Mayra Calvani's Blog, page 22

A fun, quirky summer read to take with you to the beach!

Hi all,

It’s been a while since my last post…

I’d like to announce the release of my parody/satire novel, SUNSTRUCK, just published by Twilight Times Books! I really like the cover. Just looking at it makes me want to run to the beach–almost impossible in the middle of Brussels. It is a light, fun cover for a light, quirky summer read.

To celebrate the book’s release and for a limited time, the book will have the reduced price of $2.99 (instead of $5.95). You can find it at:

Amazon | Barnes&Noble[image error] | OmniLit

I’m offering a special gift for those of you who purchase a copy: just send me proof of purchase at mayra.calvani@gmail.com and I’ll give you a coupon to get my supernatural thriller, DARK LULLABY, free from Smashwords! You can learn more about the book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/94529

As part of the book’s release, I’m having a One-Day Blitz at Enchanted Book Tours andBewitching Book Tours. There will also be a virtual blog tour starting tomorrow and running until September 15th.

You can read reviews about the book on Amazon and also read a chapter HERE.

Cheers and happy summer reading!

Mayra

My novel, SUNSTRUCK, republished by Twilight Times Books

Hi all,

I'm thrilled to share some exciting news: my parody/satire, SUNSTRUCK, has just been released by Twilight Times Books.

If you'd like to read something different this summer, I invite you to give it a try!

Here's a little about the book:

Daniella is an architecture student living with her narcissistic artist boyfriend in San Juan. Abandoned by her father at an early age, Daniella always falls for the ‘wrong’ type of man. Her most enduring male relationship so far has been with her cat.

Several strange mysteries are threaded through Daniella’s everyday life: her ex-husband, Ismael, has just opened an outlandish hotel for animal lovers that has her distraught; Ismael’s wife, a rich woman Daniella fondly refers to as ‘Lady Dracula’, has some gruesome ways to keep her skin looking young; Daniella’s mother is founding a revolutionary, feminist society called The Praying Mantises; the island’s national forest is being depleted of hallucinogenic mushrooms; meanwhile, young girls are disappearing and there’s a nut loose dressed as Zorro slashing the rear ends of women who wear miniskirts.

Oppressed by all these eccentric characters, Daniella feels herself falling into an abyss. Then something terrible happens, making Daniella wake from her stupor and take charge of her life.

Read an excerpt: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/Sunstru...

Review snippets:

“Dark and quirky humor coupled with quixotic characters adds to the surprising mix found in Sunstruck… I've never read a book remotely like it. Everything from the humorously weird to the acutely macabre can be found between these covers, and then some.” –Laurel Johnson, Midwest Book Review.

“Highly entertaining!”—Romance Junkies.

"Calvani has taken human nature and put it under a microscope--a warped and slightly cracked microscope. Proving once again that she is a master storyteller in multiple genres, "Sunstruck" by Mayra Calvani is both witty and brilliant." -- The Book Connection

"Mayra Calvani is a master of wit. The descriptions contain just the right telling detail, as when she describes Daniella's red hair as the color you'd get if you mixed brandy, carrots, and raspberries in a blender. Calvani makes the absurd seem reasonable. I found myself nodding at death from hiccups, coffee enemas, and drugged cats. The writing is exquisite, and the narrative strangely compelling. Do yourself a favor and snap this one up."—Margaret Fieland, reviewer

"Sunstruck is like a nutty Whodunit with a little twist. Who really is in the Zorro costume? With all the crazy characters I caught myself pointing fingers again and again. A great read that will make you forget where you are, while you giggle yourself to complete oblivion from all the silliness." --Autumn Blues Reviews

"This book was so crazy it was fantastic. Talk about a nutty twisty book this is it and all in good fun." --Babs Book Bistro

"...[A] funny satire that reaches into the realms of paranormal and horror as well as mystery and women's issues." -- Anne K. Edwards, mystery author

"Salvador Dali meets Terry Gilliam...Monty Python's Flying Circus would be proud." -- The Blue Iris Journal

You can purchase SUNSTRUCK here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LYYOWM

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sunst...

Happy summer reading!

Interview with Chris Karslen, author of GOLDEN CHARIOT

Chris Karslen was born and raised in Chicago. Her father was a history professor and her mother was, and is, a voracious reader. She grew up with a love of history and books. Her parents also loved travelling, a passion they passed onto her. Karslen wanted to see the place she read about, see the land [image error]and monuments from the time periods that fascinated her. She’s had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.

She’s now a retired police detective who spent twenty-five years in law enforcement with two different agencies. Her desire to write came in her early teens. After she retired, she decided to pursue that dream. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, four rescue dogs and a rescue horse.

Thanks for this interview, Chris! When did your passion for thrillers and action/adventure fiction begin?

I don’t know if I could put a specific timeframe to my interest. I can’t remember a time it wasn’t there. As a child, I loved the old horror movies where folks were chasing or running from the Mummy or Dracula etc.  and the thrillers like North by Northwest,  The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Manchurian Candidate. When I got into my teens, James Bond became popular. I loved the movies and devoured Ian Fleming’s books.  Along that same vein, I enjoyed The Jackal, and Three Days of the Condor. Who didn’t love Indiana Jones? Now, I can’t wait to see movies like The Avengers, Iron Man, The Bourne Identity and still love the Bond movies.

When did you decide you wanted to become an author?

 I wanted to write since I was a teenager. But by the time I was ready for college I lacked the confidence to try so I went with the “safe” route and became a business major. Once I retired, I was ready to take a risk and live my dream.

Tell us about your latest novel, Golden Chariot.

