No Time to Read? Try Audiobooks!

copyright, 2012 Aaron Paul Lazar

I have become totally nuts about audiobooks recently. Oh, sure, I knew about audiobooks. I’d even rented a few from the Cracker Barrel years ago when I was working on the second shift and made the hour drive home around midnight every night. I remember loving hearing Tony Hillerman read his books to me as I glided through the night on the dark ribbon of highway.

Since then, I really hadn’t given them a thought.

That is, until I started a partnership with ACX (owned by Audible, which is in turn owned by Amazon) to get my own novels made into audio books. We have five available now with several more in production. It's been a real blast and has opened up many new opportunities for me as an author. But that’s another topic for another article. This re-introduction to the audio book media, if I may call it that, as been phenomenal.

I began listening to recorded chapters made by the various narrators I'd teamed up with to produce my mysteries. I listened in the car, using my iPhone through the Bluetooth connection. No wires, just press a button and the sound comes out of the car speakers. Oh, how I love that! Alternatively, I just plug in ear buds to my phone and listen using a free Audible app. Oh, it’s so easy, and so addicting.

I read a great deal. Since eBooks have become so accessible through Kindle and iPhones and all other devices, I am constantly reading, whether it be on the plane, in line at the grocery store, in the doctor’s waiting room, or at night in bed. I’m going through at least twice as many books than when we had only print books on hand, and am just loving it.

However, there is a lot of down time in my life in which I wish I could be writing or reading. Since I can’t write while commuting back and forth to work or while doing my hour walk each morning (other than imagining scenes in my head), I’ve become addicted to listening to audio books during both activities.

I started out with Michael Prescott’s audio book, Blind Pursuit and was hooked from the first moments of listening. The narrator—a superb actress named Allison McLemore—is a genius at assigning distinct and powerful voices to each of the characters. Okay, so this writer is one of my favorite thriller writers in the world. He is polished, highly skilled, and knows how to craft an edge-of-the-seat suspense story without letting you breathe between the scenes. I am crazy about his books, and usually read them on Kindle.

I could rave on and on about Prescott's talent. Since I listened to Blind Pursuit, I also listened to Mortal Pursuit (a hot fast ride you’ll never forget narrated by another talented narrator named Gayle Hendrix), and have just downloaded Deadly Pursuit. Now I can’t imagine my days without someone reading to me enroute to work or on the lonely dirt road where I walk every morning. It’s pure bliss.

The cost is actually more reasonable than you might think. Oh, sure, the books are more than your typical $2.99 eBook. If you’ve become accustomed to getting lots of free eBooks and paying a buck per book, the cost of $18.00 per average book might astound you. But if you join Audible.com at the basic level of $14.95 per month, you are entitled to one free audio book per month. I got Deadly Pursuit (eleven and a half hours of listening!) which was priced at $24.95 for the monthly fee of $14.95. It’s worth every penny, and frankly, I would have paid the full price without hesitating.

How do you download an audiobook?

It’s easy. Unlike the bulky multiple disk sets that I used to rent at the Cracker Barrel, this process is painless, you can do it while sitting at your desk or walking in the wilderness (as long as you have a 3G signal!), and there is nothing to carry around with you or stick into CD players.

Simply find the book(s) you want, buy them through Amazon, Audible, or iTunes, and they are automatically deposited in your Audible Library. You can download from the buy page, or wait until you’re ready to read. I use my iPhone. I downloaded the Audible app, for free of course, and then I go right into my library to search for my book. Click "download", and in a very short time you will have one or two files containing all of the hours of intense production that went into the recording of the book aright at your fingertips. Just click on the file, and listen! You also are allowed to burn one set of CDs if you like, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do this when you can just access the file from anywhere, anytime. Why waste the money and time on disks?

Well, I’m off to start listening to Mr. Prescott’s newest book. I’m learning as a writer about how the very best man in his field accomplishes his taut suspense and relentless tension. So not only am I being totally entertained, using my time wisely, but I’m learning as I go. How can you go wrong with that scenario?

