FEATURED AUTHOR: SAGE WEBB

ABOUT THE BOOK

After fleeing the crush of a partnership at a large Chicago criminal-defense firm and a professional breakdown, Devlin Winters just wants to be left alone with a couple sundowners on the deck of her dilapidated mahogany trawler on Galveston Bay. But when an old flame shows up on the boardwalk with a mysterious little boy in tow and an indictment on his heels, fate has other plans, and Devlin finds herself thrust onto a sailboat bound for St. Kitts and staring down her demons in the courtroom, as she squares off against an obsessed prosecutor with a secret of his own.




Book Details:

Title: The Venturi Effect

Author: Sage Webb

Genre: legal thriller

Series: A Devlin Winters Novel

Publisher: Stoneman House Press, LLC (November 15, 2020)

Print length: 329 pages
On tour with: Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours

    


LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH SAGE WEBB

A few of your favorite things: books! Books! Books and maxi dresses!
Things you need to throw out: see above! No, I’d never throw out no-longer-needed books or dresses; I’d donate them. But living on a boat means enforced minimalism, and I know I need to cull the heard a bit!


Things you love about where you live: my husband and I live on a 40’ sailboat in a marina off Galveston Bay. I love it. We spend weekdays docked, so “the bosun” can go to work (mostly, I can work from my laptop wherever I am), and on the weekends, we anchor the boat in the bay and enjoy the quiet of being on the water. People dream of sailing to far-off islands, and there’s something to be said for that, but “sailing local” keeps it stress free while providing all the good times of being at anchor, taking the dinghy to the beach, enjoying meals at harborside dives under palapas, and generally taking in boat life.
Things that make you want to move: I like the heat, but the Houston-Galveston area is really hot in the summer—like really, really hot. And I have lupus, which means the sun is not my friend . . . at all!

Words that describe you: adventurous, caring, loves cats (and dogs!), jokes around.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: OCD!, easily stressed, moody, judgmental.

Favorite music: my husband spends a goodly portion of his free time as a local Texas red-dirt-country singer-songwriter, so there’s only one right answer to this question for me: his music is my favorite! Before I moved to Texas (and before I met my husband), I didn’t much like country, but now I love it. I like the story-telling nature of many of the songs, the genre’s general danceability, and the emotion of some of the ballads.
Music that make your ears bleed: Yung Gravy (with all due respect to his fans, he’s just not my brand of vodka!)

Favorite smell: salt air, cut grass, this apple-cinnamon air freshener we use, and (I know! I know! guilty face) some of the fiberglass-maintenance chemicals one encounters during boat work.

Something that makes you hold your nose: a big ol’ puff of diesel exhaust when I’m hooking up a camping trailer to a diesel tow vehicle. (We like to RV, too!)


Last best thing you ate: I appreciate good bread pudding, and I live in Texas, so it’s not hard to find. There’s a little waterfront restaurant in a neighboring marina, and sometimes when we’re feeling festive, we’ll walk over there and they have scrumptious bread pudding! We made this little evening passeggiata the other night and treated ourselves to the bread pudding. 

Last thing you regret eating: I suffer from food envy at almost every meal we eat out. Whatever my husband orders always ends up looking better than what I got, so I often regret my culinary choices. (It’s not that bad, really, but he teases me about it a lot!)

Things you always put in your books: my writing often contains boats! I luv ’em, so they tend to sneak in. There’s usually some law, too.


Things you never put in your books: I can’t do a whole lot of violence or sex. Just too much for me. Nor do I tend to venture into areas that are completely foreign. I agree with people who say that the idea of “write what you know” has limits, but I also tend to use what I know as a springboard.

Favorite places you’ve been: I love Guatemala. I’ve gotten to go there a couple times, and it’s beautiful! It offers some great experiences in the realm of history, architecture, art, scenery, and food. I also love Michigan’s Mackinac Island (no cars allowed! only horses and bikes!); caves in general (gimme a “wild cave tour” any day!); and Rome (what’s not to love about the Eternal City???).

Places you never want to go to again: well, there was this awful truck stop along highway . . . ! I love road trips, and I love RVing, so there have been a number of dirty, sketchy, stops! I’m also not an L.A. person and can only take Vegas in very short bursts.

Things that make you happy: nothing feels quite as good as sitting in the cockpit of an anchored boat on a warm day, under a canvas awning, reading a good book . . . with a salty dog or cat at hand. 

Things that drive you crazy: deadlines have literally caused my hair to fall out (well, lupus caused my hair to fall out, but stress may or may not have provided a trigger!). I live with a lot of nonnegotiable deadlines and they can cause a ton of frustration!

EXCERPT FROM THE VENTURI EFFECT

Chapter 1
Carny 

Red metal boxes lined the wood-railed tourist boardwalk, giving children access to fish food if the kids could finagle quarters from parents wilted and forlorn in the triple-digit Gulf Coast heat. With the food, kids could create great frenzies of red drum, snook, spotted sea trout, or whatever fish species gathered at the boardwalk’s pilings in agitated silver vortices. Devlin Winters lifted her ballcap and wiped a sleeve across her brow. She favored long-sleeved t-shirts for just this reason—their mopping properties . . . and to protect her from the Galveston Bay sun in its unrelenting effort to grill her and the other boardwalk barkers. In the two years she’d been on the boardwalk, she’d never fed the fish. 

A kid stopped beside one of the boxes. 

“Can I have a quarter, mommy?” the boy asked. 

He looked about eight or nine, though Devlin had little interest in guessing accurately the ages of the pint-sized patrons fueling her income stream.

“I’m not sure I have one,” the mom replied. 

She appeared a bit younger than Devlin, maybe late twenties. 

Once upon a time, Devlin would have looked at a mother like that and made a snide remark about crib lizards and dead ends, but nine bucks an hour in the sun makes it awfully hard for a carny to judge others. Lacking a more interesting subject, Devlin watched the woman paw through a backpack-sized purse. The chick produced a quarter and handed it to the kid, who dropped it into the box’s payment slot and ground the dial, catching in his miniature palm a limited portion of the fish food that spilled out of the machine when he lifted the metal flap. The majority of the pellets rained down onto the wooden boardwalk planks, bounced, and disappeared through the cracks between the planks. 

Devlin fancied she could hear the tiny fish-food BBs hitting brown water: plink, plink, plink. Once upon another time, when she was still at Sondheim Baker, but toward the end, she would go outside in the middle of the day. Instead of sitting at her desk, drafting appellate briefs for the Seventh Circuit, she would ride the elevator down to La Salle, down seven hundred feet of glass and stainless steel and terribly expensive architecture. She would drop down those elevator cables at random times, at times rich, successful attorneys should have been at their desks. And she would turn left out of that great glass building the color of the sky and walk over to the river, that nothing-like-the-Styx river that mankind had turned back on itself, contrary to nature. 

She would stand and look down into the water, which was sometimes emerald, sometimes the color of jeans before they are ever washed. Once or twice, she had reached into her purse (expensive purses, Magnificent Mile purses from Burberry and Gucci and Hermès) and she had dug around until she’d found a penny. She’d dropped the penny into the river and, even now, on the sauna-hot boardwalk with the whistle of the kid-sized train behind her and the pulses of unimpressive pop music overhead, she was sure she could hear those pennies hit the Chicago River, hit and sink down, down, and farther down.  

