Tag: #authorinterview

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Dead in Three Two One by Peter James

Elise’s Thoughts and Book Description

Dead in Three Two One by Peter James brings back beloved detective Roy Grace. All his stories have unexpected plot twists, sinister antagonists, and realistic plots. Most of this book takes place at the Royal Courteney Hotel. 

One sub-plot has Dritan Dervishi, the cold-blooded consigliere for Albanian mob boss Roel Albazi, arriving with a beautiful woman on his arm and a lethal secret in his suitcase as he checks into the hotel. He has specifically requested Room 321, a room with a perfect view of the sea, and a deadly proximity to a target he’s been dreaming of for years.

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is already pushed to the limit, coordinating the city’s massive security operation amid whispers of a potential terrorist attack. But the threat is more personal than he could ever imagine. Back in a prison cell, his old nemesis Albazi is counting down the seconds to a revenge that will not just take Roy’s life, but erase his entire bloodline. Roy and his wife Cleo prepare for a night of celebration at the Royal Courteney, but they have no idea that they are stepping into a deadly trap.

The secondary storyline has a long-term resident of the hotel who claims her family wants to kill her. Her son and daughter are angry because they think they have been cut from the will and see their mother spending all their inheritance.

This is a police procedural where the investigations are of a potential terror threat, a murder, and a potential killing.  The hotel becomes a character in the book and readers learn about the goings on of a classy hotel. 

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Were you influenced for the story idea by Arthur Hailey’s novel, Hotel?

Peter James: I read Arthur Hailey’s novel Hotel in 1968. It was set in a grand old hotel in New Orleans, and the hotel was dilapidated and this elderly owner doesn’t want to spend any money on it. He’s got a young, ambitious manager and all the big hotel chains like Hilton are all circling like vultures. And it’s got all these characters in it. It’s got a career burglar who’s checked into a hotel, systematically robbing the rooms, and there’s an elderly aristocratic couple, who just killed somebody by a hit and run, and they’re hiding in the hotel. There is so much detail about the running of a hotel. After I’ve finished that book. I thought, so that is how a hotel works. And I was in awe and I thought, wow, you really must do a lot of research if you want to be a successful author. It always stuck in my head, and I decided one day I wanted to write a novel set in a hotel that had that kind of depth of research. So that was very much my starting point. 

EC: There is a reference to Margaret Thatcher in the story, why?

PJ: One subplot was influenced when in 1984, the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, tried to murder Margaret Thatcher, who was then prime minister. A month before the Conservative Party conference, they knew Margaret Thatcher would be staying in her suite. A guy called Patrick McGee checked in the Grand Hotel with a timer bomb set to go off at 1:30 in the morning. And he specifically requested the suite that Margaret Thatcher will be staying in four weeks’ time. He planted the bond behind the bathroom and what saved her life was that she was a workaholic, and hadn’t gone to bed at 1:30 in the morning because she’s still working. But the bomb tragically killed six people, and badly injured many others. 

I thought it’d be kind of fun to have somebody checking in the hotel. The book starts with describing this tall, handsome guy, in a smart suit, good haircut, a nice watch, and checked in at Brighton’s fabled Royal Courteney Hotel. He had his arm around a beautiful woman, a smile on his face, and a bomb in his suitcase. The reason this bomber is there is that he knows that Detective Roy Grace and his wife are going to be staying in the suite he wants to check into in exactly a week’s time. And he’s there acting on behalf of an Albanian gangster that Roy Grace put away who wants revenge on Roy.

EC: The other sub-plot?

PJ: I’ve always been fascinated by people who stay a long, long time in hotels who kind of make it their home. I asked three different hotel managers, ‘do you like having long stay residents?’ I figured they would. But they said no, they’re a bloody nuisance. And I said, ‘seriously, isn’t it good to have a steady income?’ They said, no. If you have a lot of those guests, then it means they can’t rent the whole hotel out to a company for a conference, which is very lucrative. They become a nuisance after a while, because what they do is they start to become priority proprietorial. And they’re quite disruptive. So, I thought it would be great fun to create a character, who is a long stay resident, whose husband died 15 years earlier, and she’s moved into the most expensive suite in the Royal Courteney Hotel, which is Brighton’s most fabulous seafront hotel. And we learn that she’s got a 50-year-old son, who’s had two failed businesses, and a daughter, who’s just gone through an acrimonious divorce and has not got very much money out of it. And they’re watching mummy burn through their inheritance. They enlist the help of a bent lawyer and a doctor to try to bring Mum’s death forward a few years. 

EC: How would you describe the de Bairde family?

