Blog Archives
Hijacked My Life
Earth 101: Time to Run Jayne as she unravels the mystery behind people that have been erased and finds something sinister behind it. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Jayne came to me during a trip from home to London. I travel a lot for work and on this particular day, I was sad about leaving home. As I sat watching out of the carriage window, I visualised a girl doing the same, but she was travelling away from Earth. But why was she leaving? And why was she so sad to leave? This should be a great adventure, but it wasn’t. So, she told me her story and has hijacked my life ever since.
Jayne is an interesting character that was fun to follow. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Jayne has been with me for many years now; she feels real inside my head. When I run, she partners along and I mull over ideas of the story. I will often scan the web for inspirational images, which remind me of her. I love the goth scene and I see her as a “gentle” goth. The music by my favourite band, Evanescence, is the soundtrack to Jayne’s world, especially the Open Door album.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I love space and time travel. The thought of the endless possibilities of the undiscovered universe holds great wonder to me. I believe we have a lot to learn about black holes and I would have loved to meet Stephen Hawking to discuss this particular subject in detail. As far as Jayne’s personal life goes, it was important to me she has a loving and supportive family, with older and younger siblings. I feel too many young adult stories feature the lonesome orphan. That would not have worked here. Jayne needs a close and personal reason to sacrifice so much. Yes, you can want to save the population of a planet, but you will want to save your close, loved ones more so.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I am working on “Earth 201 – The Time to Stay” which is the conclusion to Earth 101. I have also completed the first draft of a middle-grade contemporary fantasy novel, “Grandpa’s Book” which requires careful attention from both myself and my amazing editor.
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Jayne knows they’re gone, but no one else will acknowledge what’s happening.
One by one, they’re systematically erased from existence. No explanations. No missing person’s reports. No search parties.
Something sinister is afoot. Jayne can feel it in her bones. But uncovering the truth will prove difficult, especially when she discovers who and what is behind the devious plot.
As she searches for answers, she grapples with the lingering effects of a head injury, an unexpected forbidden romance, and a strange new reality that changes everything.
Will she uncover the truth, or will she be the next innocent victim?
A Treasure Mystery
Eastover Treasures follows Aury as she digs up a treasure with a mystery leading through history that may be able to preserve the history of the plantation. What were some sources that informed this novels development?
Library of Congress has some great online resources. I was able to view old diaries, journals, and letters from soldiers, all online during COVID. I also reached out to the Science and Media Museum in the UK and to the College of William and Mary to verify I had worded things correctly when it came to the scientific information.
Aury is a character I enjoyed following. Was there anything that you pulled from real life to create her character?
The only thing I pulled from is my quilting experience. I love to quilt and started attending quilting retreats with the ladies from the Colonial Piecemakers in Williamsburg, Virginia. It was while I was on a walking break during one of those retreats that I came up with the idea for Eastover Treasures.
What were some challenges you set for yourself as a writer with this book?
To take my time. Every writer is excited to get the book on the market as soon as it’s finished. I took the time and ran it through my writers’ group numerous times, then had over forty beta readers give me feedback before I finally had it published. It was time consuming but well worth it.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have so many irons in the fire! I have a children’s picture book coming out early 2022, If I Looked Like You. My dragon story (title still forthcoming) is YA Fantasy and will be ready end of 2022. I’m currently writing the third book in the Jackie Austin Mystery series, Truth Has No Agenda. And, of course, I’ve started playing with the next treasure Aury will go in search of in Ithaca, New York, at the Finger Lakes.
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During their annual quilt retreat, gale force winds trap the ladies in a boarded-up manor house. Inside, the sewing sisters discover the diaries of the mistress of Eastover Plantation written during the Civil War and clues she left behind which started as a treasure hunt for her children. Following the clues, the quilters take a journey they never expected.
As Aury works closely with the owner of the retreat center, they dig up more than treasure when they follow the trail through history. Will it be enough to save Eastover and preserve the history of the plantation?