Plink. Plink. Pli—

“You want to try this one?”

The fish-feeding entertainment had run its course and the mother stood in front of the water-gun game Devlin guarded. She gestured toward Devlin and the row of stools in front of their narrow-barreled water guns.

“Is it hard?” The kid looked up at his mom, and the mom turned to Devlin.

“He can do it, right?” she asked. “I mean, he can figure it out, right?”

“Sure, it’s easy.” Devlin lifted her cap for another mop across her hairline, and then wiped perspiration away from her eyes under her sunglasses. “It’s fun, little dude,” she said to the kid in his obviously secondhand clothes. 

She wanted to care, wanted to be “affable” or whatever it is a carny should be toward summer’s ice-cream-eating cash-crop flux of kids. But wanting alone, without effort, is never enough.

The mom held out a five-dollar bill.

“You both wanna do it? I gotta have more than one person to run it for a prize.” Devlin rubbed the top of her right flip flop and foot against her left calf.

“Oh,” the woman said, “I wasn’t planning to play. I’m no good at these things.”

“Um,” Devlin stepped out of the shade of the game’s nook and cast her eyes up and down the boardwalk, “we’ll find some more kids.” She took the woman’s money without looking away from the walkway and the beggarly seabirds.

A young couple, likely playing hooky from jobs in Houston, held the hands of a girl sporting jet-black pigtails and lopsided glasses.

“Step right up, princess. You wanna win a unicorn, right?” Devlin reached back into her game nook and snatched a pink toy from the wall of unicorns, butterflies, bees, and unlicensed lookalikes of characters from movies Devlin had never heard of. She dangled the thing in the girl’s direction.

“Would you like to play, habibti?” The mom jiggled the girl’s arm.

“Tell ya what.” Devlin turned to the mom. “The whole family can play for five bucks. We’re just trying to get some games going, give away some prizes to these cuties.” She turned back to the first mother. “And don’t worry, I’ll give him three games for the fiver.”

“Hear that, Vince? You’ll get to play a few times. Is that cool?”

Vince picked at his crotch. Devlin looked away. 

“Yes, we’ll all play,” the second mother said. The dad pulled a twenty out of a pocket and Devlin started to make change while Vince’s mom hefted Vince onto a stool.

“Just a five back,” the father said. “We’ll play a few times.”

“Sure thing,” Devlin replied. Then she raised her voice to run through the rules of the game, to explain how the water guns spraying and hitting the targets would raise plastic boats in a boat race to buzzers at the top of the game contraption. She offered some tired words of encouragement, got nods from everyone, and counted down. “Three, two, one.” 

She pushed the button and the game loosed a bell sound across the boardwalk. 

A guy in waiter’s livery hurried past, hustling toward one of the boardwalk’s various restaurants, with their patios overlooking the channel and Galveston Bay. He’d be serving people margaritas and gimlets in just a few more steps and minutes. Devlin wanted a gimlet.

She drew a deep breath, turned back to her charges. “Close race here, friends.” 

An ’80s-vintage Hunter sailboat slid past in the channel, leaving Galveston Bay and making its way back to one of the marinas up the waterway on Clear Lake. 

When Devlin turned back to her marksmen, the girl’s mother’s boat had almost reached the buzzer. 

“Looks like we’ve got a leader here. Come on, madam. You’re almost there.”

Devlin checked her watch. She’d be off in less than an hour. She’d be back on her own boat fifteen minutes after that, with an unopened bottle of Bombay Sapphire and a net full of limes rocking above the galley sink.

The buzzer blared.

“Looks like we have a winner. Congratulations, madam.” Devlin clapped three times. “Now would you like a unicorn, a butterfly, or,” Devlin pulled a four-inch-tall creature from the wall, not knowing how to describe it, “this little guy?” She held it out for the woman’s inspection.

“Habibti, you pick.” The mom patted her daughter’s back. The kid didn’t say anything, just pointed at the butterfly.

“Butterfly it is, beautiful.” Devlin unclipped the toy from the wall of plush junk and handed it to the girl. “Well, we’ve got some competition for this next one, folks, now that you’re all warmed up. Take a breather. We’ll start the next game when you’re ready.”

“Can I try?” A boy pulled at a broad-shouldered man’s hand, leading the guy toward the row of stools. It was hard to tell parentage with these kids and their mixed-up step- and half- and melded-in-other-ways families, and with this one, the kid’s dark curls and earnest eyes contrasted with the dude’s Nordic features and reminded Devlin of a roommate she’d had in undergrad, a girl from Haiti who’d taught Devlin about pikliz. Devlin hadn’t thought about Haitian food in ages. She decided she would google it later and see what she could find in Houston. A drive to discover somewhere new to eat would do her good.

Any chance at plantains and pikliz would have to wait, though. The kid and the dude now stood in front of Devlin. Ultra-dark sunglasses hid the guy’s eyes, and a ballcap with a local yacht brokerage’s logo embroidered on it cast a shadow over his face. Devlin cocked her head. She narrowed her eyes and hoped her own sunglasses were doing as good a job of being barriers. He reminded her of— 

“Still time to add another player?” The dude pulled out a wallet and handed Devlin a ten.

“Sure,” she said. “Is this for both of you? You should give it a try, too. This’ll get you both in on the next two games.”

She didn’t wait for confirmation. She shoved the money in the box beside her control board of buzzer buttons and waved the guy and his kid toward stools on the far side of the now-veteran players already seated. 

“Uh, sure,” the guy said, putting a hand on the kid’s back and guiding him to a seat.

Running through the rules again, Devlin envisioned those gimlets awaiting her. With Bombay Sapphire dancing before her, she counted down and then pushed the button to blast the bell and launch the game. The buzzer over the newcomer father’s boat’s track rang moments later. What kind of scummy guy just trounces a kid like that? Devlin rolled her eyes behind the obscuring lenses. 

“Looks like our new guy is the winner, ladies and gentlemen. Now, would you like a unicorn, a butterfly, or this little dude?” Devlin again proffered the hard-to-describe creature, walking it over for the fellow to examine.

“What is it?” the guy asked.

Devlin shrugged. “What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?”

The guy’s sunglasses gave away nothing. But something she couldn’t articulate made her feel like he was studying her.

“An ’el-if-I-know,” she said.

Still nothing . . . except that feeling of scrutiny. 

“Dude, I’ve got no idea,” she replied to her reflection in the lenses.

“Grant, which one do you want?” The guy turned away and handed the unnamed creature to the kid, and then gestured at the identifiable unicorns and butterflies hanging on the wall over Devlin’s control station.

“Those are for girls,” Grant said, waving at the recognizable plushes on the wall.

“So is this one okay?” The guy patted the thing in the kid’s hand.

Grant wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“All right, folks. You’ve all got another game coming here. Competition is fierce. Who’s gonna take this last one?” Devlin strode back to her place at the control board.

“Deep inhale, everyone. Relax. All right, here we go. Three, two, one.” She pushed the starting button. 

Up shot the new guy’s boat again. What a bastard. Poor Grant. This patriarchal showmanship would be worth about five or ten grand at the therapist’s in twenty-five years. 