PJ: The mom is clearly a selfish lady who is pretty much uncaring, rude, and demanding. I think the son is just an angry person. He’s got his crappy little office, opposite a Porsche dealership, and he stares out his window day after day, looking at all the Porsches, and he’s really angry how life worked out, with his business systems failed, which means he can’t buy one of those lovely things that are tempting him, and his mummy won’t lend him the money to help bail the business out. His sister, Alex, is a spoiled bitch, who can’t accept the fact she’s being dumped by her husband and that she suddenly hasn’t got a means to live in the style which she believes she should be accustomed to. So, there are two angry people watching their mother, holding court, living in this grand luxury hotel, spending what they believe is their money. 

EC: There is this book quote where Grace is upset about these criminals having juries declared not guilty as he investigates the murder done by the bomber. Can you explain?

PJ: You are referring to this quote, “While there were intelligent people on juries, there were occasionally some incredibly stupid ones too…Too often juries would be swayed, not by the facts, but by the defense-or-prosecution-counsel’s power of storytelling”. When I was on jury service, there was a case in which a father and son put up the marquis for a big motor show. And after they finished, they took all their workers out. They all got drunk. And then some got in a fight with one of the workers, punched someone in the face, broke his nose. blood everywhere. He’s now charged with causing assaults and bodily harm. The prosecuting council was laying out the case, and then we had a break, and we all went into the jury room. And one of the Tweety women on the jury said, ‘the man’s obviously guilty.’ I said, ‘excuse me, we haven’t even had the prosecution case fully laid out yet, and we haven’t heard from the defense. How can you say he’s guilty?’ 

EC: You like writing books about juries. One I really liked was titled Find Them Dead about a woman forced to convince other jurors for a not guilty plea. Care to comment?

PJ: A key gangster has his men target her and a couple of other jurors to convince them that they should not return a guilty verdict. 

EC:  As long as we are speaking of previous books my absolute favorite was Love You Dead.  The main antagonist, Jodie Bentley was devious.  Want to go down memory lane about this creepy book?

PJ: She was a black widow that used reptiles to poison and kill people. Jodie came about when I went to a prison. I am one of the charges of an ambassador of four for the reading agency. And we try to encourage people into reading and literacy generally. And I also do it for prisoners in English prisons, because the average reading age for 60% of the inmates is less than 11 years old. I was giving a talk in a women’s prison where all the inmates are lumped all together. So, you really don’t know if some of these are in there for a small offense or if they killed 10 people. Anyway, there’s this one woman in the audience. She’s about 55. And she keeps on interrupting me. She asked me smart questions about literature. She’s asked me about Dickens, Hemingway, and Fort. She’s got a very posh voice. And I’m wondering, trying to guess what she’s in for. Anyway, at the end, I get to mingle with the prisoners. So, I made a beeline for her. I said to her, ‘how much longer do you have to go?’ She responded, ‘Nine and a half more bloody years. And it’s just not fair. I asked, ‘What brought you in here?’ She replied, ‘I poisoned my mother-in-law, the old bag. The thing was, she went to the hospital to die. So, I cleaned out her bank account. And the bloody woman didn’t die? She came back home, so I realized she’s going to find out, so I thought I better poison her. And then I was afraid my husband would find out, so I thought I’d better poison him, too. And it’s just not fair. This woman did exactly what I did in London. She has only got six more years.’ Her husband was on life support for three months and he’s got permanent brain damage. And I thought you must be a character in a future book. And that is how Jodie came about.

EC: Is the Book Aid Ball charity for real?

PJ: It is one of Queen Camilla’s charges that she’s a patron of. So, I thought it’d be kind of fun that Cleo is giving a speech for that in the story. A quote by Camilla in the book, “Reading is exciting. There is nothing quite like the thrill of opening a book and being drawn into another world to meet new people and to discover their stories-It’s like making new friends.” Or enemies, like Jodie. 

EC: What about the antagonist of this story, Albazi?

PJ: He is a classic, completely immoral gangster. His background is that he was working for a Chinese triad group as a debt collector, and he defaulted. There are a lot of Albanian criminals in England. A lot of good Albanians too, but yeah, the Albanian crime fraternity has a particularly nasty way of operating, which is that, if someone is doing business with an Albanian criminal, like a drug deal and they don’t pay them their way of getting back will be to go to the grandmother back in Albania and kill her. They go for the family as their way of retribution. Albazi is an Albanian gangster, who has been living in England, and basically Roy Grace has put him away. And as a result, Albazi had several of his beloved close relatives in Albania murdered by a rival gang. He was angry, so he is out to get revenge. It was Roy’s estranged, and now dead wife, but that caused Albazi problems, and it was Roy that ultimately put him away.

