci-fi territory as well, more often than not (whether in international or interplanetary—sometimes, also dystopian—settings), I stretch science as far as it would go without snapping rather than defaulting to magic.
Why write historical fiction?
Why not, indeed? History provides an incredibly rich quarry where one can mine the best and worst of human qualities, from acts of near-superhuman endurance and selfless sacrifice to the most abjectly egomaniacal abuses of power and darkest machinations to destroy enemies or entire nations, and anything in-between. Historians patiently toil to unravel mysteries of the past, to get to the bottom of how, why, what and when things happened, acted upon by whom and so on. And often, despite their best efforts, can find only plausible, not definitive answers to many lingering questions. For example, nations need heroes. To become one, human or mythical, the latter cannot be flawed in ways that go violently against the mores of their time and place. Therefore, history is rife with falsehoods, suppression of inconvenient stories, and distortions that turn monsters into heroes and victims into villains, and vice versa. To get past those ‘alterations’ by unearthing better evidence, is the task of historians.
However, armed with logic, patience and imagination, we authors can creatively fill in the blanks, study where the what-ifs might lead, enjoy the challenge, and, hopefully, create something novel and worth reading. In particular, following pivotal episodes of history and—much like the Celtic, Norse, Slavic, Ancient Egyptian and other peoples did—injecting the supernatural into tall tales of familiar heroes, engaged in fantastic quests, seeking objectives far greater than the average human could handle, has always fascinated me. That’s why I feel at home writing historical fiction enriched with incidents, journeys and crises ideally suited to the undead in a more contemporary or futuristic setting, rather than going full-tilt into dungeons and dragons.
What makes “Freer of Souls” so hard to classify?
One could see it as historical fiction, religious fiction, archaeological fiction, a novel on espionage, action adventure, paranormal romance, mystery, urban fantasy and/or a few other things—and be right and very wrong at the same time, since it doesn’t neatly fit any mold.
This didn’t happen by design. As this story matured, the characters so naturally took charge of the narrative that pigeonholing it became extremely hard—and, probably, also pointless.
The novel’s main subject is a quest for the Ark of the Covenant, in which vampires, spies, exorcists, a rabbi, secret cabals, archaeologists, a meteorologist and a French countess are brought together by the savage butchering of a priest in Budapest. That priest was studying a symbol, painted with blood by hands unseen, in ways unknown; a symbol only seen in Jewish cemeteries and places of pogroms, which is invariably followed by glacial dust devils—unexplained, icy, mini-tornadoes. To pursue the dead priest’s work, another member of the same secretive Order of Saint Michael, teams up with a rabbi in Los Angeles, the meteorologist and a vampire. After a deadly game of cat and mouse across Europe and America, they find an unusual scroll and take it to a castle in Provence to be deciphered. There, as others join the group, with a traitor in their midst, surrounded by enemies closing in for the kill, it becomes clear they only have at most three weeks to get to the Ark of the Covenant and stop Armageddon. Would they live long enough to do it? If they find and reach the Ark in time, would then the ‘Freer of Souls’ dare approaching it and, alone in the darkness, overcome his demons, push the boundaries of his faith, and do the unthinkable to prevent the Apocalypse—or would he, instead, by unwittingly fulfilling an ancient vendetta, become an instrument of humankind’s doom? That's the story, in a nutshell.
Writing this novel required a good deal of research into not just the Crusades, but other aspects of the history of France and that of Jewish prosecutions and pogroms in Europe since the days of Constantine, and various theories about the Ark of the Covenant’s most plausible location, studying archaeological technique and examining in detail aspects of the Beauce, France’s breadbasket, southwest of Paris.
Since one of ‘Freer of Souls’ reviewers wrote: “This book is the best fusion of fact and fiction I have ever read. At times, because of the level of research and attention to details, I felt like I was reading a definitive history of vampires. But, the book is fiction. The rich presentation of characters with their unique voices will pull you in. The story is a sweeping saga that will entertain, inform and intrigue.