Out in the channel, two jetskis purred past, headed toward the bay. The day’s heat had cracked and the sky hinted at evening. Behind her, the victory whistle sounded. She turned. The dude with the sunglasses sat patting Grant’s shoulder, with Grant’s boat at the top of its track. So the guy wasn’t a complete fool.

“A new winner here, ladies and gentlemen.” She walked to Grant’s stool. “Now, little man, because you’ve won two prizes today, you can trade that one you’ve got and this one you’re going to get for one bigger one. You can pick from these if you want.”

She pointed at a row with only-slightly-bigger caterpillars, ambiguous characters, and a dog in a purple vest.

“That one,” Grant said, pointing at the dog.

“That one it is, good sir.” Devlin retrieved the dog, taking back the first creature and returning it to the wall in the process.

As she retraced her steps to Grant, the dog in her hand, fuzzy pictures coalesced in a fog and mist of bygone memories. 

Devlin handed the dog to Grant. “There you go.” 

She looked at the guy again, focusing on him for longer than she should have, feeling him perhaps doing the same to her. Yes, she had it right: it was him. She pushed a flyaway strand of bleached hair back into place beneath her cap and turned away.

“Thanks for playing this afternoon, folks,” she called. “Enjoy your evening on the boardwalk.”

The parents gathered their kids, and Devlin walked back toward her control board. Waiting for Grant and him to head off down the row of games and rides, she fussed with the cashbox and then lifted her water bottle to her lips. She could feel him and the kid lingering, feel them failing to move along, failing to leave her to forget what once was and to focus on thoughts of gimlets at sunset on the deck of a rotten old trawler.

“Um.” His voice sounded low and halting behind her. A vacuum, all heat and silence, followed and then a masculine inhale . . . and then the awkward pause. 

He cleared his throat. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but are you from Chicago?”

***

Excerpt from The Venturi Effect by Sage Webb.  Copyright 2020 by Sage Webb. Reproduced with permission from Sage Webb. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  


Sage Webb practiced criminal defense for over a decade before turning to fiction. She is the author of two novels and the recipient of numerous literary awards in the U.S. and U.K., including second place in the Hackney Literary Awards. Her short stories have appeared in Texas anthologies and literary reviews. In 2020, Michigan’s Mackinac State Historic Parks named her an artist in residence. She belongs to International Thriller Writers and PEN America, and lives with her husband, a ship’s cat, and a boat dog on a sailboat in Galveston Bay. 



Connect with Sage:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FEATURED AUTHOR: SOREN PAUL PETREK

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Allies and the Nazis are in a deadly race to develop the ultimate weapon while supersonic V-2 rockets rain down on London. Madeleine Toche and Berthold Hartmann, the German super assassin who taught her to kill, search for the secret factory where Werner von Braun and his Gestapos masters use slave labor to build the weapons as the bodies of the innocent pile up. The Allied ground forces push towards Berlin while the German SS fight savagely for each inch of ground.

Finding the factory hidden beneath Mount Kohnstein, Hartmann contacts his old enemy, Winston Churchill and summons Madeleine to his side. While she moves to bring the mountain down on her enemies, Hartmann leads a daring escape from the dreaded Dora concentration camp to continue his revenge against the monsters who ruined his beloved Germany.

Together with the Russian Nachtlexen, the Night Witches, fearsome female pilots the race tightens as the United States and the Germans successfully carry out an atomic bomb test.

Germany installs an atom bomb in a V-2 pointed towards London, while the US delivers one to a forward base in the Pacific. The fate of the Second World War and the future of mankind hangs in the balance.

Read the first chapter at Booksie and don’t forget to give it a like!

Book Details:

Title: Wolves at Our Door


Author: Soren Paul Petrek 


Genre: Historical/Action/Adventure 

Publisher: Editions Encre Rouge/Hachette Livre (May 2, 2019) 
   

Print Length: 319 pages


On tour with: Pump Up Your Book

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH SOREN PAUL PETREK

A few of your favorite things: I like good food, time spent with family and friends, movies and of course reading books!

Things you need to throw out: a storage facility full of everything, junk, bikes, old papers . . .


Things you need in order to write: laptop for clicking away and doing research.

Things that hamper your writing: getting too busy with my day job. I’m a trial attorney.


Things you love about writing: the joy that I bring to my readers as reflected by their thoughtful reviews.

Things you hate about writing: bad reviews, but you can’t please everyone. All writers get them.

Things you love about where you live: It’s a small bungalow, in a quiet neighborhood near restaurants and entertainment
.
Things that make you want to move: Our sons grew up and have moved on. This is my last move. If I ever move again, it will be in an urn.

Favorite foods: I do the cooking at home. Anything with fresh ingredients, really good BBQ is hard to beat.

Things that make you want to throw up: Coconut is the ONLY thing I can’t stand. I tell my friends and family who love it, coconut is not a food… it’s bark.

Favorite music or song: classic rock.

Music that make your ears bleed: death metal.

Favorite beverage: Coca-Cola it’s not good for you, but sometimes only a coke will do it.

Something that gives you a pickle face: coconut water: AKA ‘Bark Juice.’

Favorite smell: Baking bread.

Something that makes you hold your nose: All things associated with waste treatment plants. Somebody light a match!

Something you’re really good at: cooking and writing.

Something you’re really bad at: everything mechanical or that involves directions.  #1 If it can’t be fixed with a sledgehammer, it can’t be fixed, #2 Never give Soren the map.


Something you like to do: zipline.

Something you wish you’d never done: Ridden any ride at a county fair.

People you consider as heroes: Winston Churchill, FDR, my parents.

People with a big L on their foreheads: Hitler, Stalin, all celebrities who came to fame through “leaked sex tapes.”



Last best thing you ate: steak.

Last thing you regret eating: coconut hidden in a cookie. Sometimes the sneaky so-and-so’s try to hide it in frosting. You can’t hide chunks of bark.

Things you always put in your books: some humor and a humanitarian reminder.

Things you never put in your books: my personal opinions. Who cares, I write fiction.  However, none of my characters like coconut . . .

Things to say to an author: don’t over-describe me, let the reader use their imagination.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: You’re a hack!

Favorite places you’ve been: Provence, South of France, London. I’ve lived in both.

Places you never want to go to again: Milan (Italy).

Favorite books: All Quiet on the Western Front. The author was there fighting.

Books you would ban: None, although Mein Kompf could have a sub-title Rantings of a Lunatic.

People you’d like to invite to dinner: Steven King and his wife.

People you’d cancel dinner on: Kim Jong un.

Things that make you happy: dinner with family.

Things that drive you crazy: most government agencies.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: write a book and send it out into the world for all to read and criticize.

Something you chickened out from doing: I kept dodging my colonoscopy, but they finally cornered me and . . .

EXCERPT FROM WOLVES AT OUR DOOR




Helga Miller shut the door to her small flat in Saint-Omer. With seagulls reeling and crying in the sunny morning sky above, she felt as though she were on vacation. She loved the quaint architecture of the homes, the small shops, and the produce market. Things were scarce, but it was late summer, and the local produce was in. Fish was always available, and she had developed a fondness for it. She could smell the sea and loved the warm sand and relaxed atmosphere at the beach. It was as if there wasn’t even a war.

I’m not on holiday, she told herself, but it’s my first time out of Germany, and I’m not going to waste it. She’d wanted to help with the war effort, and now she had her chance. Even after the invasion, everyone back home still thought Germany would win—Hitler told them so, and the propaganda films left no doubt. Why wouldn’t she believe it as well?