A Completely Different Outlook
The Flying Fool is a thrilling fantasy adventure story following a ragtag group on an epic adventure in a highly imaginative world. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Well when I first started writing “The Flying Fool” I wanted to write more of a pirate story. But when I wrote out the character of David, he didn’t seem like someone who would be a captain or in that type of role. I played around with the idea of him just being a crew member on a ship or a second mate, but as I kept writing and establishing more of the wider world in the book that changed aswell. I’m planning on making this a series, hopefully atleast, and I’ve seen this book as a prequel to the main story. It introduces the world just enough for readers to get hooked on, as well as recurring characters that will feature in later books and the main villain of the whole series as well. That’s how my whole thinking process went and how I settled on the setup
Your characters were intriguing and something I enjoyed about this novel. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Thank you very much! For David, the main character, I’ve tried to make him a scoundrel, a lovable scamp. A Han Solo, if you will. I wanted the readers to keep guessing whether he would have a gold heart or whether he was rotten to the core. I concentrated on his psychology and outlook as a way to get readers, maybe not fully support or get behind him, but for them to understand him.
A second character I would like to mention would be Francesca. I wanted both her and David to have similar backstories, where something tragic happen, but for her to have a completely different outlook. I wanted to show her as a positive person who likes to see the best in people. Maybe even naïve, to a fault. As a counterpoint to David’s more pragmatic, or even pessimistic, view of life.
Other characters we get to know mostly on a surface level, as most of the book is seen through David’s perspective. For most of the story he only sees his own security and safety as paramount, inline with that he only trusts himself. To portray that I only gave the readers information that David would have, on certain characters as he would see getting close to other characters as a liability.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I wanted to show how previous experiences and childhood can shape a person. How similar experiences can birth different outlooks, and finally to show the importance of bonds and what lack of any can do to a person when he’s going through hardship.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m actually working on a few projects currently! Whether all off them will see the light remains debatable and progress isn’t the fastest as I have a day job aswell but I’m slowly working at all of them!
- The Flying Magician- Sequel to the flying fool. It will have a new main character and I want to make it more of a mystery and detective novel.
- Vampire of Sin- A modern fantasy book, where fantasy creatures live along side humans. The story will follow a new vampire as he builds a crime empire.
- Untitled space opera/sci fi fantasy- This one doesn’t have a name but it will follow a space bounty hunter as he joins a team to break someone out of prison. Something similar to ocean’s 11 but in space.
- An untitled book- No title currently either. This one will be more historical, very loosely, and is based during the 1910’s before WW1. It will follow a british noble as he travels around the world with his friend and gets into various whimsy adventures. I’m wanting to make the main character of this one more active, as in he will create the plot through his actions/words, rather then the plot happening to the character and him just reacting to it.
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Now it is time for gods to walk among mortals. Legends to awaken. Fairy tales to become reality.
Join David as he begins his journey with the gods.
Expect nothing and everything
The Journey Was Not Over
Angel of Aleppo tells the heartwrenching story of a girl that survives the Armenian Genocide and finds a way to keep love in her life. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The story of Angel of Aleppo was inspired by my Armenian wife Lilit’s own grandmother Anoush, who witnessed a Turkish soldier murder her own mother in 1915. When I first connected with Lilit in 2009, I quickly decided that I needed to learn more about Armenia. It did not take me long to ‘discover’ the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Few Australians know the other April 1915 story, the April 24, 1915 slaughter of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, initially smoke-screened by the Dardanelles campaign. Turkish leaders instigated a long-formulated plan to begin murdering Armenians, because the world’s attention was on the Dardanelles. Not many Australians know of Armenia, let alone the unacknowledged genocide that tortures its national soul. Once I had come to understand the Australian connection, and mindful that the 2015 centenary commemoration of the Armenian Genocide was looming, the idea to stage a play formed in my mind. The Armenian Cultural Association of SA worked with me in Adelaide to stage my 75-minute play to commemorate the centenary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015. The play’s action centred around a confrontation at the SA War Memorial on North Tce between an elderly Armenian woman and an elderly Turkish man on the fiftieth anniversary of the genocide: April 24, 1965. After the group performed the play successfully in Adelaide and to great acclaim for two performances in Sydney, Lilit and I agreed that the journey was not over.
Anoush is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind her character’s development?