EC: Next book?

PJ: I don’t know the title yet. We haven’t got it, but it’ll be out this time next year, and it’s all set on a cruise ship. I’ve done quite a lot of talks on cruise ships so I set this next book on one. Roy’s gone along for a holiday. I was on the Queen Mary some years back and I was on the bridge talking to the captain, and I said to him, ‘Have you ever had a murder on this ship?’ He said, ‘Not on this ship but 34 people a year disappear off cruise ships.’ I thought, ‘wow, that will make a good story. Nobody should sit on the balcony. Plop. Person overboard.’ 

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder by Dianne Freeman

Book Description

Frances and George are looking forward to a Christmas season enlivened by all the diversions London can provide. But family comes first, and George’s sister Fiona and her husband persuade everyone to gather at their Norfolk estate for the holiday. The weather will be chilly, but the prospect of snow delights the youngsters. And with blazing fires and invigorating country walks in store, Frances envisions a peaceful, jolly Christmas.

Instead of a picturesque snowfall, however, Norfolk is hit by pounding rainfall and high winds. In the aftermath of the storm, Frances, Fiona, and the children make an unpleasant discovery in a nearby field—the body of their neighbor, dead in suspicious circumstances. Joshua Penhollow was the local doctor, though not a well-respected one. Indeed, most viewed him as a quack, and even his own stepdaughter held a grudge against him.

With the menfolk gone to help clear a blocked road, the investigation falls to Frances and Fiona, who must also curb the young people’s excitement at encountering a real-life murder. Combing through a village full of colorful characters and more than a few suspects, Frances feels any hope of a quiet Christmas slipping away. But more pressing is the need to stop a killer whose heart is as cold as the season . . .

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Elise’s Thoughts

A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder by Dianne Freeman is an entertaining story about a murder investigated by the main character Frances, her sister-in-law, Fiona and their three children.

The story begins with George’s sister Fiona and her husband, Robert, persuading the Hazelton clan to gather at their Norfolk estate for the holiday. The weather will be chilly, but the prospect of snow delights the youngsters.

Instead of a picturesque snowfall, however, Norfolk is hit by pounding rainfall and high winds. In the aftermath of the storm, Frances, Fiona, and the children make an unpleasant discovery in a nearby field: the body of their neighbor, dead in suspicious circumstances. The victim, Joshua Penhollow was the local doctor, though not well-respected or liked.

All the men of the family are called out of town to help with villages damaged by the storm. This leaves the investigation falling to Frances and Fiona, who must also curb the young children’s excitement at encountering a real-life murder.

The children, Rose, nine years old and her cousins, Grace and Gregory, nine and ten were assigned to write a Christmas story based on Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. The children were resolute in writing a murder mystery. In their story, Scrooge is the victim and the two detectives assigned to the case, named Frank and Georgianna, obviously inspired by George and Frances, solve the crime. They title it “A Christmas Murder” and are excited about the presence of the body in the house realizing they can help with the murder investigation. Frances is dismayed by the children’s enthusiasm for crime-solving at first, but realizes they have some good insight, especially since the village is full of an overabundance of suspects. 

Intertwining the children’s writing of the story with the actual investigation makes for entertaining interludes. This Christmas story has plenty of family, secrets, and investigation. Readers wanting A Christmas Carol turned on its head involving a murder mystery will like this read.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Diane Freeman: It was kind of a roundabout way. This was the third book in the series. I’d known for a couple of years that I was going to be writing a Christmas story. And in my mind, I had an image of George and Frances, my main characters, out looking for Christmas greenery and stumbling over a body buried in the snow. But when it came down to writing it, I kind of ran into a problem with weather. 

EC: What was the problem?

DF: At that point, we were in December of 1900, and it was the warmest December on record for the UK. And it was snowing, nowhere. Sometimes, it’s little facts like that that just trip you up. And hopefully you find them while you’re still in the planning phase, like I did. I just kept reading the weather reports and found on New Year’s Eve that year, there was a gale that hit the east coast of England and did a lot of damage. They ended up going out to the countryside in the county of Norfolk, and they were hit by the gale. And everything kind of followed from there. I just moved the gale up by ten days.

EC:  How would you describe Frances?