If you want to listen to some great audio books and don’t know where to start, may I suggest to take a listen to the excerpts of my own mystery audio books at http://www.lazarbooks.com. I highly recommend Terror Comes Knocking, narrated by Mr. Robert King Ross. It’s new, and it’s beautifully rendered by this accomplished actor. Let me know what you think if you listen!

Aaron Paul Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

Books Are Not Movies

copyright 2012, Pat Bertram

Many writers see their novels as movies, picking a cast to portray their characters, visualizing scenes as they would play on the screen. But books are not movies. A movie set can be seen in an instant and does not detract from the action, while a long passage in a book describing that same scene postpones the action, making today’s readers impatient. (Action in a novel, as I am sure you know, is any forward motion that fosters change in the characters: dialogue, physical interactions, even a simple touch of the hand.)

Nor is a book a movie script. Some novelists are so enamored with envisioning their book as a movie that they omit descriptions altogether. They tell their story mostly by dialogue, which leaves readers untethered, “like water, willy-nilly flowing.”

If two characters are having an argument, for example, it is necessary for readers to know where it is taking place. An argument in a pub is different from an argument in a bedroom, but they don’t need a long description of the bar or the bedroom to get involved with the characters; a few significant details will anchor the scene in their minds. A detailed set is necessary for a movie’s verisimilitude, but those same details negate a novel’s illusion of being true. Do you stop in the middle of an argument to note the contents of the room? If you do, you lose not only your focus, but the argument as well.

Even a short descriptive passage can negate the illusion if the object or setting described has no significance to the story. A lamp may be placed on a side table in a movie set for no reason other than the set designer liked the way it looked, but if an author spends many words describing that same lamp, there has to be a reason. Perhaps it is a source of contention between characters. Or perhaps one character will bash another over the head with it.

So, if you visualize your novel as a movie, don’t describe everything you see. Describe only what is important, (what is important to the characters or to the story, not what is important to you as a writer) and then . . . ACTION!

Pat Bertram

***

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Second Wind Publishing liked her style and published four of Bertram’s novels: Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and one non-fiction book, Grief: the Great Yearning.

Getting back in swing of things

Good day to you Murderers, and let me begin with saying, I am just now getting back to the norm after a glorious week off for vacation in the fabulous North Kingdom, or God's country, or plain old Vermont (if you must say that). I filled four 4GB cards of photos, (that's like 800 shots for you who don't know) and I just really wanted to park my life there.

From another trip....

Summer swings on and the weather has been such a topic for the entire country, I think I'll skip mentioning it aside from saying, it is indeed hot.

Writing goes on for me as usual. I finished the second installment of the Case of the Missing Body (YA mystery, serial short story) and if you haven't gotten to downloading this Kindle original yet, get to hopping!!

Part ONE here:
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Missing-Body-Mini-ebook/dp/B008C9EM0U/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2


Part TWO here :
http://www.amazon.com/Case-Missing-Body-Series-ebook/dp/B008M2I8PW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1342611481&sr=8-6&keywords=case+of+the+missing+body

My topic for you today is this: what do you think about a serial short story? Is this a good idea? Bad? Why? My idea is to get interest for my writing by keeping a continuous story going... they are short only about 10 pages each installment, and easy to read, easy to follow. Of course, it is YA and not a terribly bloody read. *I knooow Murderers, I knnnoooow*

I am also going again on a often thought of but highly disregarded book that has held me captive since the 1990's. Thank you, Amazon, for making self-publishing a great option for me for this book. And another book, that is a romance, pure and simple. Yes, I know you could care less. You want more blood, more muuuuurrrrdddeeerrrr.... haha.

That's it from me, enjoy your Thursday, go and find some clues to your mystery.

You Can’t Possibly Think I Meant You? by Mar Preston

copyright 2012, Mar Preston

I thought the story about readers identifying with characters in your work was apocryphal.  When it happened to me with unpleasant results it surprised me.

In my first book, NO DICE, a character changes his name when he enters law school, hoping to disguise his perfectly respectable Latino background, but even more to distance himself from a brother who is a felon, well-known to the LAPD.