This is an excellent book and series that I highly recommend,” the research seems to have paid off.
Other reviewers, however, have complained there wasn’t enough romance in it. And therein lies yet another challenge to anyone authoring hard-to-classify novels: those lives the narrative interweaves can become incredibly rich, textured, multi-layered, and produce incredibly original characters; but, to fully explore every aspect of their potential while telling a story that includes so much intrigue and action, one might have to far exceed the length of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”—another problem I didn’t anticipate when this writing adventure began, seduced, perhaps a bit much, by this alluring terra incognita. Nevertheless, given that all my novels are standalone but form part of a growing ecosystem, some of those aspects are further developed in other books, either within that same saga or in other ones. For example, if Countess Chloé, one of my favorite characters, seems larger than life in this novel, she becomes monumentally complex and incredibly human as her deeply flawed, wounded soul, hidden behind a defiantly badass façade, is revealed in subsequent books.
As for the sagas, there are currently three available on Amazon: “Vampires and Spies”, “The Council” and “Gods at War”, all in KDP eBook and paperback. “Freer of Souls” is the first book in “Vampires and Spies”.
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This is an excellent book and series that I highly recommend,” the research seems to have paid off.
CommissionsEarned
Interview with
Janet Taylor-Perry
Author of
Today I have the pleasure to present an author who was critically acclaimed at the Faulkner Wisdom Competition. Like many of her characters, Janet Taylor-Perry is a history buff and loves anything of historical significance from old cars to old cemeteries. Her novel, Spirits' Desire, the second book in her Legend of Draconis series, won The Critter's, Preditor's and Editor's Award while the third book in The Raiford Chronicles, Broken, was a short-list finalist (top 20) at the Faulkner Competition. She is a mother, grandmother, educator, author, editor, and a person who has overcome great obstacles and still holds on to her faith..
Tell us about your journey as a writer
"Writers write what they know." That is one of the first quotes I remember when I began my writing process in earnest. And I suppose that it's true. Every series I have began with a modicum of truth: The Raiford Chronicles—I did have books thrown at me in my classroom, and I did have a student make the declaration that puts my heroine in danger. The Legend of Draconis—It was all about roleplaying with my kids and our cat, Satin. April Chastaine Intrigues—Someone close to me did die from cancer and was once exposed to cadmium. Laura Beth Copeland Misadventures—I was a census worker in 2010 and had a similar experience as my heroine, just not a head. Gods and Children—My daughter and her friends' escapades inspired the triplets. Hillbilly Hijinks—I saw a documentary in 1999 about pockets of Appalachia that still did not have electricity and running water, and then when I did the census in 2010, I encountered some almost third-world conditions right in my own backyard. This is the series, especially book three, Gator Aid that I want to address today.
Growing up, I was poor. But I still had running water and a bathroom and electricity. However, my uncle (mother's brother) did not. So, some of the situations (outhouses, cardboard fans, walking lots of places, swimming in the creek, killing hogs and eating some odd things) come from first-hand experience. My mother's sister had fourteen children while I was an only child. My cousins were illiterate and still are. I always found their dad strange, but I sure hope my stories about the Richter family in the series are totally farfetched and not a reflection on my uncle. Still, I took great pains to create a fictional town far away from Mississippi.
The series focuses on four boys and one girl who aim to put Possum Holler, West Virginia, on the map. The first two books, Homegrown Healer (MacKenzie Reardon's story) and Mountain Moonshine (Tipper Campbell's & Amy Dent's stories) examined the orphan who was raised by the preacher in the only little church and went on to become a doctor and came home to practice medicine and the local bootlegger who established a legal distillery. The fourth book, entitled For Richter or Poorer, will deal with Alain Richter, an undiscovered genius who deals with adversity beyond anything most people can imagine. Yes, all the stories overlap because the boys grow up and experience some of the same things. The book for today's discussion is Gator Aid, the story of hog farmer, Gator Jones.
