FEATURED AUTHOR: GENE DESROCHERS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Boise Montague’s life in Los Angeles has fallen apart. After his wife dies, he returns to the tiny island where he grew up. Unfortunately, coming home doesn’t bring him the peace he’s looking for.



Things have changed drastically since his last visit. The island has moved on and so have the people he once knew. When Boise tries to find the one friend he thinks he can count on to be there for him, he’s confronted with another death. A murder. A murder that the police did not think important enough to investigate thoroughly.



Boise wants answers. He enlists a local reporter named Dana, who has theories of her own, to help him dig deeper. 

With not much left to lose, a bone to pick with the justice system, and a relentless partner, Boise sets out to do what the police would not: solve the murder of Roger Black.



The island of St. Thomas is a gleaming tropical paradise. Welcome to the Caribbean, where murder is as common as sunshine.

Book Details:


Title: Dark Paradise

Author: Gene Desrochers   

Genre: Mystery/Crime

Publisher: Acorn Publishing (June 25, 2018)

Print length: 337 pages

On tour with: Parners in Crime Virtual Book Tours

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH GENE DESROCHERS


A few of your favorite things: Tennis; Islands; my wife and kids; reading mysteries; watching The Matrix for the seventieth time; kind people.
Things you need to throw out: Not much, I’m an avid thrower-outer.


Things you need in order to write: Pen and paper.
Things that hamper your writing: Distracting myself with other tasks like writing short stories or reading or washing dishes
.

Things you love about writing: Coming up with a new twist or phrase. Reading what I’ve written later and feeling like someone else wrote it. Creating a world out of blank white.
Things you hate about writing: Constantly feeling like it’s not as good as it seems in my head.

Easiest thing about being a writer: The unlimited potential.

Hardest thing about being a writer: Disciplined, daily writing
.

Things you love about where you live: The weather and the unlimited number of things to do.   
Things that make you want to move: The cost of living and arrogant, self-absorbed people.


Things you never want to run out of: Tennis balls, pencils, paper, kisses from my wife.
Things you wish you’d never bought: Rainmaker stock, many other stocks, I suck at picking good stocks.


Words that describe you: Angry, friendly, other-centric, visual, verbal.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: Angry, afraid of success, overly deferential (although maybe changing).

Favorite foods: Pasta with olive oil and parmesan cheese, really any Italian food without eggplant or red meat, any kind of saag, bananas and nuts (together), freshly baked bread, especially croissants, doughnuts, mango smoothies.
Things that make you want to throw up:  Eggplant, maggots, rancid food items, especially lettuce, body odor.

Favorite music or song: Wow, so tough. Concrete Blonde (many songs): The whole self-titled album, and most every other song especially the cover of Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows and Only You Can Make Me Cry. The Police: "Tea in the Sahara" and "Do Do Da." Gorillaz: First album. Eminem: "Slim Shady." Muse: "Uprising." Recently, Portugal the Man.
Music that make your ears bleed: That Pop Country cross-over crap.

Favorite beverage: Chai Tea with sugar
.
Something that gives you a pickle face: Sauerkraut

Favorite smell: Baking bread or my wife. I also like the smell of cigars.

Something that makes you hold your nose: Body odor.

Something you’re really good at: Tennis and conversation.

Something you’re really bad at: Dunking a basketball, splits, and patience when people stop in the middle of the street even if I’m not in a hurry.


Something you wish you could do: Fly.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: I’m impatient when people ask me to repeat myself and often sound angry even if I’m not.

Something you like to do: Play tennis, bowling, go to the theater to watch movies (still prefer that to watching at home).

Something you wish you’d never done: Very personal! I once said something very rude to a girl on my high school tennis team who was a nice person after she lost a tennis match.

People you consider as heroes: Gandhi, Colin Kaepernick, Frederick Douglass.

People with a big L on their foreheads: A guy where I work named Jay who brags about having never worked and lies all the time…Reminds me of Donald Trump who also fits this category;
People who are narcissistic and spend every second recounting their accomplishments or talking about themselves without asking anyone else anything; Googlers.



Last best thing you ate: Turkey Soup.

Last thing you regret eating: Too much turkey on Thanksgiving (my stomach hurt).

Things you’d walk a mile for: Tennis, library, the chance to promote my work, most things (a mile is not far).
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: People who go on about themselves or talk loudly on their cell phone.

Things you always put in your books: Characters who get caught up in their thoughts and don’t listen.

Things you never put in your books: I hate it when people jump into water wearing all their clothes with no regard for what’s in their pockets unless it’s an emergency situation.

Things to say to an author: I loved your main character, they were so complex and nuanced! I think your book would make a wonderful movie / series.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: I liked it, but there’s too much happening; I couldn’t get past the first page; I liked it except it didn’t make any sense.

Favorite places you’ve been: Peru (sacred valley); Rome (felt like I’d lived there in a past life); St. John; Los Angeles; New Orleans
.
Places you never want to go to again: Florida (except the beaches), small southern towns.

Favorite books: Mysteries, Harry Potter (is that now its own genre?)

Books you would ban: What? The Art of the Deal. But really, I don’t think books should be banned.

People you’d like to invite to dinner: Harrison Ford, Sam Harris, Roger Federer.

People you’d cancel dinner on: Donald Trump; Any of his family; Kardashians; Kanye West; John Isner; Rodrigo Duterte; Donald Rumsfeld; Dick Cheney.

Favorite things to do: Play tennis, watch tennis, talk tennis, read interesting stories, edit interesting stories, travel to spiritual locales, watch Friends.
Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: Stringing tennis rackets; looking closely at elective plastic surgery; drinking large quantities of alcohol; being around drunk or mean people regularly.

Things that make you happy: People who say hello to complete strangers; a kiss from my wife; playing Settlers of Catan or Puerto Rico with my kids; Ms. PacMan.

Things that drive you crazy: Movies or stories that have people dance for no apparent reason without music; people who stop at yield signs for no reason–especially when there’s a merge lane; technology that actually makes things harder and longer than it did without the technology; fervent, mindless patriotism, especially at sporting events; religious people who push their mythology on everyone else.

Most embarrassing moment: Can’t remember…luckily…maybe ask me later.

Proudest moment: Holding my first novel physically in my hands.

Biggest lie you’ve ever told: If confronted, I generally tell the truth, but as a youth I snuck out of the house often to ride around my neighborhood at night and generally skulk around like I was a spy. Once I had a friend over and we did it together, and we were caught lying about it in my step-father’s Coca-Cola truck. We got reamed out, and I got grounded for quite a while.

A lie you wish you’d told: Can’t think of one right now.

Best thing you’ve ever done: Marry my wife, and recognize how special she is for all these years and somehow manage not to screw it up.

Biggest mistake: Getting involved with the girl I moved to LA with when I knew she was self-centered and depressed, which led to me opening a retail business that she said she’d do the work on, but instead ran into the ground and caused me to lose all my money!

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Moving to and toughing it out in L.A.

Something you chickened out from doing: Telling someone (several times) I wanted to date them.

The last thing you did for the first time: Attend a Lakers game.

Something you’ll never do again: Invest in Real Estate I don’t look at physically first.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gene Desrochers hails from a dot in the Caribbean Sea called St. Thomas. He grew up with minimal supervision and free-roaming animals in a guesthouse that also served as a hospital during wartime. He has spent his life steadily migrating west, and now finds himself in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife, cats, and kids. After a lifetime of writing and telling short stories, he ventured into the deep end, publishing his first novel, Dark Paradise in 2018. If you ask, he will regale you with his Caribbean accent and tennis prowess.

Connect with Gene:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Instagram


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