I was interviewed by Renee Hand on her radioblog on Monday. It was an interesting experience but contrary to what I expected, we spent a lot of the half hour talking about my other books...I had anticipated talking more about "The Mists of Adriana", but it was good to chat about "Slave to Saint: The Amazing Life of St. Vincent de Paul" because that book benefits a worthy Australian charity and is an interesting look at St. Vincent's life about which I knew nothing when I was given the contract to write his story.
So this morning I thought I'd post a few comments about "The Mists of Adriana" because I have given away nearly 3,000 free copies to date, and with the approaching time for publication of the second book in the series, I said on Renee's blog/broadcast that the free giveaways for the first book were over. They are but for those who didn't download one here is a bit of information in more detail than the usual dust jacket blurbs.
If you read the reviews of "The Mists of Adriana" you will see a couple of things right off. First of all, the book is written in the first person, and secondly, the principal character...the narrator...is never named. While this has been reviewed as reminiscent of du Maurier, it was never intended to be that, nor is the principal character at all personal although there are some similarities as I mentioned in the interview.
Rather the story is about Adriana Barrows. She is an intriguing woman in her late "spring years" who is a true linguist. She can pick up and speak virtually any language very quickly, a trait she inherited from her father who was also a linguist. Adriana's skill set has enabled her to be a very efficient operative in the war on drugs and her work in Venezuela was instrumental in the destruction of a particularly lethal international drug smuggling organization.
But the organization isn't done with her, and finally finds her hidden in a form of a witness protection program. The syndicate finds her in Maine where the whole story takes place.
Some people have asked me why the story is set in Maine. The answer is at once simple yet complicated. First of all, of all the places in the world where I have been, Maine is where I have always wanted to land. This was true after the war in southeast Asia, and all the other wars since then that I have been part of. Maine is such a large state for the notheastern part of the country, that most people who have not made a point to do so, know little or nothing about the state. It truly is a state of contrasts. But it also is an interesting place for the setting of a romantic thriller like "The Mists of Adriana" because it has 3000 miles of very irregular coastline and there is nothing more interesting for drug traffickers than all that open coast line with nothing east of it until Africa. This geographic characteristic will be more important in the second book in the series, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Adriana is an attorney by trade and a spy by vocation. In the eyes of the narrator, she is exceptionally beautiful, and miracle of miracles she is attracted to him in the same way he is attracted to her. He is almost a decade and a half older than she is, or so she tells him. He had figured out that involvements with women were for him, a thing of the past until he meets her. For her, his attractiveness is simply that he has finished with fighting to find his life and is now just content to live it. In her life she is still at war and his "peaceful strength" draws her to him...right up until she leaves at the end of the first book.
One reviewer was obviously disappointed that with the potential of a fall/spring romance, there should have been scenes of total ravishment where the older lover totally disassembles the young female character with all sort of graphic scenes of brutal penetrations and foolishly fictitious moans of pain and ecstasy. Nope! Not in my books. As another reviewer said, I leave the sex at the bedroom, and if biological descriptions are necessary for a reader to enjoy a book, that reader will waste his time in mine. I will point you in the direction an adult would take but the imagination will need to be engaged to complete the scene.
I also wish here to comment about violence. There is some. The principal character was an army officer who had several long tours in Vietnam. Adriana is a trained operative who knows how to use firearms and does so in "The Mists of Adriana". But the book is intended to draw the reader along into the story of these two people who come together because her car sustains a flat tire one chilly morning in rural Maine, and the inclusion of violence underlines that these are real people, not embued with superhuman characteristics. They are trained to perform certain functions well, and so so when called upon, but nothing is ever certain when conflicts occur. That uncertainty is shown in the scenes with violence that actually leave as many questions to ask as there are questions answered.
My characters are always intended to be real people. They cannot run thity-seven miles, leap aboard a freight train travelling at forty-nine miles per hour and immediately commence hand to hand combat with sixteen heavily armed commandos. Such people and such scenes are suitable for animated children's comic books perhaps, but in the real world real characters get tired, miss the jump onto the train, and get put down hard by the commandos who in fact, may not be very well trained themselves. That's reality, and I am a firm believer that real people make the very best predators...and prey.
If anyone has any questions about "The Mists of Adriana" series, please ask away! I will also note that in all three thousand or so of the free Kindle books to be downloaded, as well as any Kindle book that is purchased, there is a form included at the end of the book as well as an email address to use to communicate directly with me, and I answer ALL emails!