Anoush is inspired by Lilit’s grandmother, an indomitable woman who survived the genocide, lived into her eighties and imbued love, respect and family values into every one of her 37 grandchildren. The character is sixteen when a nightmarish day changes her life forever. She suffers alone and as a part of the greater Armenian suffering, but draws on the strength of her family background in her darkest moments to prevail. I began crafting the narrative of my literary Anoush’s youthful trials during 1915-19, beginning by fleshing out experiences alluded to in her character’s dialogue from the play. A great deal of research followed in the next year and there were numerous artistic choices made. Angel has a number of cameo appearances by characters who were real life historical figures, e.g. US President Woodrow Wilson. In those instances, I research their lives and study photos of them, looking for clues to their characters in their faces. In the case of characters who are literary constructs, like Anoush, I imbue them with character-appropriate physical qualities and personality traits from actual people I know or have known. I have an image of a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed woman in my head, which no artist can realise to my satisfaction. That is why there is no image of Anoush on the cover. Instead, I provide a few physical basics as a part of the narrative and allow my carefully edited combinations of my characters’ words and actions lead readers towards their own impressions. That is the beauty of the printed word. It allows each reader to make of it what they will.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
One abiding theme is the outrage that was the Armenian Genocide and the lack of recognition of it by the successors of its perpetrators. The fact that the Armenian Genocide was the first Genocide of the twentieth century is an indictment upon every overly ambitious leader who ever pulled on a jackboot and donned medals before ordering his army to murder civilians. Mass killings of people because of race or colour or other ideological and/or religious obsession are a stain what constitutes civilisation. They make a mockery of what ‘civil’ means. Those who do not study history, so the truism goes, are doomed to repeat its mistakes. And there are no shortage of well-fed, middle-aged men with imperatorial ambitions not averse to throwing the weight of their armed forces about to make an ideological point. And on a less murderous scale, but no less iniquitous, are the many neo-conservative leaders abroad today who, with the financial support and particular concerns of their billionaire friends as influences, use government machinery and ideological justification to deny a decent living to large sectors of their populations. Social justice is a commodity sorely lacking in this post-modern world of materialist obsession that so often overshadows simple humanity. And this brings me to the most important theme of all, that of love, an emotion so enduring and so powerful in its purest form that it can prevail against the most appalling disasters and hateful crimes.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My next book exists only as a set of random ideas written haphazardly in notebooks. I continue to be subsumed with the promotion of Angel, so there is very little I can report on my next project. It is likely to be historical fiction and continue themes from Angel, such as social justice, and may well revisit the thoughts of St Paul, who opined that three things were most important: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.
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Anoush must endure a death march through unforgiving desert, as Armenian refugees perish all about her, some of the million-plus whose blood forever stains the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the souls of their descendants.
Courageously keeping her small group of neighbourhood women together, Anoush endures the brutish guards driving a massive column of women, children, and old men south from Anatolia through Aleppo to the Mesopotamian desert. She learns to nurse against all odds in a city overflowing with diseased and starving refugees. She becomes the Angel of Aleppo.
In the years that follow, can she find the will to be the woman her mama raised her to be? Can she summon the strength to care?
From Anatolia to Aleppo and beyond, through the outrages and injustices of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Angel of Aleppo, a Story of the Armenian Genocide is about losing everything but the healing power of love.
Primeval Origins
Paths of Anguish follows a graduate student working on a field expedition that reveals our hidden history and the origins of our End Times. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
A deep study of our (humanity’s) mythologies and ancient gods of old, discovering most tell a similar story of creation and of the gods (little “g”s) only with different names and different cultural contexts. The Primeval Origins saga is architected as an epic adventure revealing our “undiscovered” human history and origins through the eyes and experiences of Nikki and her experiences of the memories of Rogaan and others in the First Man civilization on Earth. The setup of the modern story is in the late 21st semi-dystopian century. The ancient story is set 65 mya on the lost continent of Dilmu years before nature made extinct the dinosaurs and more than 70% of all life on Earth. Or was it nature?
Nikki, Rogaan and Pax were interesting and well developed characters. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Rogaan and Pax are AD&D characters played by myself and a friend, among other characters to be joining the adventure in the books following Paths of Anguish, at the United States Air Force Academy in the early 1980’s. Their interactions are genuine as they were played by us through multiple adventures, though adapted to the Primeval Origins storyline. Nikki is a combination character in personality and drive of my daughter and daughter-in-law. Both strong women that are inquisitive with streaks of stubbornness, yet with enormous senses of integrity and loyalty. This made character development rather straight-forward…with some tweaks to fit with Nikki’s profession and spinning out of control situation.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The nature of our humanity is at the core of all story themes…are we just simple chemical accidents in the universe or is there a grander plan, origin, and history of our human experiences of being Lights/Souls merged with the clay of the earth, our flesh bodies? Everyone behaves and reacts to situations/influences for reasons of their own, though our environment does not dictate who we are and who we are to grow into. We make choices and act. The question is whether we choose to be good persons or not, brave or cowardly, honest or deceptive, selfish or selfless. Our maturing through these experiences and testing of our souls determines which path we follow both in this life and the next. As to the worlds of the future and ancient past, accuracy of scientific knowledge, archeology (the undiscovered and non-dogma version of archeology), paleontology, geology, physics, engineering principles, etc are important to the story as is the speculative sciences that are largely ignored all integrated with our oldest creation myths telling of the creation and origins of earth, life in our solar system, and mankind. It’s a really unique and cool story that will be revealed in the books ahead.