I named him something like Gomez, which he changed to Edwards. Now Edwards is a name that would fit in a blue blood catalog anywhere.  A big red, obnoxious Hummer had just charged in front of me without looking as I was driving home, scaring me witless. So in the next chapter Gomez/Edwards drives a red Hummer.  Never gave it a second thought.

The husband of a friend of mine suddenly began shunning me after NO DICE was published. He walked out of the room on my arrival, giving me a dirty look and making a stinging remark. Surprised, I asked her about it and she told me he had changed his name from Gomez and had I noticed that a red Hummer was parked out in the driveway?  He had read the book ragged, insisting to her he was portrayed here and here and here in the pages. I was amazed.

For some people there will never be enough assurance that the name of the villain came from your imagination. Or that you never meant the local handicapped Church Elder is not the hypocritical philanderer who appears in your book. They think the School Superintendent who has red hair must be the local politician on page 234.

Some of you may have had the opposite issue. What about the fiftyish beauty parlor-Big Hair lovely who just knows that you had her in mind when you wrote your heroine who is, yes, a blonde but twenty-six, lithe, and a Cambridge graduate? You smile and keep your mouth shut, that’s what you do.

I live in a California mountain village and just worked through a third mystery set here instead of Santa Monica. All my friends and neighbors are excited to read about themselves in this forthcoming book. Any fiction writer knows that characters are a composite. For one thing, it’s damned difficult to capture all the nuances and contradictions of a character you’re drawing from life.

For another thing, that’s what your imagination is for. If you’re any sort of observer and watcher from the sidelines, you’re always playing the what if game. What if that biker over there was a Sierra Club butterfly collector? That woman with the sweet smile with the baby in her arms? What if she was a cult leader just waiting for the opportunity to tell you about her alien abduction and the real father of her baby?

This issue has recently risen to high stakes for me. My third Dave Mason novel features an honor killing perpetrated by a wealthy Turkish family living in Santa Monica. I’ve been reading Turkish cultural history and the regional newspapers published in English for several years. Any honor killing is a grim story and one that it’s hard for Westerners to identify with.

I have done my level best though to portray sympathetic characters in this family and its culture. I know that not all Turkish people do these things. And Islam can express itself in many ways, just like Christianity. We certainly have fanatics ready to kill in our own country.

Through Derek Pacifico and his Global Training Institute http://www.globaltraininginstitute.com/lawenforcement/Introduction.html programs (an experience I recommend to anyone writing police procedurals) I found a Turkish Sheriff’s deputy, as well as former military officer. He filled in background that I would never have read online, even with the best research skills.

What chilled me at the end of two hours of intense conversation were his words, “Of course, you could never publish this story.” I sat back.

He warned me that these people (his emphasis) don’t fool around.  He warned me that I will have dishonored Islam. Did I remember Salman Rushdie? Of course I remember Salman Rushdie. But who’s going to notice a fairly new author writing murder mysteries about Santa Monica? What about all the international thriller writers who craft perpetrators of unbelievable villainy? I don’t hear about them hustling for cover. But maybe they do.

We all know that terrible things happen in the Mideast. Readers of mystery and thriller fiction like to dance by the dark edge. But retaliation rarely happens to people who love to curl up in an arm chair and read about a likeable or noble protagonist undergoing death-defying challenges.

I don’t know how seriously to take his warning. We’ll see, won’t we? If you hear about my demise, be suspicious.

Please, be very suspicious.

***

From Mar Preston:

I grew up in northern Ontario and love its lakes and forests. But I lived in Santa Monica for decades watching big money, land development, and politics clash.

Getting a good murder mystery novel out of what goes on behind the scenes in grassroots politics, glitzy businesses, and developer skullduggery makes all those dreary Santa Monica city council meetings worthwhile.

I live now in a village in the California mountains, not that far from the edge of the Los Angeles sprawl. There's too much to do here: I'm writing crime fiction seriously, but I can't get away from the SPCA, local environmental politics, and the writing community.

Life is good.