[image error]The heroine, Charlotte Dashiell, is a nautical archaeologist. She’s working on her Doctorate in that field. Her thesis is very controversial and approval by the Doctoral Committee for her thesis is at risk if she doesn’t find evidence to support it. A shipwreck found off the coast of Turkey may hold her proof. She manages to obtain a position on the recovery team. En route, the Turkish government agent assigned to the wreck is murdered and she is on the scene at the time it occurred. Her close presence at the time of the crime coupled with a loose connection to a private collector of black market artifacts makes her a person of interest to the Turkish authorities. Atakan Vadim, the hero, is the Turkish agent sent to investigate her further. He becomes her dive partner. As the story progresses, he discovers smugglers plan to steal certain high value relics from the wreck and frame Charlotte for the theft. He also learns the thieves plan to murder her in the process. For her own safety, he presses her to leave the recovery team. She refuses. If she leaves, she loses all hope of finding proof of her thesis.  Together, he and Charlotte work to find out who is behind the smuggling operation. During the course of the story, the relationship between the two turns from one of wariness and distrust to friendship, trust and love.   

What made you decide to set it in Turkey?

 I love Turkey. I’ve visited several times. I knew after the first time, I would set a story there. It’s such a fascinating country. In Istanbul, the exotic Ottoman architecture mixed with the modern immediately captures your interest. There’s the hustle and bustle of the bazaars, which I enjoy, especially the Spice Market. It’s a colourful place. You can’t throw a rock in Turkey and not hit something historical. Their history goes back to the Bronze Age. Turkey’s been part of the Hittite Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire and a secular, independent modern nation. The people are nice.  The food is excellent. The landscape is remarkable in its variance. There’s the beautiful coastal area along the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean and the starkly different coastline on the Black Sea. The region of Cappadocia with its fairy chimneys and underground cities is other worldly in appearance.   To the east are mountains and grassy plains. 

Did you have to do a lot of research about police procedural there?

Not police procedural per se. Atakan is actually a representative of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. I was fortunate enough to have a contact/advisor who is an archaeological diver and Turkish. He told me that all legitimate archaeological sites in Turkey have a representative of the Ministry present to watch over the safety of the site and relics. I took some dramatic license and gave Atakan more police authority than he’d have in real life. For the SWAT operation, I did research weapons used by the Turkish authorities and how they would interact with our military stationed at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey to obtain intelligence information needed. Again, I was lucky. I have a friend who headed up a SWAT team for a major US city and who was a Marine reserve who served in Iraq and trained our soldiers in urban-crisis entries. My friend was familiar with how the flow of intelligence gathering is handled. He also advised me on some of the SWAT tactics.

There are a lot of Turkish words in the story. Do you speak Turkish?

 No. I’d like to learn. I do have the Rosetta Stone program for Turkish but it is an extremely difficult language. It uses the Latin alphabet that we are familiar with but the conjugation and pronunciation is not what you’d expect. My Turkish diver friend helped with the translation as did another Turkish friend who’s a tour guide. I cannot understand it when spoken to me (rarely anyway). I am better at reading it and then I really only know some basic words and phrases.

I found the myth about Troy fascinating. To this day, do they know for a fact that Troy existed?

  Yes, Troy definitely existed. There have been archaeologists working the site for many decades. When we speak of Troy, it usually the kingdom associated with the Trojan War. At the time the war was supposed to have taken place, the kingdom was known as Wilusa and part of the Hittite Empire. Excavation at the site is ongoing and they have made some incredible discoveries in the last couple of decades. *I should mention that not all archaeologist/historians agree that the war occurred. Personally, I tend to believe those who do think it happened. 

There are many underwater scenes in the story. Do you scuba dive?

 No, I don’t dive. I had the benefit of an archaeological diver to advise me. I also did a lot of research on the subject and had books that documented many shipwreck recovery projects.  The books had pages of pictures showing the divers working a wreck.  I had pictures of the entire process from building the camp to cleaning the relics. Twice I’ve been to INA (Institute of Nautical Archaeology) in Bodrum, Turkey. I was given a tour of the facility and shown some of their photos, the conservation lab, the desalination tanks and the hard work and time involved in the piecing together of artifacts.

How long did it take you to write Golden Chariot?

Two and a half years, mainly because of the research. While I worked on one of my paranormal romances, I began the research for Golden Chariot. I’d done eighteen months of research before I wrote a single word. Then, I did several drafts over the next year before I was happy with the result.

Are you disciplined?

Yes, for the most part. I have to admit that I do have days when the smallest shiny object can distract meJ I do try to get some writing in at least 6 if not 7 days a week. I don’t always get the number of pages done I want. Some days I consider it a success if I get a few paragraphs finished but I try to make an effort.

Describe a typical writing day for you.

 I try hard to get all my errands and appointments done in the morning. Then, I take a break and have a bite to eat. I am usually at my desk by 12:00 or 12:30. I work on promotion, answer emails and try to read at least a few chapters of stories from writer friends for review purposes. After that, I pull up my work in progress. I read the last few pages I wrote to get my head in the same place again. I spend the next 4 or 5 hours writing or rewriting as needed.  That’s a typical “good” day. Like I said, there are those days I spend hours writing, deleting... sighing...writing, deleting and again...sighing.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being an author?

 When a reader tells you how you’ve moved them or which character or scene they loved. It’s so wonderful to have a reader say “I felt like I was there.”

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

 Writing is hard work. You’ll have days that are pure frustration, days that you can’t seem to get three lines right. Keep at it. Keep studying the craft. Every workshop I attend, I take something useful away. If you’re stuck on how to approach a scene, one thing I find that helps is to read a similar scene by an author you like. Analyze what you like about it and how they handled the scene and see if you can recreate the feel in your story with your spin.

What’s on the horizon for Chris Karslen?

