Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "blog-hop"
Blog Hop
We are hopping our way through some great reads. For those who aren’t familiar with a blog hop…it’s a lot like a treasure hunt — once you find something on one blog, hop over to the next blog link for more treasure. In this case, the treasure is a wealth of new and exciting books. Some are still being written, some are just being released. Either way, for fiction lovers…it’s a treasure, and I’d like to thank my friend Delinda McCann for asking me to take part.
You can find Delinda here: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
Here are the questions Delinda asked me, and my answers.
1) What is the working title of your book?
“Goodbye, Padania”.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
My protagonist, Daria, was a minor character in an earlier story, also set in Padania. I wanted to flesh out her personality and look into her mind.
Italy has often had small states within its territory. Venice, Genoa, even Pisa have all been independent. Today, only San Marino and the Vatican State remain. Some people are pushing to carve a new one, called Padania, out of the north Italian lowlands, to be a haven of wealth and racism. I want to suggest that wealth and racism are incompatible in today’s Europe.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a kind of noir thriller set in the future, so I’d label it “speculative fiction”.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
For Daria, I’d want authenticity. I’d cast among southern Italians for someone short, dark and capable of glaring razor-sharp daggers. I’d go to Hollywood or Cinecittà for Mercurio. Di Caprio or Raoul Bova might do. A gaggle of the latest pretty boys for Daria’s disciples who become her lovers. A real priest for Father Francesco, and a hologram of Charles Bronson for the villain in the final showdown.
5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Amid the death agonies of a pariah state, a young woman tries to escape the role that fate has apparently designed for her: killer.
6) Is your book self-published, published or represented by an agency?
For an anarchist like me, it has to be self-published.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote it as a series of short stories over four years. I ran them together in a week.
8) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The rise of racism in the country in which I was living.
9) What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest?
The psychology of Daria, I hope. The paradox of an ordinary girl who loves shopping and overeating, yet is a highly successful, cold-blooded killer.
10) What other books in your genre would you compare this to?
Nicoletta Vallorani’s “Eva” is a whodunnit set in a future, dystopian Milan. Irene Dische examines the banal mind of a contract killer in “The Job”. Harold Pinter often featured ordinary-seeming people who may or may not be killers. And Phil Zimbardo deals extensively with the psychological aspect in “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”. They go beyond a single genre, but I hope that “Goodbye, Padania” does, too.
Continue on the blog hop by checking out these other wonderful authors!
Rosemary Adkins: http://www.extraordinaryireland.blogs...
Dan O’Brien: http://thedanobrienproject.blogspot.i...
Steven Nedelton: http://www.snedelton.com
Maggie Tideswell: http://maggiestorm.blogspot.com/
Delinda McCann: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
You can find Delinda here: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
Here are the questions Delinda asked me, and my answers.
1) What is the working title of your book?
“Goodbye, Padania”.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
My protagonist, Daria, was a minor character in an earlier story, also set in Padania. I wanted to flesh out her personality and look into her mind.
Italy has often had small states within its territory. Venice, Genoa, even Pisa have all been independent. Today, only San Marino and the Vatican State remain. Some people are pushing to carve a new one, called Padania, out of the north Italian lowlands, to be a haven of wealth and racism. I want to suggest that wealth and racism are incompatible in today’s Europe.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a kind of noir thriller set in the future, so I’d label it “speculative fiction”.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
For Daria, I’d want authenticity. I’d cast among southern Italians for someone short, dark and capable of glaring razor-sharp daggers. I’d go to Hollywood or Cinecittà for Mercurio. Di Caprio or Raoul Bova might do. A gaggle of the latest pretty boys for Daria’s disciples who become her lovers. A real priest for Father Francesco, and a hologram of Charles Bronson for the villain in the final showdown.
5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Amid the death agonies of a pariah state, a young woman tries to escape the role that fate has apparently designed for her: killer.
6) Is your book self-published, published or represented by an agency?
For an anarchist like me, it has to be self-published.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote it as a series of short stories over four years. I ran them together in a week.
8) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The rise of racism in the country in which I was living.
9) What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest?
The psychology of Daria, I hope. The paradox of an ordinary girl who loves shopping and overeating, yet is a highly successful, cold-blooded killer.
10) What other books in your genre would you compare this to?
Nicoletta Vallorani’s “Eva” is a whodunnit set in a future, dystopian Milan. Irene Dische examines the banal mind of a contract killer in “The Job”. Harold Pinter often featured ordinary-seeming people who may or may not be killers. And Phil Zimbardo deals extensively with the psychological aspect in “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”. They go beyond a single genre, but I hope that “Goodbye, Padania” does, too.
Continue on the blog hop by checking out these other wonderful authors!
Rosemary Adkins: http://www.extraordinaryireland.blogs...
Dan O’Brien: http://thedanobrienproject.blogspot.i...
Steven Nedelton: http://www.snedelton.com
Maggie Tideswell: http://maggiestorm.blogspot.com/
Delinda McCann: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