Book Review: Missing in Mexico by Stuart Gustafson

Title:  Missing in Mexico

Author:  Stuart Gustafson

Publisher: AITEpublishing.com

Genre: Mystery

Kindle eBook: $2.99

ASIN: B004HW6FIS

Trade Paperback: $14.95

ISBN-10: 0977172740

ISBN-13: 978-0977172740

Author’s website: www.stuartgustafson.com/books-tools.html

Missing in Mexico is a fine first novel, filled with a genuine sense of place and easy-to-read prose. Many debut novelists fall prey to overwritten prose with too many adverbs or adjectives, excessive “telling,” and laborious narratives. Mr. Gustafson has, for the most part, avoided those traps, and does a good job of simply telling the story in a natural style. Gustafson also includes a bit of education at the beginning of each chapter, where he provides us with a simple Spanish lesson. I enjoyed this aspect of the novel because although I’ve studied French and German, I’d only taken on semester of Spanish in high school and the memory-jogging was fun.

When Robert and Tina Johnson visit Mexico with their daughter Sarah and her best friend Mary, they had no premonition of the impending horror they were about to endure. When the joint vacation is over, they leave the girls (both college freshmen) to enjoy a few extended days in Los Cabos, an area they deemed quite safe, knowing the girls needed a little time to unwind before returning to college after Christmas break.

When Mary gets on the plane with Sarah right behind her, she’s shocked when the girl doesn’t show after making a beeline for a last minute purchase. The plane leaves without Sarah, and the mystery begins.

Did Sarah miss the plane on purpose? Or did someone kidnap her? Is she alive? Or dead? The most important question, however, is whether Stan Walkorski—the private eye the Johnson’s hired—will find the girl in this strange but beautiful land.

The author has achieved a great start to his series here, buoyed by his extensive knowledge of the land of Los Cabos, Mexico. While his travel knowledge sometimes crept into the story a bit too often to maintain taut suspense (there was a long section about the art district that was interesting but not crucial to the story), in general the tension was well-maintained.

Gustafson makes his readers care about Sarah and her parents, who suffered dreadfully and imagined the worst every waking hour of their days that stretched from weeks to months; and also about the protagonist (Stan). I couldn’t help but wonder, however, why he became involved with a woman he met on the plane who originated from the Los Cabos area, and then just let the woman go without really fighting to find her. (I really liked her and was very disappointed when that didn’t work out and he started seeing a new woman he also met on the plane.). In real life, things like this do happen, so I chalked it up to the author’s right to choose.

As a last note, I do believe the title is a real winner – how can anyone resist a mystery named “Missing in Mexico?” I’ll be interested to see how this author progresses in his travel mystery series, and where he’ll take us next!

Review by Aaron Paul Lazar, www.lazarbooks.com.

How to Turn a Loving Papa into a Monster (or revisiting the scenes of the crimes)

To be fair, I must preface this by saying that we did have a wonderful time at Tall Pines during our near week-long July 4th vacation. My wife Dale, grandson Julian (9), and grandson Gordon (8) traveled to the locale of my newest mystery series on the Saturday before Independence Day with Amber, one of our sweet dogs. We left Balto home (much to his dismay) to keep watch over my wife's mother and the boys' mom, Jenn, while we were in the Adirondacks. It wasn't until the ride home that I fell apart, but more about that later.

My daughter, Melanie and her husband Jay came up for a few days. We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving, so that was a treat. And the boys were so happy to have playmates! We had a ball on the Speculator boardwalk called the Speculator Pathway on the Kunjamuk River.

The experience was exactly what I'd envisioned -- my grandsons and I played army and hide 'n seek in the woods around camp. We went for walks with Amber every morning. We spent hours every day in the "Jacuzzi," a small dammed up swimming hole on the Tall Pines property, where we rebuilt the dam with smooth, round river rocks and cleared the bottom of the swimming hole to make it easier to walk. Fortunately, we survived the horsefly and deerfly attacks with only a handful of war wounds. Julian and I hopped on river rocks on the West River while searching for the elusive White Face trail, and we all roasted marshmallows and hotdogs over the fire.