DF: I think Frances is kind of an amalgam of all the heiresses, because I feel like they really had to be. She’s an American, and her family was new money. They came into money when Frances was about 10 years old. And they moved to New York, where she was raised not really learning how to do any practical things. Her mother raised her to eventually become a countess or a duchess or something of that nature, so she had art, music, and languages, and she knew the events of the day, and could carry on a good conversation. But she didn’t know how to make a cup of tea, or boil an egg or anything of that nature. So, when she became a widow, she was thrust into a whole new situation, especially since her husband has spent all the money. She is gutsy, adventurous, willing to give it a try, with her biggest character trait courage.

EC:  George, her second husband, was hardly in it?

DF: The men were called away because streets were blocked by trees that were felled from the storm, gas works were broken, houses were flooded with the Norfolk coast itself kind of notorious for erosion. It’s been kind of weaning away, and houses do occasionally have to be moved back, because the coastline recedes. It made sense, that the men would have to leave, and I wanted a case where Frances would have to be on her own, because even the police were gone. Frances is my sleuth. And though she and George work together, I occasionally want readers to see that she’s grown. And I thought this was a good situation for that, even though the family and the kids helped her.

EC:  The children did play a role in solving the mystery?

DF: The children wrote the Scrooge story centered around the murder. Only because if Scrooge had been murdered, really, would anybody miss him? And that was kind of the case with Dr. Penhallow. Nobody really liked him. Nobody. But nobody was crying over him. Nobody was really missing him. His wife, to some degree.

Frances would not have wanted them completely involved in the murder, and that was another reason. I had George and her brother-in-law Robert had to leave, because I didn’t want them taking the place of what things that the kids could be doing. They would be really excited to see what happened in a real investigation. So that was really the kind of reason for having them write that story, to get them involved. My initial first draft, I just kept pushing the kids aside, making them do something else. And I thought, ‘This isn’t working. This is a Christmas guide to family and murder. They must be involved in this.’ So, I scrapped that and started over. And the idea of having them write their own story and wanting to do some research worked well.

EC: How would you describe the children?

DF: I have no children, so they’re kind of how I remember being as a kid. Christmas is certainly exciting, but once they had a project that they are involved in, I think that kind of takes over everything. They’re inquisitive, they’re fun, and in the case of Gregory, kind of a little smart aleck. I just think they’re typical 9- and 10-year-olds from my past. In the book there is a quote, “Children think everything is a negotiation and a democracy.” I am pretty sure this is relevant to any parent. 

EC:  What was the role of Christmas?

DH: I wanted this to feel like a family book. To me, holidays are all about family, so even though there are some of them called away, and even though there’s a murder dropped in the middle of it, they kind of carry on.

EC: Is this a cozy mystery?

DF: I always think of it as a traditional mystery, but I think it follows some of the cozy rules. Most of anything gruesome is off the page. There’s no sex, no violence, nothing of that nature. And that tends to be a thing with cozies, which kind of puts a whole other definition to the word cozy, that the victim and the killer usually know each other. Sometimes it can be too cozy.

EC: Why the Victorian era?

DF: I read a book called To Mary a British Lord, and then I saw “Downton Abbey,” and I thought of Cora Crowley. I just thought it was fiction. And then when I realized this really happened. There was a quarterly publication called “Titled Americans,” that you could buy at a newsstand, kind of like online dating, but it would say, what titled gentlemen were available, what titles they held, what land they held, and if they had any money. So that the American family could figure out how to fill this Lord’s need, and then make a deal. Basically, trading money for titles was a big deal. The real heiress Consuelo Yznaga, The Duchess of Manchester, made money, helping other heiresses find their feet once they got into England. This just fascinated me, and I thought to myself, what would this be like 10 years after the wedding? She was quite an amazing woman. 

EC: How would you describe Frances’ sister-in-law, Fiona?

DF: Fiona is the perfect best friend. I wish she were my best friend. She’s fun loving. If you saw her from the outside, you would think she was frivolous. But she really is clever, and she somehow manages to be the person people confide in. So, she tends to know people’s secrets, but she doesn’t tend to divulge them. She’s a very loyal, good friend, and like I said, I wish she was mine.

EC: Next book?

DF: It takes place in March 1901 right after Queen Victoria’s death. The title is A Royal Guide to Secrets and Murder. It’s going to be a fall book of 2027.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Through the Valley by Patricia Johns

Book Description

Miri Schrock never expected to inherit anything after months of caring for Old Tom Yoder, so upon his passing, she’s stunned to learn he’s left her everything. But Tom’s family is equally shocked, and Miri is not sure she can rightfully accept an inheritance that clearly belongs to Tom’s grandsons.