 I am currently working on book three of my Knights in Time series. The first two are: Heroes Live Forever and Journey in Time. This is a paranormal romance series. I hope to have my current story, Knight Blindness, done and ready for release later this year. I’ve also finished the draft of the sequel to Golden Chariot. I hope to have the final finished and ready to publish early next year. 

 

 

This interview originally appeared in Blogcritics.

Interview with Mar Preston, author of RIP-OFF

Mar Preston is the author of two mystery novels set in Santa Monica, California, featuring Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. His girlfriend is a community activist, liberal in bent, which clashes with Mason’s traditional cop views. A third novel, set in a California mountain village features a County Sheriff’s Detective and an injured former Detective working as a patrol officer.

[image error]Thanks for this interview, Mar! When did your passion for crime and detective fiction begin?

Not until my forties until life settled down−and mostly importantly, after I wrote four unpublished literary fiction novels. I thought, well, mysteries can’t be as hard as literary fiction.  Silly me.

When did you decide you wanted to become an author?

When I felt comfortable that I could think up and tell a good story.

Tell us about your latest novel, Rip-Off.

High-tech burglary and murder are bad for business in the upscale, tourist-destination beach city of Santa Monica with its leftist politics, rich homeowners, its entertainment mega-businesses, and huge homeless population. Bad for Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department. 

A deadbeat burglar is found in the beach condo of a playboy studio exec. The dead body must link up with a string of high-tech burglaries, and the Chechens Mason keeps meeting must link up with each other somehow, but how?

The investigation involves Mason in the dark world of embezzlement and an explosion that almost kills him. The stakes rise when the investigation leads him to the Hollywood Russian community and he ignores a warning by the FBI and Homeland Security.

How long does it usually take you to write a novel?

Years.

Are you disciplined?

No, life is too interesting. Maybe that’s why it takes me years.

[image error]Describe a typical writing day for you.

One cup of coffee playing Spider Solitaire to warm up. Long sigh, then get at it. The first draft is agony. I love rewriting and making the story better.

I hear you’re quite inventive when marketing your books. Can you tell us about your latest marketing event?

Sell, pawn, mortgage all your possessions and hire a publicist. Few writers are good self-promoters. I comment on interesting blogs, praise and review other writers, search for opportunities to guest blog, publish short stories, support Sisters-in-Crime, arrange house readings, and spend a limited time on Facebook and Twitter. I wish I had a clone.

What are the three main ingredients of a good mystery?

An absorbing plot that keeps you turning pages, engaging characters, and a twist on the usual rules of crime fiction.

What is the most difficult part of writing crime fiction?

The reason why it’s so hard to get a cop to read a mystery is clichéd plots and characters. Authors really need to work to make a story realistic and founded in fact.  Cops consider CSI a comedy show.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being an author?

Holding a book that you’re proud of in your hand. Then it’s like childbirth. You forget all the agony that went into making that book and you foolishly start another.

What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Write in whatever genre people are willing to read while you get the craft of writing polished to a high lustre.

What’s on the horizon for Mar Preston?

A New Adventure. I’m moving home to Canada after a 30-year vacation in California.

Connect with Mar Preston:

Author’s website: http://marpreston.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mar-Preston/136299239777273

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/YesMarPreston

RIP-OFF available on Kindle and print: http://www.amazon.com/Rip-Off-ebook/dp/B007WTYGI4

 

 

This interview originally appeared in Blogcritics

Free Copy of Detroit Daze, by Crime Fiction Author John H. Byk (pen name, Conrad Johnson)

John H. Byk (pen name, Conrad Johnson) was born and raised on the gritty streets of Detroit, Michigan.  After surviving high school, he joined the Coast Guard and then went back to school to earn his Masters of Art in English.  Still aching to see more of the world, he worked as a Merchant Seaman and then taught English in Japan and Thailand before returning to Detroit to teach high school.  Having had enough, he retired early and now spends his time writing and interviewing contemporary authors on his podcast blog, 2012writersALIVE, from his home in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula.  When not chained to the computer, he spends his free time hunting, fishing, hiking, sailing and enjoying nature with his best friend Judy and his adoring canine, Sarah.

To promote his trilogy, the John Oxman Vogages, the author is offering the prequel, Detroit Daze free on Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.

About the book:

Detroit Daze is a novel about guts, glory and gangs set in the Mad Motor City of Detroit, Michigan.  Not for the faint of heart. Not for the nostalgic minded reader.  Not for suckers but for survivors only.

Interview:

What was your inspiration for Detroit Daze?

I wrote my first novel, Till the Moon Falls, in 2010.  When I finished it, a sequel came to mind so I went right to work on that. It's called, Xe-Nophobia. After finding an old high school friend on Facebook, he suggested that I should write a novel about those wild and crazy days so I did, figuring that a trilogy was better than a duology.  The book is a prequel that completes The John Oxman Voyages series.

How long did it take you to complete Detroit Daze?

Once I finished my first novel I couldn't stop writing.  I finished all three books in a year and then a fourth one and now I'm working on my fifth. I've also written non fiction, chapbooks along the way.  If there's a day that goes by that I'm not writing, then I'm thinking about writing.

What do you find most challenging about writing crime fiction?

Avoiding sensationalism.  Blood and violence for its own sake does not a good story make.  There has to be a compelling narrative to justify it all.

 What is your favorite scene in the book?

To be honest, I hated the entire manuscript when I was done with it.  But then I shared it with Rebecca Forster, indie author of the best selling Witness Series and she nearly flipped out because she loved it so much.  She answers this question best when she posted a review on Amazon that says, "Every word, every plot turn, every scene was so graphically presented that the reader prays the main character will be able to escape his circumstances. You will never forget Heavy, Berwyn and the rich cast of characters portrayed in this novel."

What do you love most about being an author?