We also crossed the river (which was very low this year) and explored several small islands in the middle of the Sacandaga, exclaiming over deer and paw prints (probably black bear) and just enjoying the camaraderie of hanging out together. There were endless card games of go fish, several intense games of Battleship, a few fun variations on Scrabble, and nightly routines of planning and preparing healthy meals together.

When I was doing dishes, they went down to the river's edge near the cabin and threw rocks. That seemed to be the biggest thrill of all.

I also had a successful book signing at Mountain Memories, a gem of a cafe/gift shop in Wells, NY, which is featured in all three books in my Tall Pines series. Donna Bureau, the owner, was especially gracious, and my grandson Julian (9), helped me by passing out book marks and taking down email addresses for the Lazar newsletter. It was so nice to meet the locals who'd read FOR THE BIRDS and wanted to buy ESSENTIALLY YOURS, the sequel. We had some lovely chats and were offered invitations to several homes in the area.

While we were up in the Adirondacks, scenes from my Tall Pines mysteries kept greeting me. I stared out at Blackbird Island (named by me, who knows if it has a real name? It's not on the map!) and imagined poor Thelma being tied to the tallest pine on the island. The very same tree towered above all the others, standing proud, unaware of its dubious fame.

While sitting at the ledge overlooking the Sacandaga, I imagined Earl Tiramisu, one of the villains from FOR THE BIRDS, waving the gun at Marcella and Quinn and the fall/fight that followed. I pictured scenes from book 2, where Marcella and Quinn tried to crack the code on their MacBook Pro at the water's edge, doing everything in their power to figure out why Sky gave Callie the essential oil collection and the poignant chapter where Marcie and Callie talked about Callie's crush on her.

Oh, yes. It was a peaceful vacation. I was a good grandfather (called Papa by my boys), sharing my passions for the area with them one by one, and catering to their every need. I didn't yell (too much) or get too frustrated. As a matter of fact, I was starting to feel almost virtuous. They didn't fight much, either, which was a joy. Keeping kids busy with imaginative games all week and spending every waking minute with them was the secret.

Until I caught a nasty head cold on Thursday (starting with a sore throat) and decided it might be a good idea to get out of dodge early. I was a little worried about getting everything packed up and the cabin all cleaned up by 10 AM on Saturday, anyway. So leaving Friday seemed like a good idea. We'd had a great time and it felt right.

Everything was fine until we stopped at a little store/gas station for a bathroom break and the van's sliding door fell off.

No kidding.

I'd spent a lot of time deciding if we should rent a new van or fix up the old one for this trip. When I saw the prices of renting for over a week (around $800.00 with tax), I blanched. I might as well get the van fixed, I thought, and put that money to good use, since it's my winter car. It ended up needing far more than I had expected, however, and after $2700.00, it was "road read." What I didn't have them look at was the sliding side doors that occasionally stick. But there always was a solution for that - I turned the doors to "manual mode" and slid them myself. Big deal, right? Anyway, I figured it would be another thousand dollars to fix that nuisance, so I let it go.

Big mistake.

The door actually swung off it's hinge on the rear. I spent a half hour wrangling with it in the 94 degree heat, finally forcing it to close, but with an inch gap in the rear. Now there is a two foot long deep and ugly gouge on the side panel, really ugly. I tied it up with the nylon dog leash, but didn't feel safe about the whole thing at all. So I moved Gordie to the rear, and repositioned all our junk in his seat, another nearly impossible task since I decided to do it after I secured the door and couldn't open it again. Sigh.

So, drenched and thoroughly scared and angry now, I got back on the road. We'd already been driving for over an hour, and should have been home within 3.5 more hours if we followed our usual route. But I kept picturing the thing flying off into traffic, and couldn't imagine us driving on the thruway. So we got onto an alternate route (route 5) and for the next 6.5 hours, tried to keep my sweet grandsons from going crazy in the back seats, while I glanced back every ten seconds to check on the door to be sure it hadn't shifted at all.