Smaller than some of the other women she worked with, Helga prided herself on being athletic and trim. She went for long walks and did calisthenics daily. Her long hair, which she kept tucked under her hat while on duty, was dark, as was the hair of many people from Bohemia in southern Germany. She wasn’t much interested in the men she worked with. Older and serious, they paid little attention to her except to bark orders. They bored her. She liked the young soldiers stationed in the town and at her worksite. They were exciting and fun-loving, and girls like her from home were scarce.

Helga had been recruited right out of university, and while she knew that as a non-soldier, she would never be much of a threat to anyone, she was eager to work on such an important program. The big projects had political or military applications. The project she was working on combined mining and construction. It was unique.

She was on her way to La Couple, where she worked as a mining engineer. Helga knew the fighting was close, but the enemy army was still many miles away. She didn’t think about it much, but when she did, she had to admit it was a bit thrilling. Neither did she think often of the intended use of the facility once complete. At work she concentrated, paying no attention to the fact that rockets launched from there would fall on major cities—and their civilian populations. Allied bombs were falling on German cities, targeting military installations and civilians alike. She hoped the completion of the facility would stop those raids and help Germany win the war.

 Helga walked toward the train station where she would catch the short ride to her worksite. She disliked the frumpy white coveralls she wore, but they, like everything else, were mandatory. She felt as though she were dressed in a sack. How would she ever catch a man’s eye while wearing a tent?

She turned a corner and crossed over the car park toward the train station. It was a squat wooden building consisting of dirty windows, a ticket booth, toilets, and a kiosk that sold newspapers, cigarettes, and whatever sweets were available at a given time. Helga made her way over to the short line to buy a ticket for the next train. She noticed a young woman ahead of her with a mane of curly black hair cascading down the middle of her back. She didn’t have to see the woman’s face to know that she was beautiful; the way she held herself left no doubt. Oh, to have curls like hers . . . Helga fingered the correct change in her pocket and had it ready when she got to the window. She smiled at the man behind the glass. He gave her the same indifferent look he gave all the passengers, French and German alike. She was sure he’d been there before the war and would be there when it was over. His job was simple and didn’t require any conversation.

A rush of wind announced the arrival of the train. Helga moved forward onto the platform and waited for it to come to a stop. It was a tired old commuter train that had covered the same miles of track for years. With petrol scarce, people got around on foot, bicycle, or, for longer distances, train.

After waiting her turn to board, she found an empty seat in the middle of the car. Among the passengers who brushed past her was the young woman with the beautiful hair. Helga snuck a peek at her dark and angular, almost Gypsy-like, face; the lovely girl was almost certainly from the south. She watched men steal glances as she passed. She felt a twinge of jealousy. No man had ever looked at her that way; it wasn’t fair.

The train pulled out of the station and picked up speed. The windows were down, and the warm breeze carried a hint of salt from the ocean. The smell of seaweed and surf wafted through the car, carrying out cigarette smoke and lingering smells. Helga could stay in a place like this forever. With the weekend coming, she was planning to go down to the beach with another girl from work. Two days in the sun, a chance to chat with some young men, drink some local wine, have some fun. There were always young German soldiers about, on leave.

Excerpt by Soren Paul Petrek. Copyright © 2018 by Soren Paul Petrek. Reproduced with permission from the author. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Soren Petrek is a practicing criminal trial attorney, admitted to the Minnesota Bar in 1991. Married with two adult children, Soren continues to live and work in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Educated in the U.S., England and France, Soren sat his O-level examinations at the Heathland School in Hounslow, London in 1981. His undergraduate degree in Forestry is from the University of Minnesota, 1986. His law degree is from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota (1991).

Soren’s novel, Cold Lonely Courage won Fade In Magazine’s 2009 Award for Fiction. Fade In was voted the nation’s favorite movie magazine by the Washington Post and the L.A. Times in 2011 and 2012.

The French edition of Cold Lonely Courage (titled simply, Courage) was published January 2019, by Encre Rouge Editions, distributed by Hachette Livre in 60 countries. Soren’s contemporary novel, Tim will be released along with the rest of the books in the Madeleine Toche series of historical thrillers.

Tuck Magazine has published several of Soren’s poems, some of which have been included in Soren’s book of poetry, A Search for Solid Ground.


Connect with Soren:
Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Instagram

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Kobo  |  ebook.com

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FEATURED AUTHOR: CHRIS BAUM

ABOUT THE BOOK


Surrender can mean many things to many people, even animals.  In this fictional story, a religious fairy-tale satire about a Sasquatch named PoBo, we learn what it can mean on many different levels. On one level, he is displaced from his family at a young age amid a war initiated by humans. But with an unyielding spirit to be reunited with his kin—and with music being his best motivator, at least at first—the hairy bachelor decides to embark on a dangerous quest to find them. He knows the journey will be fraught with danger because he and his family are on the endangered list—a constant struggle to survive. But like an adage he once read in a book, “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he is steadfast to not give up on his goal. Fortunately, and unexpectedly, he gets some assistance from two animals, one of whom is far bigger in his faith than his physical size. PoBo encounters many obstacles along the way, and his own faith is tested repeatedly as time runs out to fulfill his quest. What he at first thinks is the true meaning of his journey becomes redefined as a desperate yearning to achieve three things: faith, family, and love.

When we’re broken and we realize we are not in complete control, it’s time to surrender.

Book Details:


Title: Surrender

Author: Chris Baum

Genre: Christian Fiction

Publisher and publish date: Covenant Books (October 26, 2017)

Page count: 139





INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS BAUM

Q: Chris, what’s the story behind the title of your book? 
A: My personal definition is that we need to surrender to the Lord, as we can’t do it alone.  We need to lean on Him for strength and guidance. . .  But I like to leave it open to interpretation so the reader can decide since, for this tale, it really could have different meanings as the main characters are animals.

Q: Do you have another job outside of writing?  
A: I’ve been in the medical field for about 14 years, and am currently editing electronic medical records full-time; but eventually I would love to write full-time.

Q: Who are you? 
A: I’m a Christian man married to a strong, beautiful woman with two handsome boys, Michael (10) and Alex (7).

Q: Where’s home for you? 
A: Ohio, the Buckeye state, in the good ol’ US of A.

Q: Where did you grow up? 
A: Born and raised in Ohio, rural—never urban.  I work in the city, but in my free time give I’ll take wide open spaces any day of the week.

Q: What’s your favorite memory?
A: Playing outdoors as a child, just letting my mind and body run wild. 
 


Q: What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
A: In hindsight, it would probably have to be baseball cards as a kid, always thinking they’d be worth a lot of money someday.  The market must have gotten too saturated.  I still wish I had a Mickey Mantle or a Babe Ruth though—those ones would really have been worth the investment!

Q: 
What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned?
A: Don’t sweat the small stuff, and, honestly, most of it is small.  Sometimes to be human is to make things out to be more than what they are . . . but really life’s hard enough without adding more stress to a situation.

Q: Who would you pick to write your biography?
A: Preferably someone who is a fan of my work, like my wife.

Q: What do you love about where you live?
A: The changing seasons. Although most of us complain about the Ohio winters. They are not all that bad, and they make you enjoy spring and summer that much more the next year.