Moses Yoder thought he knew his grandfather, but his decision to leave the Lancaster County family farm to Miri has Moses questioning everything. Now he’s caught between his family’s demands that Miri surrender what’s rightfully theirs and his own growing romantic attraction toward her. As Moses and Miri are drawn together, they must navigate family tensions, yet discovering the truth behind the inheritance may change everything they thought they knew about love, family, and God’s plan for their future.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Through The Valley by Patricia Johns is a story involving two women who are not traditional Amish. Miri Schrock would rather be out in the field and tending to the cows and the farm rather than be inside cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Tabitha Schrock, years ago during her rumspringa, left the Amish community to become a veterinarian.

Tabitha ended up marrying an Englisher, Michael. Sadly, their marriage ended in divorce. Tabitha never really felt at home with Englishers so she decided to return to her Amish people. The one barrier she couldn’t break down was being a divorced woman. Despite her longtime friendship with Jonas and a growing love between them, she knew she would never be allowed to remarry if her ex-husband was still alive. She needed to move on with her life and she encouraged Jonas to move on, get married, and have a family.

But life takes an unexpected turn when Tabitha finds out her ex-husband has died. A lawyer reaches out to Tabitha to inform her Michael’s widow, Kelsie, wants to speak with her. After some consideration, Tabitha meets with her and the two discover the unkindness in Michael and his manipulative ways.

In another plot line, Tabitha’s cousin Miri Schrock has been helping Tom Yoder whose heath has continued to decline. She’s the one who has been tending to Tom’s daily needs as his grandsons, Moses and Benuel, are outside taking care of the farm. While Tom’s family knew that he was sick, his sudden passing was a surprise. At the reading of Tom’s will, it is announced that he left the farm to Miri.

The story weaves multiple plotlines and characters together. She does a fabulous job in having characters from previous novels in the story continue in this one. Readers will be sad to see this great series coming to an end.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Patricia Johns: I knew how the book, the whole series was going to end when I started writing it. This was something that I had planned from the very beginning. So, it was a well-planned series.

EC: There are two heroines in this story: are they alike or different?

PJ: Tabitha from early books is one heroine and Miri is the other. I think they’re similar. I mean, they’re cousins. They both don’t quite fit into the feminine mold that the Amish expect from them. I think they both struggle with a similar situation where they don’t quite fit in in the same way. But, of course, with Tabitha, she’s divorced, and is dealing with the other woman from her marriage, trying to connect with her and make peace. Miri has the community set against her because of this inheritance, which has gone terribly, terribly wrong in the community’s eyes.

EC: How would you describe Miri?

PJ:  She’s a tomboy, inquisitive, good instincts, complex, vulnerable, stubborn, and moral.

EC: What about Moses, one of the heroes?

PJ: He is hardworking and kind, also passionate. I would think he’s moral too, but conflicted about his feelings and what he wants in life. His grandfather was supposed to leave the farm to him, and his brother. Since the death Moses is suffering from a personal loss, and he’s dealing with a personal rejection from his grandfather. He can’t even go and ask his grandfather, ‘Why? What did you do it? What upset you?’ He can’t even ask for query because his grandfather is gone. So, I think he’s dealing with a lot. The family land left to Miri had his father and grandfather grow up on this land, so, there’s family connections to this. He worked this land since he was a little boy. And, suddenly, he’s cut out of it. So, I think he has a lot more that he must deal with. Personally, I had some empathy for him for all of that because he was dealing with a lot.

EC: How would you describe the grandfather, Tom Yoder?

PJ: He had a unique way of looking at the world, and he encouraged Miri. He taught her about cattle and how to run a farm, passing on the passion he had about his farm, which partly explains why he left the farm to her. He’s a little bit of an enigma because he was such a straight talker, yet, he did not talk straight about this with his family, and he should have.

EC:  What about the relationship between Miri and Moses?

PJ: He’s trying not to take it out on Miri, believing this isn’t her fault. He’s trying to protect Mari from his family, who are blaming Miri for what happened. She was supported by her parents. But Moses’ parents questioned his desire just to fulfill his grandfather’s wishes. He resents her in some ways and she’s kind of angry at him. They don’t trust the other person as just being honest and open with their feelings. Especially when the things are overheard.

EC: Did the community play a role with Tabitha and Miri?

PJ: With Tabitha, there is no solution that will please the community, because she’s divorced, and there’s no undoing it. There’s no way of fixing her situation in the eye of the community. But I think with Miri she could do what the community wanted, and she could say, ‘all right, I’ll back out. I’ll hand this back.’ Regarding Tabitha, community has written Tabitha off in a lot of ways. They’re like, ‘well, she’s going to be different. There is no helping her.’ But for Miri, they still think that they can sort of get their hands in there and mold her to their liking. I think there’s more pressure on Miri to change, because they think that she’s young enough, and she can be molded.