The freedom to dream, explore, create, share and to have an excuse for eating fudge brownies for a sugar buzz while working.

What does an author need to do to be a guest on your radio show, 2012writersALIVE? 

First of all, they have to have a book that's on the market and ready to be purchased with a click. Secondly, I prefer authors that have experience related to the work they are promoting and/or credentials more substantial than just being a blogger.  I screen potential guests carefully to keep my show classy and relevant (I hope!).  Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they need a telephone or Skype connection, especially if they live outside of the USA.

What’s on the near horizon?

Warmer weather and lots of fishing trips.  Seriously. I can hardly believe how much I've written in the past two years and all the interviews that I've done.  I feel it's time to slow down a bit, catch my breath and cast a few flies for trout as I still continue working on my next project and soliciting guests for my podcast blog at a much more relaxed pace than before.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell my readers?

If you're a writer, write from your own social milieu. If you're a reader (as all good writers should be), always have at least two books on your nightstand (or on your electronic device) that you're working your way through.  Scan and sift through everything that you come across in print.  Also, watch a goofy comedy film every now and then.  Besides that, make sure you wear sunscreen on the beach.

Connect with John H. Byk:

Twitter: johnhbyk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/john.h.byk

Link to excerpt: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/79687

Link to purchase page: http://johnbyk.blogspot.com

Link to book trailer: http://youtu.be/pPV9ID3QAHE

Don’t forget to download your free copy of Detroit Daze from Smashwords or Barnes and Noble:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/79687

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/detroit-daze-john-conrad-johnson-byk/1110197586?ean=2940011537363

From Rescue Helicopter Pilot to Sci-fi Author

Bill Swears calls himself a service brat. He was born in Great Falls, Montana. He's lived in England, Iran, Germany, and nine states. Bill flew military helicopters for twenty-two years, seven in the Army and fifteen in the Coast Guard. He sold his first short story while he was a Coast Guard rescue helicopter pilot, and immediately began writing a book. He finished that manuscript ten years later, after retiring from active duty.

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On November 15, 2003, Bill broke his back while ditching a homebuilt experimental airplane 100 NM out to sea from Maui, Hawaii. He retired from the USCG in 2004, after spinal fusion surgery and rehabilitation. He says that there is an upside to that, because he shows up on Google searches: http://starbulletin.com/2003/11/18/news/index4.html. Although he does show up on Google searches, Dark Phantom suggests that there are better ways to do that and Bill agrees. 

Bill met his wife Teri in high school in 1978. They married in 1982, but didn't get around to having children for seventeen more years. They have two kids, thirteen year old Alexa and eight year old Michael, and will celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary in July. Bill claims that they lost track of time.

The Swears family lives in a beat-up old log home on a ridge line in Peter’s Creek, Alaska with a brace of rare breed Eurasier dogs and a pair of cats. Bill earned his MA in English and graduated on Groundhog Day 2010, the year he turned fifty. He works as a technical writer and editor for a little known federal bureau. He has a spanking new webresidence and blog at www.BillSwears.com, and blogs at http://wswears.livejournal.com/.

About the book, Zook Country:

Metamorphic plague has swept the globe over the last five years. Victims become rabid non-sentient zooks, immensely strong and so fast that a normal person can’t see them move. A third of humanity has died, but people are fighting back, balanced on the razor’s edge between survival and apocalypse. Jake Chestnut and Gary Landon, both ex-army, are partners in Seraglio, an independent Kent, Washington based zook hunting firm. Both lost their families to plague and are part of the less than one percent of humanity with the innate ability, ESP, reflexes, and willingness to shoot where the zook will be next that are necessary to combat feral zooks. Zook-hunters are charged with hunting down and killing plague victims. These battle scarred men and women have been on the front line with no reprieve for five years, and the survivors have developed an esprit de corps similar to that of a WWI Aerosquadron.

[image error]Killing zooks for a living is tough, but the alternative is worse; eight months after infection, zooks metamorphose into non-corporeal ghasten, who live in collectives, herd zooks, kill with energy discharges, and create rifts in the fabric of reality that have swallowed cities. While working a contract to clear a first of its kind community/safe enclave for the elite, somebody tries to kill Jake, Gary, and their crew. With Gary badly injured, Jake must untangle a web of conspiracy to complete Seraglio’s contract and seek vengeance. What he discovers may lead to civil war.

 

 

Interview:

From Coast Guard rescue helicopter pilot to apocalyptic science-fiction adventure writer. How did that come about?

I was reading science fiction in grade school. A lot of it. I read through all of the science fiction in the city library nearest my house when I was eleven, and in every school library from the time I left fourth grade until I graduated from high school. I couldn’t be forced to study my school-work, but that science fiction stuff my mother so disapproved of? I never really stopped. Before I joined the military I wrote a couple of science fiction short stories – really bad stories, but with a core of humor that my friends (and other people I was able to intimidate into reading my stuff) noticed. So I guess the question is more, "How did a budding young writer end up flying Coast Guard helicopters?" Now that was a long road. I knew I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to be a pilot, and I knew I wanted to be the world's first independent cargo dirigible captain. But I really wasn't ready to write in my early twenties, and I banged my head against that, until one day Teri pointed at one of the then popular commercials that said "The Army; the only service that will take you straight from high school to flight school."

She still claims that she was joking, but nine months later, with an impressive battery of tests behind me, I was swearing into the Army for rotary-wing flight school. I thought initially that I'd like to follow in Dad's footsteps,  join the Air Force and become a jet pilot, but after I'd flown helicopters for a few years I realized that I was just having too much fun to give up the rotary-wing lifestyle. Flying seems like a young man's career, and I stayed with that for my first career, moving to the Coast Guard when I realized that saving lives fit me better than taking them (training to take them. I've never been in combat). So, it seems like I'm breaking into a whole new gig, writing fiction, but really, I'm taking time to do something I've always loved. And now, I have a bunch of sea stories that I can weave into my writing!