Q: What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
A: It’s good to be daring because if it doesn’t kill us, it will only make us stronger.

Q: What’s one thing you wish your younger writer self knew?
A: How important it is to discipline oneself to write more often.


Q: What makes you bored?
A: Commercials. They can get so redundant.


Q: What makes you happy?
A: Time spent with my family.

Q: What makes you excited?
A: A new book in my hands (and sometimes even an eBook).

Q: What brings you delight?
A: Many things, but the first thing that comes to mind is my mom’s Cherry “Delight” pie.

Q: What’s one of your favorite quotes?
A: To write is human, but to edit is divine.

Q: If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?
A: Probably Ireland because the castles and landscapes look so majestic.

Q: What would you like people to say about you after you die?
A: That I wasn’t afraid to live.

Q: What’s your favorite line from a book?
A: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Q: What would your main character say about you?
A: I’m a realist and a comedian; that is, I can be serious and I love to make people laugh too.

Q: Who are your favorite authors?
A: God, Stephen King, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Lee Child, Raymond Carver, etc. 


Q: What book are you currently reading and in what format?
A: Sleeping Beauties – Hardcover.

Q: What are you working on now?
A: Prequel to Surrender.

BOOK TRAILER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is proud to admit that he’s a constant reader and writer because books don’t have redundant commercials. He was born on Independence Day, lives in Ohio (U.S.), and graduated from Kent State University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He is happily married to his best literary critic, Melannie. He and his wife have two sons, Michael and Alexander, both of whom continue to keep them active and young at heart. He draws a lot of his inspiration from some of the creative things he overhears his kids say throughout the day.




Connect with the author:
Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  iTunes  |  Kobo 

FEATURED AUTHOR: JONATHAN FESMIRE

ABOUT THE BOOK

U.S. Marshal James Creed has known loss, starting from the untimely death of his wife and daughter in a sudden fire. His work, chasing down and arresting outlaws across the Wild West, is all he has left to live for. Then one day, in 1876, the infamous killer Corwin Blake catches Creed by surprise and guns him down.



Creed awakes after a mysterious young woman resurrects him in a basement laboratory beneath a brothel. Half alive, Creed feels torn between his need for justice and his desire to fall back into the peace of death. Creed's instincts drive him to protect the city of Santa Cruz, California, from the outlaws it harbors while searching for Blake.
 
He uncovers a secret criminal organization, likely protecting Blake, determined to use resurrection technology for its own ends. The former marshal, now faster, stronger, and a more deadly shot than ever before, must work with a brothel madam, a bounty hunter, and the remaining marshals to uncover the criminal syndicate before they can misuse the machines of rebirth and create more mindless zombies. Meanwhile, he must also stop Blake, before the outlaw kills the only people he cares about.
 
His own death can wait.

INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN FESMIRE

Jonathan, who are you?I am Jonathan Fesmire of Santa Cruz, First of His Name, the Geek, the Steampunk, the Intellectual, Writer of Fiction, Father of Gingers.

Where’s home for you?
I still think of Santa Cruz, California as home. I grew up in Santa Cruz County and got my BA at U.C. Santa Cruz. In fact, Bodacious Creed takes place in an alternate version of Santa Cruz in 1876.

Where did you grow up?
More specifically, I grew up in Watsonville, California, part of Santa Cruz County, though my heart has always been in Santa Cruz itself. I’ve lived all over the county, including in Aptos, Soquel, Capitola, and Santa Cruz.

What’s your favorite memory?
I have two. My daughter’s birth, and my son’s birth. There’s no more amazing feeling than seeing your own children come into the world.



So true. What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
I bought a 3D printer a couple of years ago, thinking I would somehow make money with my 3D model designs, but the printer had too many problems.

What do you love about where you live?

I live in Anaheim, California, so my son and I are close to the Disneyland Resort. When we have annual passports, we’re able to go often. It’s pretty amazing being able to go to Disneyland just for the evening, go on a few rides, get a bite to eat, then come home.


I'll bet! Have you been in any natural disasters?
I was in the heart of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, on Cathcart Street, oddly enough, in the main area where Bodacious Creed takes place in its alternate reality.

The roof collapsed at the Ford’s store across the street from where I was. The popular Cooper House, made primarily of stone, fell to pieces. Many other buildings suffered significant damage.

That was an amazing night in the sense that everyone came together to help each other, just incredible cooperation. But Santa Cruz is like that. The busses ran for free to get people home, and since I took the bus to work at the time, that’s how I got back to Watsonville.

As it turned out, the area where I lived had also been hit hard. Many of the houses had slid off their foundations. Our fireplace had fallen into the driveway and the indentation in the pavement remained for years. My family, and a friend of mine who was able to make it to my place but not his, slept in the back yard that night.

Wow. What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
I wish I had known that writing was the thing I wanted to pursue, and I wish I knew that, once the Internet came, I could start building my reader base.


What makes you bored?
Standing in line or waiting at an office with nothing to read.


Do you have another job outside of writing?
I’m lucky that for my day job, I’m a copywriter. I get to write for a living. That’s amazing.

Yes it is. Would you rather be a lonely genius, or a sociable idiot?
A lonely genius. Stupidity is ruining the world.

How true is that! If you could live anywhere in the world, where in the world would it be?

I would love to live in Paris. I speak French but rarely get to use it and loved Paris when I visited. There’s great cuisine, amazing little cafes, many fascinating museums, and you can get anywhere quickly on the metro. Besides, there’s a Disney park nearby.

What’s the story behind the title of your book?
This book started as my thesis project for graduate school. It wasn’t even a story exactly at first, but a background and set of characters for my 3D modeling demo reel. Since I was already a writer, I also thought it would make a great novel.

I had ideas for a gunfighter type character and a young brothel madam who was secretly an inventor, but didn’t have names yet. One morning as I was waking up, the name Bodacious Creed popped into my head. I figured I must have heard it before. It had to already be the name of a character somewhere. So, I looked it up. To my surprise, it wasn’t being used. I decided that I’d better take it before someone else did!

Is Bodacious Creed part of a series?
This is the first book in an intended series. I’m doing research and brainstorming for the sequel now. At this point, there’s not much readers need to know aside from what’s in the first novel.

As a primer, however, I’ll share a bit. Bodacious Creed takes place in an alternate history, a world where, in the 1870s, steam-based technology begins advancing rapidly. In other words, a steampunk world, though of course the specifics are of my own invention. It’s a western, it’s hard science fiction, and it has zombies.

Awesome! How did you create the plot for this book?
For me, plot comes primarily from the characters. While I knew some things that I wanted to have happen, it had to make sense for the characters to get to those points. Basically, after every chapter or even scene, I mentally check-in with my characters on their goals and motivations, which can change based on things they have just experienced. Then, I figure out what the characters—those specific characters—would do next.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?
In Bodacious Creed, one character is fully based on a real person. It’s the bounty hunter Rob Cantrell. When I decided to write this novel, I ran a Kickstarter to find it. This was an amazing experiment. Not only did it reach its funding goal, but I was able to get input from readers for the story. Rob wanted a version of himself to be in the book. Once the Kickstarter ended, I sent him a release of likeness contract so I could do this legally, and his doppelganger is a major part of the story.