This is book one in the Primeval Origins Epic Saga. What can readers expect in book two?
Book #2, Light of Honor, and book #3, Rise of Serpents, are both published. Book #4, untitled to the public at present, is being written now. The Primeval Origins saga grows in interesting characters telling of the creation of humanity (taken primarily from the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Hindu myths and their correlation with the Abrahamic religions) and of the coming days of Final Judgment in the modern story as Nikki is witness, and a player, in the rise of the Four Horsemen. I don’t know of any story past or in present literature that combines these themes, the sciences, our mythologies, and humanity’s religions into a single story as Primeval Origins does.
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Primeval Origins: Paths of Anguish (Book #1 in this Epic Saga, 2nd Edition)
http://www.primevalorigins.com
It Often Comes at a Price
The Correction follows a man that has the ability to give people a chance to correct their past, but one wrong correction sends him on a perilous journey of redemption. What was the inspiration behind the idea of the ‘Correction’?
I sometimes get a concept—or more precisely a question—in my head I can’t get rid of that eventually matures and finds its way into a novel. Questions like ‘What would happen if someone came upon one of the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas for Jesus’ life?’ or ‘Is it possible to compare two wars like the Civil War and the Vietnam War that are dissimilar in so many ways?’ are examples. The Correction is no different. Even the most fortunate and luckiest person on earth has one ‘what if’ moment where they would have liked to have done something differently. Making a mistake or saying the wrong thing or making a selfish decision that hurts someone else, these foibles of the human character seemed too universal not to try to capture. In The Correction, I give a lucky few people an opportunity to go back and correct a mistake. It seems like this would be too good to be true, but like any such gift, it often comes at a price.
What were some ideas that drove Joseph Vance’s character development throughout the novel?
I wanted Joseph Vance to be an everyman but at the same time be lofty in his goals, aspirations and ideals. He is a man who has what is most dear to him stolen from him through a Correction gone wrong. He slips into despair and cynically puts his gift to improper ends, but I wanted there to remain in him a spark of the better man he is. Hopefully, that spark is enough to burst into a flame of redemption, but you’ll just have to read the book to find out!
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I always try to infuse broader societal messages in my books even as I’m presenting personal stories and relationships. The Correction is no different. The scourge of racism plays a special role in this book. There are also stories of love, devotion and acceptance throughout the novel. I think the one theme that most permeates this book is that of second chances. Everybody deserves a second chance. The Correction presents the epitome of giving someone a second chance to correct a mistake and make amends.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’ve written a series, The Vega Investigative Thriller Series, about a New York City Investigative TV Reporter, Francine Vega. She uncovers and helps thwarts plots that, if allowed to proceed to fruition, could jeopardize the safety and security of country and even the world. The third book, Beyond Revelation, came out in December and it’s time to write the fourth in the series. I’m hoping to have the next book finished by the end of the year.
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Fill an Educational Gap
The Rainbow Blots teaches children about the colors of the rainbow in a fun and entertaining way. What inspired the idea behind the Rainbow Blots?
The Rainbow Blots was inspired by my son and my niece who had independently drawn little characters with circular bodies, no separate heads but with arms, legs and smiling faces. I was inspired to create characters like these for a children’s book and put colours inside the circular bodies.
There are lots of colours books and I wanted my characters to be unique. It struck me that children are rarely taught the seven colours of the rainbow in order. We teach them ‘purple’ or ‘pink’ but not indigo and violet. This has always bothered me, ever since I realised that yellow was not the second colour of the rainbow, at the ripe old age of eleven! I wanted to teach my children properly and a rainbow storybook teaching the seven rainbow colours in order seemed a good proposition and it would help to fill an educational gap.