EC: What about the Tabitha and Jonas relationship?

PJ: He sees her as accomplished, gentle, and funny. They have feelings for each other, but hide it. She feels she lost his friendship when he possibly will become engaged. They both realize they fell in love with their best friend. And she’s jealous of the other woman, but she kind of hides it. She thinks it’s morally wrong to be jealous of this other woman, but she is very jealous. She has everything that Jonas could possibly want for the rest of his life, and she will be truly happy with him for the rest of her life, because he is a faithful type. They want a happily ever after, but don’t see how they can achieve it.

EC: What is the role of Kelsie, the other woman who broke up Tabitha’s marriage?

PJ: I needed it to bring things back around for Tabitha to deal with, the pain of that divorce. On a personal level, the reason why I brought in the other woman is because I’ve seen this sort of situation, with people that I know, where it’s never just one affair. It’s never just like, ‘oh, he did it once and he would never do it again.’ There’s always a pattern. And even when the woman has been duped and she doesn’t see the pattern yet, there’s normally a pattern there. And so, I’ve sort of seen that with women that I know who have been cheated on by their cheating exes, and have discovered, ‘oh, there was a pattern, and I had no idea when I was in the middle of it.’ I wanted to give Tabitha that opportunity to see the pattern because she sort of blamed herself thinking, ‘I was different. I was Amish. I wasn’t English enough. We didn’t quite connect. I was embarrassing to him.’ I needed Tabitha to be able to forgive herself and to be able to see that she had been enough all along, and she was never the problem. It was always him who was the problem, not her. I really needed Tabitha to see that.  It wasn’t because she wasn’t enough. It was because he had personal issues that made him incapable of fidelity. I wanted to give her that opportunity to really deal with it, and it was a painful dealing, but at the end of it, she could move on with her own love, realizing, ‘I do have a lot to offer.’ She absolutely is the whole package.

EC: Next books?

PJ: Coming out the end of February the book called Her Amish Secret Admirer. This is the last book in the “Amish Chocolate Shop Brides Series.” The setting is a little Amish town and the stories center around the girls who work there. In this book, the owner of the shop receives a secret admirer letter. And she has no idea who this person could possibly be. The secret admirer is her best friend who lives next door. He’s widowed. He was trying to cheer her up. He sends another one, just to try and smooth things over to keep her happy. They end up in the situation where he’s sending these letters and he’s sort of teasing her a little bit. He’s like, ‘ooh, you’re getting letters.’ Mayhem ensues, and it all circles around the right people getting married.

Another book is titled, Amish Country Christmas, and it is about the third sister in the “Honest Antiques Shop miniseries.” Her old friend ghosted her. And they had been best, best, best friends. Now, he’s a cop, he’s back, and he’s widowed. He has a young son. She is his young son’s second grade teacher, and is also running an antiques shop with her sisters. The cops are trying to root out the criminal element, and they need her help. There is a Christmas element and a mystery where the cops are trying to figure out who’s harassing this Amish community. It has romantic suspense. Both the hero and heroine are English but are involved with the Amish community.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Unearthed and Betrayed by Anna J. Stewart

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Unearthed and Betrayed by Anna J. Stewart continue the “Circle of the Red Lily” series. Both books have a suspenseful action-filled story.

Book Description

Unearthed’s plot has forensic investigator Dr. Cassia Davis living a life of isolation, after surviving the kidnapping by a serial killer. She has self-imposed to confining herself to her apartment and to online consulting. But after a Hollywood Hills murder mystery exposes a mass grave connected to her past, Cass must confront the man who shattered her trust, FBI Special Agent Mitchell Keaton.

His mistake nearly cost her life. Now, working together on the crime scene investigation, they must unearth the truth about a serial killer tied to The Circle of the Red Lily, a ruthless secret society that controls Hollywood’s darkest corners.

But digging into the past means reopening old wounds. As passion reignites between them, Cass and Mitch must overcome guilt, trauma, and the lies that tore them apart. Because the closer they get to the truth, the more dangerous the hunt becomes.

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Book Description

Betrayed highlights Sutton O’Hara, a good friend of the heroines from previous stories. She is raising her orphaned niece and nephew and working as a nutritionist at a retirement home. But when clues among the residents point to the Circle, a powerful secret network linked to decades of missing girls and murder, she refuses to look away.

Former Naval investigator Blake Redford is determined to keep Sutton safe. Posing as her friend gives him the perfect excuse to stay close while they search for answers, but the attraction they’ve both ignored quickly becomes impossible to deny. For the first time since losing his wife and son, Blake can imagine a future again.