Why did you decide to self-publish?
In years past, I’ve had agents, and they had difficulty placing my books, even though they enjoyed them. Once self-publishing through print on demand became possible, I embraced it, especially when Lulu opened its services, as those were free to writers. I now use Create Space.

The thing is, I learned early on that all the worries I had about self-publishing apply to traditional publishing, too. Writers in both camps must do their own publicity. Self-published authors can ensure that their books are as well-written and edited as any traditionally published book. Also, many writers who have made it big had their books rejected dozens of times from big publishing houses. J.K. Rowling had a tough time finding a publisher for the first Harry Potter book. It’s tough to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and not recognize that it’s exactly the sort of novel that young adults want to read.

You are so right. So you're happy with your decision to self-publish?
I am. What I needed to learn was how to better promote my books, and it took a while to find good sources for that information. In short, the most important thing to do is build a following using one’s own mailing list, social media, and making connects with others, such as fellow writers and reviewers.

As I worked on Bodacious Creed, I kept up my blog and built my following, or platform. Because of that, it’s been doing well. Now, I want to keep that momentum going as I write the sequel.

What steps to publication did you personally do, and what did you hire someone to do? Is there anyone you’d recommend for a particular service?
For Bodacious Creed, I set up pre-orders on Amazon for both the Kindle edition and the trade paperback, and that brought in a lot of sales in the month or so before the book’s release. Then, I ran a Facebook release party the weekend after the book came out, before the Kindle edition went up from its pre-order price of $1.49 to its regular price of $3.99.

I have an art degree, so I was able to create the full cover using the cover art by Joshua J. Stewart. Though I’ve formatted book interiors in the past, this time I used the CreateSpace template for 6x9 trade paperbacks, and that worked well. I’m pleased with the result.

I also had several beta readers who commented on the book as I rewrote it, and who found various small errors. Since the book is self-published, if someone finds a small error and points it out to me, I can correct it and fix it immediately for the Kindle edition, and also update the trade paperback, so that new orders will have the fix as well.

Alas, if I had the money to hire a professional editor and pay him or her fairly, I would, and may in the future. Still, the copy is a clean as what I find in most traditionally published books.

What are you working on now?
I am working on the sequel to Bodacious Creed. While the first novel takes place in an alternate Santa Cruz, California, the second will mostly take place in San Francisco. To that end, I’ve been researching San Fran, learning about its history and many of the colorful characters who lived there. The first book has two people in it out of Santa Cruz history. I want to have more in San Francisco.

EXCERPT FROM BODACIOUS CREED

CHAPTER ONE

Anna Lynn Boyd served drinks with one of her doves, Karla Hotchkiss, and kept an eye on the saloon. She grabbed a cloth from under the bar and wiped down the walnut surface that captured the blurry reflections of her patrons. Cowboys, hostlers, ranchers, and factory workers gulped ale and whiskey and downed their meals. Today's specials included shark, tuna, seasoned beef steaks, rye bread, fresh corn, and red potatoes.

With the supper rush well underway, The House of Amber Doves, Anna's bordello and restaurant, had come alive with its usual evening activity. The exquisitely carved clock on the wall opposite the bar read six twenty in the evening. On this first day of July, eighteen seventy-six, the sun would still be out for another hour or so. A cool breeze turned the hot day pleasant as it blew through the double doors, carrying with it the salty tang of the ocean.

Anna went to the far end of the bar, where her companion, Jonathan Johns, sat reading a book and working his way through an omelet stuffed with ground beef and onions and drinking a beer. Just twenty minutes prior, Jonny had downed a sugared coffee. Anna's twenty-year-old lover kept strange hours, which suited her fine. She did, too. It meant they could work together downstairs or make love in her bed as they pleased.

She took a moment to look over the short blond hair and long features she loved. He resembled an angel out of an El Greco painting. What's more, Jonny had proven a better lover than any of the men she'd entertained in her years as a dove. More important to her though, he was smart, damned brilliant, actually.

The book lay flat beside his plate, so Anna tipped it upward to read the spine. The day before, Jonny had gone through the newspaper in ten minutes. He had started this novel in the morning and had nearly finished it.

Jonny pushed the book back down and turned the page.

Anna leaned close to Jonny's ear and whispered, “Mary Shelley, is it? Research?”

Jonny winked at her then continued reading. Anna ran her fingers through his hair, over his left ear, and felt the bumpy, curving metal form, less than an inch long.

Her invention had saved his life, but Jonny could no longer speak. He could nod and shake his head, so they enjoyed simple communication. He helped with schematics in the basement. With his skills, he could have been working directly for Morgan's Automatons, but he preferred partnering with Anna. Yet speaking and writing remained beyond him.

Anna went back to the center of the bar and took a moment to assess the room. Karla might need help with the customers, or a table might deserve a visit from the parlor's madam.

Past the stairs stood Lucky and Dixie, two security automatons. Several more of Anna's girls leaned on the second-floor banister, gazing down at the patrons, waving, and blowing kisses. At the back of the stage, Hattie, a buxom blonde dove in a fancy blue dress, played the piano.

Meanwhile, singer Nate Lieby, his wild ginger hair and beard giving him the look of a fiery god, and his musical group, Whiskey Zombie Collective, tuned up violin, bass, banjo, guitar, and mandolin. The group frequently performed at Amber Doves and some customers came in just to hear them play.

Lorraine Silver strode into the saloon through the front doors to chat up a man at the bar. Her sharp voice cut through the chatter, piano, and shuffling cards. Anna had learned to tolerate that voice but sometimes thought Lorraine should talk through a pillow to tone it down.

“Howdy Lonzo,” Lorraine said, leaning against the bar, her hands on the big man's leg. “I think you're going to be a very busy man soon.”

Lonzo Rivera smiled devilishly. “That right? That an invitation?” The deputy always had brothel coins for Lorraine.

“Well yes, but not just that. Somebody just checked into the federal marshal office.
Someone who means business wherever he goes.”

At “federal marshal,” Anna, who had been pulling down a new whiskey bottle, froze. She watched them in the mirror past her own reflection.

“You don't mean James Creed?” Lonzo asked.

“James 'Bodacious' Creed,” Lorraine said, emphasizing the adjective.

“I do wish people wouldn't call him that. The man's done a lot of good, no doubt about it, but it makes you think of, I don't know, some sort of immortality. Like he's so brave nothing can touch him.”

“Don't be jealous now, love.” Lorraine ran the back of her fingers down Lonzo's arm.
As Karla turned, Anna shoved the whiskey bottle at her. “Well damn, Anna, what's got under your dress?”

Anna walked around the bar and took Lorraine's hand. “Lonzo, I need to borrow my girl here for a minute.”

“Be my guest, Miss Anna. Lorraine, you come back to me after.”

Anna led the young woman past noisy tables to the stairs. The steelies, their polished hickory and steel bodies mostly still, watched as Anna walked past. Their rudimentary brains considered her safety their top priority.

At the foot of the stairs, Anna stood with her left boot on the first step.

“What is it, Miss Boyd?” Lorraine asked.

“How do you know James Creed is in town?” Might this be Anna's chance to finally confront him? Highly self-educated, Anna felt no need for, nor faith in, prayer. Still, she held her palms together at her lips as though asking Jesus himself if this could be true.

Lorraine's voice rose, even sharper. “I just saw him! The man is legendary and handsome. I mean, in pictures, sure, but in real life? Oh Lord.”