So this morning I thought I'd post a few comments about "The Mists of Adriana" because I have given away nearly 3,000 free copies to date, and with the approaching time for publication of the second book in the series, I said on Renee's blog/broadcast that the free giveaways for the first book were over. They are but for those who didn't download one here is a bit of information in more detail than the usual dust jacket blurbs.
If you read the reviews of "The Mists of Adriana" you will see a couple of things right off. First of all, the book is written in the first person, and secondly, the principal character...the narrator...is never named. While this has been reviewed as reminiscent of du Maurier, it was never intended to be that, nor is the principal character at all personal although there are some similarities as I mentioned in the interview.
Rather the story is about Adriana Barrows. She is an intriguing woman in her late "spring years" who is a true linguist. She can pick up and speak virtually any language very quickly, a trait she inherited from her father who was also a linguist. Adriana's skill set has enabled her to be a very efficient operative in the war on drugs and her work in Venezuela was instrumental in the destruction of a particularly lethal international drug smuggling organization.
But the organization isn't done with her, and finally finds her hidden in a form of a witness protection program. The syndicate finds her in Maine where the whole story takes place.
Some people have asked me why the story is set in Maine. The answer is at once simple yet complicated. First of all, of all the places in the world where I have been, Maine is where I have always wanted to land. This was true after the war in southeast Asia, and all the other wars since then that I have been part of. Maine is such a large state for the notheastern part of the country, that most people who have not made a point to do so, know little or nothing about the state. It truly is a state of contrasts. But it also is an interesting place for the setting of a romantic thriller like "The Mists of Adriana" because it has 3000 miles of very irregular coastline and there is nothing more interesting for drug traffickers than all that open coast line with nothing east of it until Africa. This geographic characteristic will be more important in the second book in the series, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Adriana is an attorney by trade and a spy by vocation. In the eyes of the narrator, she is exceptionally beautiful, and miracle of miracles she is attracted to him in the same way he is attracted to her. He is almost a decade and a half older than she is, or so she tells him. He had figured out that involvements with women were for him, a thing of the past until he meets her. For her, his attractiveness is simply that he has finished with fighting to find his life and is now just content to live it. In her life she is still at war and his "peaceful strength" draws her to him...right up until she leaves at the end of the first book.
One reviewer was obviously disappointed that with the potential of a fall/spring romance, there should have been scenes of total ravishment where the older lover totally disassembles the young female character with all sort of graphic scenes of brutal penetrations and foolishly fictitious moans of pain and ecstasy. Nope! Not in my books. As another reviewer said, I leave the sex at the bedroom, and if biological descriptions are necessary for a reader to enjoy a book, that reader will waste his time in mine. I will point you in the direction an adult would take but the imagination will need to be engaged to complete the scene.
I also wish here to comment about violence. There is some. The principal character was an army officer who had several long tours in Vietnam. Adriana is a trained operative who knows how to use firearms and does so in "The Mists of Adriana". But the book is intended to draw the reader along into the story of these two people who come together because her car sustains a flat tire one chilly morning in rural Maine, and the inclusion of violence underlines that these are real people, not embued with superhuman characteristics. They are trained to perform certain functions well, and so so when called upon, but nothing is ever certain when conflicts occur. That uncertainty is shown in the scenes with violence that actually leave as many questions to ask as there are questions answered.
My characters are always intended to be real people. They cannot run thity-seven miles, leap aboard a freight train travelling at forty-nine miles per hour and immediately commence hand to hand combat with sixteen heavily armed commandos. Such people and such scenes are suitable for animated children's comic books perhaps, but in the real world real characters get tired, miss the jump onto the train, and get put down hard by the commandos who in fact, may not be very well trained themselves. That's reality, and I am a firm believer that real people make the very best predators...and prey.
If anyone wants to listen to the half-hour interview on Renee Hand's website, here's a link that will get you there! http://thecryptocapersseries.blogspot...
If anyone has any questions about "The Mists of Adriana" series, please ask away! I will also note that in all three thousand or so of the free Kindle books to be downloaded, as well as any Kindle book that is purchased, there is a form included at the end of the book as well as an email address to use to communicate directly with me, and I answer ALL emails!
Talk with you soon, I hope!