What was your inspiration for Zook Country and how did you come up with the concept of ‘Zook’.

Believe it or not, I started writing about Jake and Gary while I was talking about using voice in dialogue at rec.arts.sf.composition. I threw out a snippet that was very close to the opening you can read today. I liked the characters and started to write, not knowing where they'd go. I got about two chapters in before I began to feel the shape of the novel to come. That's when I wrote a rough story-arc that I followed for the rest of the draft.

As I originally wrote it, the story was mostly contemporary dark fantasy, with zooks being part of an attack on the human race by evil dragons. A good dragon had found his way to earth as well, and became a major character in my earlier draft. I was picked up by an agent almost immediately, but he convinced me to take out the fey/magical aspects and give it a more down to earth explanation. I miss Thomas the dragon even today, but the novel that came out was much tighter and easily visualized. The agent? He left the publishing industry entirely, though we're still friends.

I remember when I first started to develop the zooks that I was thinking about vampires, and that I wanted to write a guy version of urban fantasy. At the time I was thinking that I wanted a new monster because I didn't want to be stuck in somebody else's pigeonhole, but that I also wanted to borrow from known monster archetypes so that readers wouldn't be completely alienated. It seemed like burning up in contact with silver and being able to heal almost instantly would be recognizable as monster traits. Becoming non-sentient and apelike came from my prejudices about what happens to rabies victims in the later stages of the disease. After that, I just let the story flow and Ghasten came along as if that's what is supposed to happen to hyperspeed feral apes.

I came up with the name zook as an integral part of the world I was imagining (and beginning to dream about). At first I didn't know where the name came from – I finally posted a longer section with RASFC and asked my friends there to comment about zooks, especially the name, which worried me a little. Ric Locke (Temporary Duty: available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble) said that it was clearly a mashup of Zombie and Gook, and that made complete sense to me. Soldiers find ways to dehumanize their enemies so that they can get on with the business of killing them. I don't really think of zooks as being zombies, but the parallels are obvious, so maybe my hind-brain was already making the connection.

I understand you first self-published the novel before it was picked up by Twilight Times Books. I love success stories like that. Can you share with my readers how that happened?

I'm proud of my writing, but promotionally, I'm a real neophyte. After five full years in one publisher's recommended pile (I checked in with her every few months and was always reassured that it was in her pile, and that she'd eventually get around to looking at it), while gaining and losing two agents from a rather famous F&SF centric literary agency, I gave up on waiting for the industry to get around to looking at me. I spent some months prepping the book for self-publication, setting up ISBNs, buying cover art, getting a copy/line edit from somebody I trusted, and running the whole book through several members of my writers group. Then I put it up on Amazon Kindle and nothing much happened. Apparently Amazon is releasing so many e-books that their market is glutted with new titles (or, just maybe, I've been lost in a sea of voices shouting "Buy me! Buy me!" and if I can get the right attention, some few people will want to face a new monster in their darker nights). While I thought about whether to expand my markets to other e-book providers or join Kindle Select, I sent promotional messages to each of my Facebook friends, and everybody I ever traded e-mail with, asking for reviews. Stephanie Osborne suggested that I friend Lida Quillen and offer the book to Twilight Times Books.

Sending individual messages to each of your Facebook friends is terribly labor intensive, but it netted me a few promises of reviews, and the name of a promising publisher. Here was this small but growing press with authors that I recognized, and here I was, starting to get a really good notion of just how time intensive and pricey it was to promote myself, so the idea really had a shiny glow. I queried Lida, she read the book and liked it, and then suddenly I was barreling down a road I thought was closed to me.

The road has been bumpy, but I went from 2007 to 2012 with the book in a big publishing house but no action at all, then was picked up and published in 11 days. I couldn't decide whether ecstasy or head-desk was the correct response. I settled on muted excitement with a sense that the other boot would soon drop.

I understand Zook Country wasn't the original title. 

I originally wrote the book under the title Seraglio, because Jake and Gary named their company that, and because it has an uncomfortable resonance with something the bad-guys have done. Nobody at all liked that title, so I was casting around for a better one when my German publisher told me that he'd publish the book only if I renamed it Zookland. I like Zookland quite a lot, but thought that here in the US it came too close to the names Zombieland and Zoolander. In fact, for the longest time, if I Googled Zookland I got the Ben Stiller movie.

Anyway, Zook Country as a term is reminiscent (to me!) of Injun Country, which I hoped would have meaning to some part of the US crowd. 

The novel was also published in Germany. Is it still available there and was it published there in German?

Yes it is, yes it was. Zookland was translated to German by my friend Dirk Van Den Boom, and is available in hardback or trade paperback at http://www.atlantis-verlag.de/, or in trade paper or kindle from Amazon.com here in the U.S. – for anybody who speaks German. Really, anybody who speaks German should buy both books and compare them. Yeah, that's the ticket. ;-)

Tell us a bit about your writing process. Are you a morning bird or a night owl? How long does it usually take you to finish a book?

I'm a morning bird by ingrained habit, but a night owl by inclination. Before joining the military, Teri and I thought nothing about watching the sunrise before going to bed. Now, I'm awake between 4:30 and 5:00 am whether I like it or not, and whether I've been asleep for three hours or seven. I'm probably most productive in the mornings, and on my days off from work, which is why it was so useful to be able to take this interview at such an early hour here in Alaska.