“You follow him in the papers?” Anna asked.

“I follow everything. It was him.”

“Right, of course,” Anna answered. “Well, you better go back to Lonzo. You have fun with him.”

“Always do!” With a peppy smile and a flip of her hair, Lorraine went back to the bar.
Anna rushed out the front doors and turned left for Smullen's Stables and Livery, right across Soquel Avenue from The House of Amber Doves.

Anna’s parlor was the tallest building along the street after the renovations late the year before, right after she had bought the business from the former madam, Margarita Fullerton. Few knew the truth of how Anna had acquired the capital to buy the establishment and renovate it outright. Most people believed she had come into a big inheritance, and that’s how she wanted it. She couldn’t risk a backlash against the two companies she invented for, Morgan's Mechanicals and Morgan's Automatons. If the world knew that a former prostitute had ushered in a new technological age, what might it mean for her family of doves?

At Ott Smullen’s stables, she waved to one of the horse tenders feeding a brown and white spotted mare. He nodded back, a signal that meant, “I see you. Go ahead and take your ride.”

Anna strode down the row of horses, hay crunching under her boots, and reached her stallion, Espiritu, a black Saddlebred with white streaks along its back, almost like rib bones, and white patches on its face that gave the impression of a skull. Espiritu could look downright spooky at night.

She had no time to saddle her steed, not if she hoped to make it to the federal marshal outpost while Creed might still be there, so Anna slipped on its bit and bridle, hefted herself up, her dress bunching between her legs, grabbed the reins, and guided Espiritu out of the stable, past the other neighing horses and the smells of manure and oats.

“He’s here,” she whispered. The books he would read to her as a child. The secret code she’d invented and taught him. The hugs and laughter in front of their home's hearth back in Virginia, while her mother called them to dinner for chicken soup and homemade rolls. If only her mother could be there too, could return to life again just for a few days.

Still, U.S. Marshal James Creed had come to Santa Cruz, California, against all probability. After years of hoping, Anna could finally see her father.

Also BY JONATHAN FESMIRE:

Fantasy Novels:
Children of Rhatlan
Tamshi’s Imp

YA Fantasy:
Amber in the Over World

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 Author Jonathan Fesmire, originally from Santa Cruz, California, now lives in Southern California with his son. By day, he's a copywriter, by evening a steampunk author, and at all times, a dedicated dad.

Though Jonathan started out writing fantasy, he has moved completely to steampunk, enchanted with its aesthetics, possibilities, and implications. He's a fan of the stories, the art, and the gadgets, and enjoys interacting with the community.  In fact, Jonathan regularly interviews popular members of the steampunk community for his The Wild Steampunk Blog.

Connect with Jonathan:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon   |  YouTube  

Buy the book:
Amazon 

FEATURED AUTHOR: KATE DYER-SEELEY

ABOUT THE BOOK

When a mud marathon champion bites the dust, Meg Reed has to go the distance to make sure a killer comes clean . . .

Back home in Portland, Oregon, Meg is ready to take her career as an outdoor writer for Extreme magazine to the next level. Lesser journalists sling mud—Meg plans to run through it. To train hard for Mud, Sweat & Beers, an extreme 5K mud run, she’s signed on with the Mind Over Mudder team, run by ten-time mud marathon champ—and former drill sergeant—Billy the Tank. But when Meg finds her tenacious trainer dead in the locker room, she has a sinking feeling someone may have been pushed too far. Digging through the hidden secrets at Mind Over Mudder is a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. Meg will have to tread carefully, though—or she may soon be running for her life . . .

INTERVIEW WITH KATE DYER-SEELEY

Kate, do you have a writing routine?
Yes, I have a very strict routine. When I’m working on a new book I write 2,000 words every day. No exceptions. I don’t leave my office until I hit my word count. I think that writing is a bit like exercise. If you want to strengthen your writing muscles you have to work them out every day.

What do you wish you’d done differently when you first started the publishing process?
I wish I would have known how valuable my relationships with other mystery writers have become. I’ve met so many incredible friends through writing. The act of writing is a solitary process which makes having connections with other writers extremely important. My writer friends are fabulous sounding boards when I’m stuck on a plot idea or when we’re brainstorming the best way to reach readers. I’ve found that collaborating with my fellow mystery writers has been really beneficial in growing our readership together, and saving our sanity when we’re pulling out our hair over copy edits. I would have joined Sisters in Crime and other writing organizations long before I got a book contract in hindsight. I think it’s a huge networking tool and it’s never too early to start building relationships.

Do you have any secret talents?
I know American Sign Language. My high school offered it as a foreign language, so I took it all through high school and college. I spent my summers interpreting, and my first job after I graduated from college was working in a deaf education program. These days I don’t use it very often so I’m pretty rusty, but it’s always fun when I bump into a former student and even readers at conferences and get to put it to use again.

Do you have any marketing tips you could pass on to indie authors?
I’ve found it extremely successful to tie book launch events into the theme of my books. For example in the 4th book in the Pacific Northwest Mysteries the protagonist, Meg Reeds, runs her first mud run. For the launch event we are creating Meg’s race day stops. Readers will get to sample some of Meg’s race day favorites like mochas with extra whipping cream to give her a sugar rush, beer infused cupcakes, and post-race wine tasting. We’re also offering mini massages, a chat with a chiropractor, and book themed prizes and giveaways. It’s a great way to bring the pages to life and offer readers a preview of what’s to come. The same goes for social media giveaways. I share items inspired from the books with readers online.

If you could only watch one television station for a year, what would it be?
BBC! Or anything on Masterpiece.

How often do you tweet?
Not often enough. I just read that to reach the widest possible audience you should be tweeting at least three times a day. I’m lucky if I tweet three times a week. It’s on my list of things to improve in 2017.

How do you feel about Facebook?
I really enjoy connecting with readers on Facebook. I use it much more frequently than Twitter, in part because it feels like more of a conversation. My reader friends on Facebook have helped picked titles for new books, are amazing about spreading the word when a book releases, and are just fun to hang out with. It’s always stunning when I realize that I’m chatting with someone in New Zealand or London. I try to respond to as many comments as I can because I appreciate that a reader has taken the time to reach out to me.

Would you make a good character in a book?
I’ve always joked that I match my star sign perfectly. I’m a Gemini and most days I feel like I have a split personality. I think having a twin personality would make a compelling character and leave the reader constantly guessing.

What five things would you never want to live without?
Coffee
Books
Fresh air
Wide open spaces
Trees

What’s one thing you never leave the house without?
My epi pen. I’m allergic to bee stings and do a ton of hiking here in the Pacific Northwest. You never know when you might stumble upon a swarm of bees.

What do you love about where you live?
I live in Vancouver, Washington, right across the river from Portland, Oregon and not to be confused with Vancouver, Canada. I love living in and writing about the Pacific Northwest. The landscape is so vast and changing. You can drive any direction for an hour or two and end up at the coast, the Columbia River Gorge, the Cascade Mountains, or the high desert. There’s always somewhere new to explore. I think people tend to have an adventurous spirit out here in the west. Plus there’s a plethora of delicious coffee and microbrew!

What's your favorite treat for movie night?
Peanut butter M&Ms.