Gator gets the nickname Gator Aid from the doctor who unsuccessfully tries to save Gator's mother, June, from leukemia. Gator's father, Tal, is one of the few Possum Hollerites to graduate high school and go to college, but he is forced to return to inherit a hog farm, which he resents, when he suffers a career-ending injury while playing college football. Gator's four older bothers flee the poverty of Possum Holler—one joining the military and three running away. This leaves Tal and Gator to form a unique and special bond in which Gator embraces who he is and embarks on making the small slaughterhouse in Possum Holler a full-blown processing plant after Tal dies unexpectedly.
Gator meets and marries Sherry Fields, a young woman who was about to be sex trafficked. Gator keeps many secrets for his friends including murder (actually self-defense), feeding bodies to the alligators in Florida, incest, illegal whiskey, an illegitimate child given up for adoption, and more. He is always the one to offer assistance when it's needed. Even the town gossip can't find fault with Gator. His flaw—accepting help.
Gator manages to get his high school equivalency and inherits the slaughterhouse when his great-great-grandmother dies in a flu epidemic (I wrote this long before covid). And then the secrets start to unravel. You have to read the story to find out how it ends.
Scheduled for release on Father's Day.
Your luck is what you make it. Your life is what you make it. So, go out and make it count.
--Larkin Sloan from Lucky Thirteen.
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CommissionsEarned
Interview with
Addison Michael
Author of
Today I have the pleasure to present an author who grew up with a golden reputation and a well-hidden dark side, which emerges in the crime and mystery thrillers Addison Michael writes today. Living in the Midwest, she captures the essence of small-town living.
How did you come up with the inspiration for What Comes Before Dawn?
I heard a story about a man who was convicted of murder and all evidence pointed to him having committed the crime. Only, he had zero recollection of it. Turns out, the man was blacked-out drunk when he committed the crime. But his lawyer could not get him clear of the charges. It intrigued me and I thought what if that was happening with your own mom? Only, it wasn't just a drinking problem, it was due to a mental illness that was magnified with drinking. I played that out with my main character, Paige. She grows up a very co-dependent woman who has no idea what to do with herself when her mom is murdered. That mixes into this mystery where Paige doesn't know who killed her mom or if she's next.
There's an added element of this mystery thriller of ghostly suspense. Tell us about that?
The main character, Paige, is either crazy or she's really seeing a ghost. I let the reader decide. It happened in the creation phase one night when I was writing during a thunderstorm. A ghost popped into the story and I decided to just go with it. Paige is the only person in the series who sees ghosts, with one exception in book 5. So, you could say there's a psychological element as well.
Are you similar to the main character, Paige?
In some ways. I should be careful here because Paige is pretty distanced from her emotions. Her mental illness makes her a touch dissociative. She is very changed by the end of the series (which is an important piece of character development). I am not always the most ‘feeling’ person, so I identify with Paige's character. But I always exaggerate my characters even when the seed of an idea for a personality is based on an idea from real life. All my characters take on a life of their own by the end.
They always say, "write about what you know." How do you incorporate that into your books?
I keep the settings in the midwest. For one, we are under-represented in Hollywood. Two, it's where I grew up. In every book, ‘home base’ is some place in or around the Ozarks.
Which book is your favorite?
All of them. No, really. But I do love each new book a little more than my last because I swear they get better the more I write and the more experience I have. I am thrilled about my first book in the Mak and Wilton Mystery Thriller series, book 1, I just released. There's a strong female lead and the partnership between two completely different personalities really works well.
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CommissionsEarned
Much thanks, Uvi, for your feature of my book today! So appreciated! ox
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Sarah! Can't wait to read it :)
DeleteThank you so much for this opportunity, Uvi. The presentation looks fantastic, too.
ReplyDelete