I'm not an outliner exactly.  I usually start with a group of characters and a situation, then write a few chapters and decide who and what I like.  Then I write what I call a chapterboard, which is sort of like an outline.  I write a brief description of what I think will happen in each of twelve chapters.  That description is sometimes a sentence, and sometimes two or three paragraphs about what I have in mind.  The length of the description and the length of the chapters have absolutely no relationship, as far as I can tell.  In one chapterboard from another book, "Tanos and Carolyn get married" was the description of three long chapters that involved an assassination plot and a vastly overcomplex royal wedding.  The twelve chapters I write my chapterboard around have never come out in fact.  Zook Country had a twelve chapter board, and came out to 33 chapters and an epilogue. Sometimes my characters disapprove of a planned action and go off to raise their own Cain.  I do, generally, get to nudge them back toward my preferred ending.

I don't know that I have a "usually" when it comes to finishing books. My first book took almost a year to write.  Zook Country took less than three months in its original form.  Now I have a high demand day job, so things are taking longer.

What is your favorite scene in the book?

Chapter 17, when Jake smells apples and tastes mocha. Anything more would be a spoiler, IMO.

Seriously though, having "favorite" scenes in a book that shivers between dark and light is difficult.  I like the moment toward the end when Donna ends up out of bullets with her men dead or dying around her, defending herself with nothing but a stiff silver wire and mad martial arts skills. Donna is way cool and a far better character than I ever deserved to dream up – and like some of the best characters, she wasn't intended to be there.  She created her own space in my head and broke out onto the page without the least regard for my feelings.

At the other extreme, there is a scene when Jake and Gary take down a two year old zook that hurts every time I read it, and that cost me a lot of sleep when I first wrote it.  In a way, I guess you could call that a favorite.

What did you find most challenging while working on Zook Country?

During the first draft? Getting to sleep at night. Zook Country came off my fingers almost as quickly as I could type. I woke up ready to write and had itchy keyboarding fingers all day. Of course I had to do other things, like eat, and chase people down in the street to get them to read snippets, so that wasn't mindlessly easy. But then, I found a couple good first readers, and they kept hounding me for more chapters, so I could focus more on getting the next thing written.

I thought that writing the book would be the hardest part. When I got a call a few weeks later from an agent, I thought my authoring world was made. But when that agent friend asked me to reimagine the book without fey elements? That moment comes in a close second on the challenge scale. I felt so challenged that I wanted to fly to New York and have a loud chest to chest discussion with this fellow I'd never met. Then he arranged for his boss to visit me in Anchorage during BoucherCon 2007, to tell me that I had no idea what I was doing with dragons. I didn't really believe the agency's advice until I'd finished and smoothed the sans magic version, and even then I was pretty mad. I was really "challenged" when the agent I'd started with up and left the industry just as I was turning in Zook Opus mark deux. More challenged yet when the boss that hadn't liked my dragon also turned out not to like my monsters, metamorphic plague, or anything except the characters, which he thought should be in an infantry based space opera out in the Zagravian sector. We dinked around for another two years before realizing that without the first interested agent, the boss was never going to be satisfied with an Earth based adventure.

What’s on the horizon for Bill Swears?

I've promised to write Rogue Country, a sequel to Zook Country next. It's set in the Oregon wine country near the River of the Rogue. I've got two other novels in progress. One is a straight up space opera that I'm calling Mutiny on Hellespont, and the other is high fantasy, or maybe swords and sorcery, and an immediate sequel to my first (so far unpublished) book, Split Affinity. The sequel, which is currently at 80K words, will be called Growing Affinity, and is part two of three. I can't let myself finish it until I've fulfilled my promise to Dirk Van Den Boom, who wants to exhaust himself translating the next zook story.

And, my day job. Ouch.  Somebody find me a very wealthy zook enthusiast to pay my bills while I punch out the next book, please!

Author’s facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wswears

Link to excerpt: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ZookCountry_ch1.html

Link to purchase page: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ZookCountry_ch1.html. Buy it at the excerpt in any e-format, or link from there to Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007J6DPPA), or Barnes and Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zook-country-bill-swears/1108892461).

Originally published in Blogcritics Magazine.

Interview: Rudy A. Mazzocchi, author of Equity of Evil

Please welcome my guest, Rudy A. Mazzocchi, author of the controversial debut thriller, Equity of Evil, just released by Twilight Times Books. Mazzocchi reveals what’s inside the mind of the medical thriller author and discusses various aspects of his novel, among them his hero, his villain, and the challenges he faced during the creative process. 

About the author:

Rudy is best known as a medical device and biotechnology entrepreneur, inventor, and angel investor, with a history of starting new technology ventures throughout the U.S. and Europe. He's been privileged to have the opportunity to see the newest innovations in healthcare and work with some of the most brilliant researchers, scientists and physicians in the industry.

Authoring more than 50 patents, he has helped pioneer new companies involved in cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, neurosurgery and even embryonic stem-cell development. Through these efforts, he has become the recipient of many technology and business awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Healthcare and the Businessman of the Year Award.

Combining these experiences and opportunities, with thousands of hours of travel and long evenings in hotel rooms, he found the initiative to start writing a collection of medical thrillers based on true events, the first of which is entitled Equity of Evil.

Interview:

Congratulations on the release of your medical thriller, Equity of Evil! Tell us, what’s inside the mind of a medical thriller author?

I believe most (if not all) authors of medical thrillers have a direct connection to the medical or healthcare industry, either as a physician, researcher, caregiver or industry expert.  A medical thriller author needs to capture all the necessary literary components of a successful novel, in addition to those of a suspenseful thriller, AND also include the correct medical terminology and technology description in such a way that the layman can seamlessly understand. The compelling thing about writing medical thrillers is that we have an opportunity to educate readers about real technologies that potentially impact each and every one of us. It’s a theme that every reader could potentially relate to.