What's the biggest lie you ever told?
When I was in 1st grade I used to make my Blue Bird troop march in a line behind me from school to my house for our weekly meetings. They didn’t enjoy marching (go figure) so I told them that my mom (our troop leader) made me line them up. Totally untrue! When they finally revolted and complained to my mom she was mortified and made me apologize and come clean. Apparently I was a bit of a dictator at a young age.


What’s your favorite beverage?
Coffee. I know it’s a cliché not only as a writer but also as NW native, but I love coffee pretty much any time of the day. I love a good rich dark chocolate mocha or a creamy latte, but I’m not picky I’ll drink just about anything coffee related that you put in front of me.


Would you rather be a movie star, sports star, or rock star?
A rock star! I love music, but cannot sing to save my life. I’ve always wanted to be able to sing but can’t stay in key.

What’s in your refrigerator right now?
Salsa, yogurt, an assortment of cheeses, celery, carrots, Brussel sprouts, and tons of La Croix sparkling waters.

What is the most daring thing you've done?
When I was in college I white water rafted over a 20 foot waterfall in New Zealand. Don’t ask why. I would never do that now, but Meg would!

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to write?

My first book was a memoir about losing my mom to young onset Alzheimer’s while becoming a mom for the first time. It was a gut-wrenching and painful process to dig up memories and piece her story together, but I’m so grateful for that book. It was definitely a huge part of my grief and healing process.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on the 5th book in the Pacific Northwest Mysteries, In Cave Danger. This time Meg is heading to the high desert in Central Oregon for a spelunking adventure deep underground.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Dyer-Seeley writes the Pacific Northwest Mystery Series for Kensington Publishing, featuring a young journalist, Meg Reed, who bills herself as an intrepid adventurer in order to land a gig writing for Northwest Extreme. Only Meg’s idea of sport is climbing onto the couch without spilling her latte. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and son, where you can find her hitting the trail, at an artisan coffee shop, or at her favorite pub. Better yet—at all three.

Connect with Kate:

Website  |  Facebook  |  
Twitter  | 
Goodreads
Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Indiebound

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FEATURED AUTHOR: SUSAN CORBETT

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Everybody needs to run away from home at least once. Susan Corbett told people she was out to save the world, but really she was running – running from her home as much as to anywhere. Like many women, she was searching for meaning to her life or for a good man to share it with. In Africa, she hoped to find both.

Compelling and compassionate, In the Belly of the Elephant is Susan's transformative story of what happens when you decide to try to achieve world peace while searching for a good man. More than a fish-out-of-water story, it's a surprising and heart-rending account of her time in Africa trying to change the world as she battles heat, sandstorms, drought, riots, intestinal bugs, burnout, love affairs, and more than one meeting with death.
Against a backdrop of vivid beauty and culture, in a narrative interwoven with a rich tapestry of African myths and fables, Susan learns the true simplicity of life, and discovers people full of kindness, wisdom and resilience, and shares with us lessons we, too, can learn from her experiences.

INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN CORBETT

Susan, how did you get started writing?
I've been writing in journals since I was 10 years old. I kept detailed journals the five years I lived and worked in Africa, not thinking I would write a book, just needing to write down my feelings and what I was experiencing. When I came home from Africa in 1982, people would ask me, "How was it?" How do you explain five years of an experience that changed your life in one brief conversation? In 1991, after I had married and had my 2 boys, I quit working full time to be with my small children. I started reading my journals again and realized I wanted to share my story with the world. So, at the ripe old age of 40, I took every local writing class I could find, joined a critique group, and started going to writing conferences. It took me ten years to write In the Belly of the Elephant. 

What's your favorite thing about the writing process?
I really enjoy structuring a story, figuring out the story arc and plotting it all out. I have flip charts all over my house outlining chapters, events, and characters. Then, once I get myself in front of the computer, I love the actual act of writing, just spilling my heart and creative soul into the words.

What do you think is hardest aspect of writing a book?
The biggest challenge for me is to actually sit down and WRITE! Writing is a creative process, but first and foremost, it is a discipline. The discipline of writing 3-4 hours every day can be hard to do (especially if you have a day job,) but is essential if you're ever going to finish the book. And, I have found, the more I write, the more my creative juices get flowing. Regarding my memoir, In the Belly of the Elephant was hard to write at times because I felt I was exposing my soul to the world. Not always an easy thing to do.

What do you think makes a good story?
For me, three things make a good story:
a) I love stories with complex characters that learn something and grow.
b) A good sense of place that the reader can become part of. I love stories where the place is a character in the story, by that I mean, the place has a profound effect on what happens to the main character and how the character changes.
c) The best stories have universal truths sprinkled throughout – insights the main character thinks about or learns that the reader can relate to their own life, or life in general.

What is the most daring thing you've done?
Join the Peace Corps when I was 23 years old and go off to live in the deep jungle of West Africa. Although, at the time, it did not seem daring to me. I wanted an adventure.

Who is your favorite fictional character?|
I love Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. I know, I know . . . such an old book, but Elizabeth Bennet has all the traits I admire most in women – independence, stubbornness, willing to challenge societal conventions, loves to read books, loves to dance, loves to take long walks, and is willing to admit when she's wrong. She's awesome!

I agree! What is the wallpaper on your computer’s desktop?
My dog in a park full of snow.

What is your favorite movie?
That's a tough one. So many! I love the movie, Stranger Than Fiction. It's about a writer (Emma Thompson) whose main character is actually living. It's funny, touching, and really fun to watch if you're a writer.

Do you have a favorite book?
Certainly one of my top books is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Incredible writing, wonderful characters.

What are you working on now?
My latest book, The Ghosts of Santa Maria Del Mar is the first in what I hope to be a mystery series. During the feast of the Virgin of Guadeloupe, young girls begin to mysteriously go missing, and someone is leaving long dead skeletons all over town while a mismatched crew of five American women (Melissa, Liza, Josie, Tina, and Sam) are on vacation in Mexico. Unresolved guilt from a thirty-year-old murder of a high school friend sets the group on a series of misadventures. They grapple with the town's handsome police captain, a troubled street youth, the Catholic priest, the town's pot dealer, a seance medium, a rich landowner, and the local ghost to unravel a mystery that goes farther back in time and place than December, 2015 and the small town of Santa Maria Del Mar.

These books will be full of my life experiences, my perspective, my love of place and travel, and the lessons I want to share with the world. They have strong characters and sense of place with a historical unsolved mystery woven throughout. I have chosen the fiction/mystery path because it is easier on the body and soul to write than memoir and more fun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A writer, community organizer, and consultant in program management, micro-enterprise development, family planning, and HIV/AIDS education, Susan Corbett began her community development career in 1976 as a Peace Corps Volunteer, working in a health clinic in Liberia, West Africa. In 1979, she joined Save the Children Federation as a program coordinator for cooperative and small business projects in Burkina Faso. In 1982, Susan returned to the States where she has worked with local non-profits in drug and alcohol prevention for runaway youth, family planning, homelessness prevention, and immigrant issues. Susan has traveled to over 40 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Caribbean, and Central and North America and has lived and worked in ten African countries over the past thirty years (Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, The Gambia, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mauritius, Tunisia, Nigeria, and Liberia). She lives in Colorado with her husband, Steve, her sons, Mitch & Sam, and her dog, Molly.

Connect with Susan:
Website  |  Goodreads