After numerous potty breaks, dog walks, pizza stops, and more, we were finally almost home. Within twenty minutes from home I lost it.

They'd been laughing and screeching with each other for the past hour, and I kept telling them that my wife had a headache, but they just couldn't help themselves, they were so tired and silly.

I screamed at them. "I'll give you FIVE DOLLARS if you just shut up for the rest of the way home!" Yep, I yelled like a madman and said "shut up" to my precious grandsons! I'll never live that down in my own brain.

But guess what? They were totally quiet until we rolled in the driveway. ;o)

Occasionally, a little bribery works.

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th and that your travels were safe.

Best wishes to all,

Aaron Lazar
lazarbooks.com
FOR THE BIRDS
ESSENTIALLY YOURS

Book Review: The Aspen 2-Million Winner-Take-All

When I was contacted by Nicole Langan at Tribute Books to do a review for The Aspen 2-Million Winner-Take-All by John Morris,  I had no idea what the book would bring so far as entertainment is concerned. Well, Murderers, let me tell you, every great once in a while, you get a book written by a storyteller of the old school. You are entertained from cover-to-cover. Although those books are hard to find sometimes, they usually find you when you least expect them. This happened to me with this book. Pure entertainment, and unbelievable craftmanship by an author that I didn't know. From page one, Morris had me hooked and soon I was thrilled to be in possession of The Aspen 2-Million Winner-Take-All.

Is this beginning to sound like a five blood drop review? I hope so because author John Morris deserves his kudos. Yes, Murderers, I gave this read FIVE BLOOD DROPS!!!

The story:
Morgan, the main character, owns a sort of "lived-in" house in Aspen, Colorado, in the elite section called the West End. He was a popular chap, had a little business going for himself, and thought life was going somewhere.

True enough, it was. His rather stand-offish neighbor, Risa, became his worst nightmare when her dog suddenly turns up missing and eventually discovered dead. Poor Morgan wasn't even around when the deed happened, but of course, he was blamed.  Not only blamed, but threatened with a million dollar lawsuit and a promise to run him out of town on a rail, as they say.

He wasn't too worried about the lawsuit and the million bucks, but he was pretty upset about the forced out of town business. He had roots in Aspen. And a man uprooted, is well, like a dead tree.

His best shot at getting Risa over her million dollar temper tantrum was to win a golf tournament. Not just any tournament, mind you, but one that had a 2-million dollar winning pot. Either that or find out what the woman's worst secret was and blackmail her.

Like that would ever happen!

Then again, his best friend and legal advisor, Justin, said, "Make her fall in love with you," and herein we have the lead-in to door number three.

Well, let me tell you, what follows is the best romp of a read I've had in years.  Mr. Morris is funny, but not in a slapstick way. His writing flows so well, you are engrossed in the story and don't even realize how he managed to captivate you. He is a master at getting out of the way of the story and letting it live. The situations in this book are so well-written, I could truly imagine being out in the snow looking at that house of Morgan's.  In fact, I stood side-by-side with this character and felt every ill-timed moment as they happened. Yes, Morris is that good at making you a part of this tale.

Thank you John, for writing a book that took me out of my dreary day and allowed me to watch someone else wiggle through life. I hope to never have the problems that poor Morgan did, but after reading your book, I feel like I went through it all vicariously anyway.

Great book, Murderers. Go out and visit his blog tour stops, and whatever you do- go out and visit Mr. Morris' sites, and for heaven's sake, get this book!

John Morris' Bio:

John Morris lives in Aspen, Colorado, with his loving wife and two wonderful children.  Having worked many of the same cowboy / construction / bartender / ski-patrol jobs as his fictional counterpart Morgan, he can vouch for how easy it is for a good-looking guy to get in trouble there.