Equity of Evil deals with the controversial subjects of abortion and genetic engineering. During the creation of this novel, were you worried about what the general reader’s response might be?

It is important for readers to understand that I made a substantial effort to not take either a Pro-Life or Pro-Choice position when using the abortion theme as a backdrop of this story. Neutrality on such a controversial topic is very difficult, but I believe that regardless of your political or moral position, the reader will find support in the words and actions of the book’s characters for whatever perspective they might have. However, sometimes a novel comes along that forces us to face the brutal reality of our world. If Equity of Evil produces a response from readers on these topics whom otherwise may have never given any thought about them, then I’ll consider myself a successful writer no matter how many books are sold!

Tell us about your protagonist, Roman Citrano. Share with us something about him that readers won’t be able to resist.

Roman is one of those rare individuals who we may all know… successful, charismatic, willing to take risks that only others talk about, but one that has also experienced as many failures as successes. Divorced many times, but always dating the woman who seems unapproachable, he gives the impression of a womanizer, but shows his embarrassment of being a man when he realizes that his new business venture has placed many of them in harm’s way. As many of us often do, he starts out with the best intentions, only to become a victim of his own ambition and self-determination. He’s human… very human.

It isn’t fair to leave the villain behind. Tell us something about Professor Marcus Levine that readers will love to hate.

Although they share a common desire to be successful, Professor Levine is just the opposite of Roman Citrano. He believes he’s untouchable, with an ego and insatiable desire for wealth that grows with each incremental step of his conniving plan. He’s a manipulative, lying, inhumane scientist who treats women as he does the animals in his research laboratory. Readers will find it easy to hate him!

Who is your favorite character in the book? Why?

Although I can personally relate to Roman, my main character, I favour Andrea who is not only dedicated to the field of medicine, but very passionate about providing care for her young patients.  She’s a strong, independent woman who becomes an unfortunate victim, whose fight for survival turns into a search for justice and revenge.

Several scenes in your story are particularly violent against women. Were these scenes difficult to write?

Yes, there are several violent scenes in the story that were difficult to write, but this was not designed to focus on the atrocities against women, but the atrocities of our society. Many of these scenes were taken from reported incidences, in real environments, that unfortunately occur with real people all too often. Yes, they’re difficult to write about, but even more difficult to accept that they are a part of the dark side of our world.

What did you find most challenging, the scientific details of the story or the technical aspects of novel writing? Did you stumble along the way?

I’ve been living the scientific details of this story for a long time, so this is an easy one. I had to learn the basics of writing as I wrote this original manuscript. My first editor (Gerry Mills) had to school me on the fundamentals of point-of-view (POV), transitions, some basic grammar, and as I hate to admit it, often times… punctuation. I frequently stumbled, tripped, and fell along the way.

How long did it take you to write the novel and how did you find the time to sit and write between your demanding job and all the travelling that you do?

It took approximately a year to research and write the initial manuscript. I became obsessed with writing during every flight (including long trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic flights), during long evenings in hundreds of hotel rooms, and during early morning and late nights over the weekend. Don’t all writers do this?

What do you want readers to get from Equity of Evil?

There are several new scientific innovations and breakthroughs that will impact our lives in the near future, and many more that will affect the next generation. We will have no choice about their existence… they’ll be here if we like it or not. Therefore, we all need to be aware of them and start to think about how society is going to accept and manage them. Equity of Evil touches on many of these medical and scientific innovations that are on the cusp of shaking up public and political views in the major nations of the world. I’m hopeful that this novel (and those underway) will help open up people’s willingness to process such new revelations that will surely disrupt our current moral and ethical opinions.

I hear you’re working on a second medical thriller. When will that one come out?

My second manuscript is well underway in hopes of releasing it near the end of the year. My goal is to make this the second of a trilogy that we might refer to as “The EQUITY Series”. It will carry a similar theme, but focus on a technology (which currently exists) that can allow us to re-wire the brain… a process known as “neuroplasticity”. Can you imagine a world in which we can eliminate fear, restore memories, create artificial desires and dislikes, or even eliminate pain?

Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers?

I just sincerely hope that my readers take away something positive from this story, while learning a little more about the advancement of medical technologies that many others don’t want to admit even could exist.

Read an excerpt of Equity of Evil:

http://twilighttimesbooks.com/EquityofEvil_ch1.html

Equity of Evil is currently up at Barnes and Noble at the discounted price of $2.99 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/equity-of-evil-rudy-mazzocchi/1109327667

Equity of Evil is also up at OmniLit and available in ePub, PDF, mobi and prc for $2.99.
http://www.omnilit.com/product-equityofevil-740141-249.html

Also on Amazon Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007H9QNQW

Note: the $2.99 price will be in effect until March 10th (midnight EST), then Equity of Evil will be available for the discounted price of $3.48 via ebook distributors and the Twilight Times Books website until the end of March.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAYkQE...]

Celebrate Read an Ebook Week with Twilight Times Books

Read an Ebook Week begins today!

Twilight Times Books, publisher of critically acclaimed Literary, Mystery and SF/F books, is offering a special during ‘Read an Ebook Week,’ from March 4-10, 2012.

A FREE ebook will be given away each day.

Some of these books include:

How I Wrote My First Book: The Story behind the Story
Twenty authors tell amazing stories about the efforts that went into writing their first book.
http://twilighttimesbooks.com/MyFirst...

Book Reviewers Talk about their Craft
A series of interviews with 22 publishing professionals regarding book reviewing including Magdalena Ball, Judi Clark, James Cox, Lesa Holstine, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Cheryl C. Malandrinos, Sharyn McGinty, Alex Moore, Stephanie Padilla, Andrea Sisco, Irene Watson and others.
http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ttb_fre...