Children learn best through play, so it was a great opportunity to have my characters play with objects that were the same colours as themselves in order to teach the rainbow colours.
The art in this book is wonderfully creative. What was the art collaboration process like with illustrator Victoria Mikki?
I created the overall storyboard for the book and it was important to me that each character had its own personality and physical identifier (e.g. Red Blot’s glasses or Orange Blot’s baseball cap) but Victoria brought all the characters and scenes to life. Her illustrations are so beautiful and humorous! She surprises and delights with every page turn.
I like to have a balance between not being too prescriptive but giving enough information that the illustrations returned are in line with my overall vision. For example, I asked for a Mummy Rainbow character to lower down her Blots by a ladder. I also wanted Mummy Rainbow to appear when there had been sun and rain at the same time. The double spread Victoria returned was so fantastic and inspirational for the opening scene that I knew I had to use the image on the cover as well.
Similarly, I knew what objects I wanted the Blots to be playing with. Victoria was in her element with these playing scenes. They were such a joy to receive as an author and it has been wonderful to hear the feedback from parents enjoying the illustrations and to see and hear children giggling along in delight, too!
This book serves as a great educational tool. How do you see this fitting into a students curriculum?
The Rainbow Blots is brilliant for use in kindergartens (UK preschools/nurseries) and first grade (UK reception class). For early learners, the book teaches colour recognition and helps children associate objects with colours. Rainbow colours are introduced in order and children are invited to recap the colours together. I know one second grade (UK Year 1) teacher who has used my book and song in conjunction with teaching a weather module in class. Older children can also enjoy reading The Rainbow Blots as it is written as a storybook. My six-year-old daughter enjoys reading it to herself and out loud to her toys!
Children learn in a variety of ways. The first thing my children did upon reading my book was to try and sing the colours of the rainbow in order. They couldn’t do it with the rainbow song we all knew, which had ‘pink’ in it. So, as a musician, I composed my own rainbow song called, ‘Do You Know The Colours Of The Rainbow?’ My rhyming song teaches the seven colours in order. The tune is so catchy, and children learn their colours really quickly when my book and song are taught in combination.
I have two versions of the song, with the same tune. Both can be found on my YouTube channel. The original has more of a nursery rhyme style, and I have had it animated in a 2D video featuring the characters from The Rainbow Blots. For slightly older children, there is a dancier version that gives more time to sign the song in sign language. To date, I have only had the song signed in British Sign Language, but I hope it can be translated into other languages as well to aid inclusivity and diversity and help embed a little sign language into a child’s early learning journey.
Do you have future books planned for The Rainbow Blots?
The Rainbow Blots was written as part of a series. I hope to publish ‘The Rainbow Blots Learn Numbers’ later in 2021.
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Have fun learning the seven rainbow colours in order, with Mummy Rainbow and her Rainbow Blots. The Blots love to play with their colours and to play together as a family. Join in with their day and keep a lookout for their special trick!
I Could Never Have a Christmas Tree
BUTTERBALL’S Christmas Surprise follows a young poodle as she prepares for Christmas, gets into mischief, but does her best to ensure Santa’s visit. What inspired the Christmas theme in book three of your series?
My previous miniature poodle was notorious for wanting to play with my Christmas trees. She was fascinated with the decorations. Consequently I could never have a Christmas tree or could only have one high up where she couldn’t reach.
What was a lesson that was important for you to include in this book?
It is important to show genuine remorse when one does something wrong. It is also important for positive behaviour to be rewarded.
I appreciated the questions at the end that provided an opportunity for reading comprehension. How do you see this fitting into a teaching curriculum?
The questions are designed to test the ability of young readers to understand and retain details in the book. I think this is a good exercise in reading comprehension.
What plans do you have for Butterball the Poodle book 4?
Currently I have no plans for Butterball the Poodle Book 4 BUT I might change my mind at a later date. I have started a new series which will be on sale very soon – A Poodle called Pippin Book 1 “Pippin’s Country Adventure”.
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She helps to prepare for Christmas and sees shiny balls on the Christmas tree but Butterball cannot stop thinking about those shiny balls.
Will she make a mistake? Will Butterball get her surprise?
Join Butterball as she goes to the poodle groomer and …
Includes fun questions at the end of the story.
LITERARY TITAN 