John Morris' Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Morris/392376524117530

The Aspen 2-Million Winner-Take-All Blog Tour Site:
http://the-aspen.blogspot.com/

Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186
  

eBook
Price: $6.99
Pages: 281
Release: May 10, 2012

Kindle buy link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082EL6JA?tag=tributebooks-20

Nook buy link:
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=dcSBhG3Rj8w&subid=&offerid=239662.1&type=10&tmpid=8432&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.barnesandnoble.com%252Fw%252Fthe-aspen-2-million-winner-take-all-john-morris%252F1110764389%253Fean%253D2940014415729

iBookstore buy link:
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=dcSBhG3Rj8w&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fitunes.apple.com%252Fus%252Fbook%252Faspen-2-million-winner-take%252Fid526795549%253Fmt%253D11%2526uo%253D4%2526partnerId%253D30

Also available through Kobo, Sony, ebooks.com and http://search.overdrive.com/classic/retail/

Do Novels Ever End? by Warren Adler

Hi, folks.

Today is Warren Adler day. We will feature this well-known author of books like WAR OF THE ROSES and RANDOM HEARTS on the first Friday of each month throughout 2012.

Please help me welcome this most generous bestselling author today to Murderby4. Warren, welcome and thanks for sharing your insight with our readers.

Aaron Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

 

 

A writer’s mind is like a house with a thousand doors, all operated by some pre-tech system that opens and closes as if controlled by something akin to an infrared target line. Apparently, I crossed one of those lines and opened a door somewhere on a top floor of the house.

I now realize that I came back to Beaulieu, which is just a walking distance from Cap Ferrat which was one of the European settings for the The David Embrace, a novel just published exclusively by Amazon.

There it was unfolding before my eyes, The Grand Hotel beach club where the two fish out of water lovers first meet. People from different worlds, with far different agendas, suddenly bonding mysteriously. There was the spot, the actual spot where I chose the hired killer to view the yacht owned by his target.

Call it a thriller, a love story, a tale of deception and betrayal or however one wishes to categorize it. I pay no attention to genre. Essentially, it is an exploration of the mystery and power of human attraction which seems to be the central theme of all novels.

Looking back over most of my thirty or so published novels,  I seem to be obsessed with transformation, characters becoming, always becoming, following an arc of change over which they have little or no control. The plot line of The David Embrace leaves southern France and goes on to Florence, the place to where our mismatched lovers escape from their previous lives.

Florence is central to the story because it is here that one of the great wonders of the world lives in resplendent glory, Michelangelo’s David, that masterpiece of sculpture that cannot fail to move anyone who comes under its spell. It has made a profound impact on the main characters of this novel.

The point of this little essay, aside from the obvious flacking of the novel, is that I believe I was drawn back to this place so that I can walk through that open door and perhaps write a sequel. To me, many of the characters in my stories continue to be alive even after I have completed the story cycle confined to the specific novel. The fact is that a writer can never write finis to the life of his or her characters because they continue to live on. What happens next is always on the mind of both the reader and the writer.

Oddly, the only novel that I have ever written a sequel to was The War of the Roses, and the two main characters actually died at the end of the novel. What had obsessed me long after the novel was written, long after the movie was made, was what happened to the children of these poor deluded souls who allowed greed and hate to destroy their lives. Thus came The Children of the Roses.

So here I am back to the scenes of The David Embrace, rerunning the story and noodling the possibilities of what happened to these star-crossed lovers who went through so much pain and angst to keep the fires of their mysterious attraction continuing at white heat.


Warren Adler

www.warrenadler.com

***

Warren Adler is a world-renowned novelist, short story writer and playwright. His 32 novels and story collections have been translated into more than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and Random Hearts with Harrison Ford, have been made into enormously popular movies, shown continually throughout the world.

Today, when not writing, Mr. Adler lectures on creative writing, motion picture adaptation and the future of Electronic Books. He is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writer’s Conference and has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Jackson Hole Public Library. He is married to the former Sonia Kline, a magazine editor. He has three sons, David, Jonathan and Michael and four grandchildren and lives in New York City.

Let freedom ring!

Happy Independence Day to all our American fans and followers! 

For your reading (and listening) pleasure, I include here a link to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's rendition of a patriotic song. I had never heard *read* the lyrics before and was absolutely thrilled. Especially the last stanza. 

God bless America!

Patriotic Song