Then, Sutton discovers why he really took the job as a building maintenance man, and it rocks everything she thought about him.

Now, with her trust shattered and the enemy closing in, Blake must prove whose side he’s on before the secrets he kept cost him the woman he loves, the family he never expected, and their only chance to expose the truth.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Anna J. Stewart: I knew when I was writing books, one and two, that I was eventually going to have to find the missing women, and they weren’t obviously going to turn up alive. So, I knew that there was going to have to be a mass grave somewhere. And that’s essentially how I came up with the idea for the character of forensic investigator Dr. Cassia Davis (Cass). Although back when I first put her on the page, I didn’t know how complicated she was going to be to write. For me, it was just kind of a natural inclusion into the storyline.

EC: How would you describe the serial killer Jonathan Whittaker, the one in prison?

AJS: Probably a genius and very manipulative. He was powerful because I think there’s an inherent power, good or bad, that comes from believing that you’re always going to get away with something. And I think when he was put away, he always knew he was going to find a way to get out. He managed to find a way to do that.

EC: How would you describe Elliot the dog?

AJS: He’s traumatized and he bonds with Cass. I watch a lot of animal videos on social media just because they’re so healing. There’s a thing in writing called “Save the Cat,” which is how someone knows whether somebody is very good or not, and it usually has something to do with an animal. This allowed me to give Cassia a coping mechanism and another lost soul to bond with to help her through trauma. And dogs inherently know whether or not they can trust you. Elliot himself sensed that Cass needed him as much as she needed him.

EC: What about Mitch, the hero?

AJS: He’s charming, a former FBI profiler, sympathetic, protective, and focused. He’s also dealing with a fair amount of guilt, and guilt is a great motivator when it comes to the rest of your life. Mitch wishes if only he could turn back the clock and make different decisions than he did in the heat of the moment. And this isn’t to say that he made any wrong decisions. When I wrote the prologue to this book and I showed what happened between him and Cass, in the opening pages of that book, that established where she is mentally and even physically. He wishes there was another way he could have done something without breaking her trust, but he doesn’t see it in the same way that she does. He was a safe person for her to strike out against, and to shut out of her life, because it gave her a kind of a sense of control that she needed. But at the same time, I think she really lost something she probably needed.

EC: How would you describe Cass?

AJS: She is reclusive, traumatized, anxious, and wants safety boundaries. She is self-protective, has imprisoned herself, remote, and paranoid. Cass is angry and I think that might even be close to where most of her issues come from is how angry she is. She doesn’t necessarily know what she’s angry at or who she’s angry at. So, I think it all kind of manifests itself in different ways. It is an illusionary control because what she learns through the story is that even though she thinks everything around her is safe, she’s still not safe. And that’s because she’s brought with her the trauma, and she’s been trying to outrun it by locking herself away, but there’s really no way to do that until she faces it.

EC: What about Temple House?

AJS: I think Temple House is honestly the heart of the story, where everybody has built their community. And that was purposeful. I wanted a central location where everybody had a connection to not only the building and the history of the building and the sense of community that it offers, but also a place where everybody who lives inherently becomes family. My stories, no matter what type of story I write, there is always going to be family found including with a circle of friends.

EC: The relationship between Mitch and Cass?

AJS: It’s complicated because they both are keeping secrets from each other. They’re both frustrated and they care about each other. They love each other. But just because you love somebody doesn’t necessarily mean you can be with them, and they really find their way through a lot of previous trauma to make the decision to fight to be together. And that’s really what they do throughout the story.

EC: In all the books the bad guys are in this group, The Circle?

AJS: They’re abusive, they like to kidnap, believe in ritualistic murders, want power and prestige. They’re like a fraternity and a cult. Past stories about events like this really did kind of influence how I approached creating the circle and what it is that they’re about.

EC: Idea for the fourth book, Betrayed?

AJS: This has been the trickiest story to write so far, and I say that getting ready to hit into the last book of the series. Because when I first introduced Sutton O’Hara, she’s a Midwest girl, a cook, a nutritionist, very much a homebody, because she’s built her life and her career around comfort and nutrition and caretaking. And I wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to bring to the story that could equal what the three previous heroines had done. Each of the three previous heroines had an actual role to play in the investigation and were properly motivated to want to see the investigation proceed. It was a puzzle on what to do with Sutton when she’s raising her niece and nephew. And she’s kind of an outlier, and it actually became a plot point of the story where even she’s wondering, ‘well, what do I have to do with any of this,’ even though she’s also being targeted, partly because she lives in Temple House, but also partly because she’s very good friends with the other women who the circle sees as a threat. I really challenged her into stepping up and deciding what she wants to fight for in her own life. Then there was the hero, Blake Redford, who was introducedin the first book of the series, Framed, book one of the series. I knew from the start what his secret was, and that doesn’t usually happen for me because I don’t plot out my books. I’m usually surprised as I’m writing them. Blake’s appearance, when he showed up in that scene in Framed, he was going to be there for reasons other than being there for a job. When I got to the end of book three, and I kind of had that twist ending in the epilogue, that surprised me. I knew there was some connection between Sutton and Blake but I didn’t realize how deep it particularly went.