Thirty popular titles are available for $3.50 or less via Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and OmniLit until March 10th during Read an E-Book Week.

In addition, ebook ARCs now available for the following upcoming releases:

Divided, historical novel by Ralph Freedman
Equity of Evil, medical thriller by Rudy Mazzocchi
Essentially Yours, mystery by Aaron Paul Lazar
Griffin's Fire, fantasy by Darby Karchut
Shadows of Kings, epic fantasy by Jack Whitsel
The Patriot Spy, military historical by S. W. O'Connell.
http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ttb_arc...

Happy reading! Feel free to spread the word via Facebook or Twitter!

Book Review: Hitler’s Silver Box, by Allen Malnak

Hitler’s Silver Box is a compelling, exciting thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end.

In a two-story Georgian house in one of Chicago’s affluent suburbs, Max Bloomberg, an old bookseller, is brutally killed. Before murdering him, the killers burn his holy books and ask him for ‘the box.’ The old man refuses to give them any information. However, unbeknown to them, he’s left his secret journal to his nephew.

Enters Dr. Bruce Starkman, Chief ER Resident at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. Bruce is crushed when he learns about his beloved uncle’s unexpected murder. Although Bruce would like to accept the murder as an unfortunate turn of fate, he soon becomes suspicious. Why was Uncle Max, an orthodox Jew, cremated? Uncle Max would never have allowed cremation. Why was his bookstore vandalized? And why is a black Chevy following Bruce lately? The situation gets more complicated when he inherits a large sum of money and property from his uncle, suddenly making him a suspect.

Thus begins Bruce’s search for the journal, and once he discovers it, the reader is transported to 1945 when Max was 23 years old and a prisoner at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Tension escalates, innocent people are killed, and together with Miriam, a beautiful and extremely smart Israeli woman with military training, Bruce travels to Paris and the Czech Republic. It quickly becomes evident to Bruce that he must outwit the neo-Nazis and find the silver box his uncle built—and the secret document hidden within it—if he is to save the world from an imminent Nazi resurgence.

The premise is ambitious, the stakes are high. Hitler’s Silver Box is a well-written novel full of non-stop action and suspense. The story is written from multiple points of view separated by chapters. From the beginning, I was hooked. The pace is quick and the scenes full of tension. There’s a lot of dialogue and little exposition, thus propelling the action further. I especially found Max’s journal engrossing and compelling, distressing and shocking. The horror of Max’s story touched me at a profound level. It is one of those tales not easily forgotten. The journal adds depth and another dimension to the book. I also liked how the voice, pace and tone in the journal are different from the rest of the novel. The protagonist, Bruce Starkman, is sympathetic and I really enjoyed all his ‘medical’ insights; it’s obvious the author is a medical doctor himself. Miriam, with her quick tongue, adds a lot of color and spunk to the scenes and I wish she had appeared much earlier in the story. I didn’t care much about Bruce’s ex-girlfriend, who’s quite active in the beginning, though keeping in mind what happens to her, I suspect why the author didn’t make her too likable.

In short, Hitler’s Silver Box is a fast-moving, entertaining read and one of those books that would make a good film. Recommended.

Visit the author's website and watch the trailer at: http://www.hitlerssilverbox.com/

Book Review: Hitler’s Silver Box, by Allen Malnak

Hitler’s Silver Box is a compelling, exciting thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end.

In a two-story Georgian house in one of Chicago’s affluent suburbs, Max Bloomberg, an old bookseller, is brutally killed. Before murdering him, the killers burn his holy books and ask him for ‘the box.’ The old man refuses to give them any information. However, unbeknown to them, he’s left his secret journal to his nephew.

Enters Dr. Bruce Starkman, Chief ER Resident at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital. Bruce is crushed when he learns about his beloved uncle’s unexpected murder. Although Bruce would like to accept the murder as an unfortunate turn of fate, he soon becomes suspicious. Why was Uncle Max, an orthodox Jew, cremated? Uncle Max would never have allowed cremation. Why was his bookstore vandalized? And why is a black Chevy following Bruce lately? The situation gets more complicated when he inherits a large sum of money and property from his uncle, suddenly making him a suspect.

Thus begins Bruce’s search for the journal, and once he discovers it, the reader is transported to 1945 when Max was 23 years old and a prisoner at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Tension escalates, innocent people are killed, and together with Miriam, a beautiful and extremely smart Israeli woman with military training, Bruce travels to Paris and the Czech Republic. It quickly becomes evident to Bruce that he must outwit the neo-Nazis and find the silver box his uncle built—and the secret document hidden within it—if he is to save the world from an imminent Nazi resurgence.

The premise is ambitious, the stakes are high. Hitler’s Silver Box is a well-written novel full of non-stop action and suspense. The story is written from multiple points of view separated by chapters. From the beginning, I was hooked. The pace is quick and the scenes full of tension. There’s a lot of dialogue and little exposition, thus propelling the action further. I especially found Max’s journal engrossing and compelling, distressing and shocking. The horror of Max’s story touched me at a profound level. It is one of those tales not easily forgotten. The journal adds depth and another dimension to the book. I also liked how the voice, pace and tone in the journal are different from the rest of the novel. The protagonist, Bruce Starkman, is sympathetic and I really enjoyed all his ‘medical’ insights; it’s obvious the author is a medical doctor himself. Miriam, with her quick tongue, adds a lot of color and spunk to the scenes and I wish she had appeared much earlier in the story. I didn’t care much about Bruce’s ex-girlfriend, who’s quite active in the beginning, though keeping in mind what happens to her, I suspect why the author didn’t make her too likable.

In short, Hitler’s Silver Box is a fast-moving, entertaining read and one of those books that would make a good film. Recommended.

Visit the author's website at: http://www.hitlerssilverbox.com/