EC: What about Blake?

AJS: Blake is former military, calm, and strong. He lost his wife and son. He’s honorable. The honorability is really something that was interesting to play with, because he’s extremely honorable, and he’s extremely loyal, but the loyalty shifts as he becomes more involved in the case. The reasons that he’s originally sent to help at Temple House aren’t necessarily on the up and up, but he’s doing a favor for a friend, and he’s the kind of person who’ll always do something for a friend. When he realizes that there’s more to this than he’s been told, his loyalties begin to shift away from his friend and into the new circle of friends that he’s found, that he didn’t expect to find. No matter what he’s done, he always does it with a sense of honor, which is one reason why he really can’t play a victim when the betrayal comes out. He realizes ‘I have to pay the price for what I set into motion.’  And that’s honorable.

EC: How about their relationship?

AJS: When I started with book four, he really is lying to everybody about why he’s there in Temple House and why he came to Temple House. And Sutton is somebody who needs to trust. And that is the one ultimate thing that she would possibly never be able to forgive is being lied to from the start from somebody that she develops feelings for. This book had a heavier romance lean to it than the suspense, but that’s mainly because Sutton’s position within the friendship circle really didn’t lend itself to quite as much suspense and danger as the other three heroines. Their relationship is complicated. She feels disappointed and betrayed by him and he is hurt by her. I think he’s hurt, but I think he also understands because he knew it was going to happen. He was just hoping to stay ahead of it. But as he’s learned through other events in his life, that it doesn’t matter how much he hopes for things, sometimes he just can’t make something happen that he needs to have happen. It was also an element of self- sabotage: ‘if she doesn’t forgive me, then I’m still protected and, I was right to be leery of getting involved.’ But at the same time, he still hopes that something will work its way out for the two of them.

EC: How would you describe Sutton?

AJS: Sutton is impulsive, gives people confidence, organized, smart, snarky, concerned, determined, and must deal with the death of her brother and sister-in-law. Earlier I was talking about trying to figure out the puzzle piece that she has. Her friend tells her, ‘You have a vital part to play in our circle, because you’re who we all come to for logic and reason and stability. You’re the anchor. And if you weren’t here, we’d all be untethered.’ And I think that was an important thing for her to be able to see through somebody else’s eyes, especially since she’s had a lot thrown at her when her brother and sister-in-law died, and suddenly she’s a single parent to two young children. It’s given her a purpose, but it’s also, kind of taken away from whatever she had planned for her own life. But she never resents that. Sutton kind of becomes the soul of Temple House, taking care of everybody. She cooks for them, and she’s always the one who will open the door and say, ‘what do you need?’

EC: There are a lot of quotes in both books from movies. Are you a movie fanatic?

AJS: I grew up on old movies. I grew up with Shirley Temple and Bogey movies and Marilyn Monroe always been a fascination of mine. I have a huge movie collection. I still collect DVDs because I’m a big fan of physical media where I want to watch what I want to watch. I don’t have to find the streaming service that’s on. I love everything about the whole bringing an imagination into the visual world. I was 7 when Star Wars came out, and that’s really the first movie I can remember where I’m like, ‘oh, this is what it’s like to step into somebody’s imagination.’ And that’s really where my lot of storytelling began. When I created this world and set it in Hollywood, it was just a natural fit because I’ve always been so interested in all kinds of things that have to do with Hollywood movie making.

EC: Who is Moxie Temple based upon?

AJS: Moxie Temple, who is Riley Temple’s great aunt, who I kind of created as a combination of Shirley Temple and Debbie Reynolds, because of the way that she moved through Hollywood. She is trying to reinvent herself, starting from the 1940s all the way up to present day and she’s still driving. She’s still trying to find the spotlight, which she always manages to find.

EC: Next books?

AJS: I think the one thing I know for certain is going to happen in book five is Moxie Temple finally going to find that spotlight again. No title yet, but it will be featuring Laurel Fontaine, who’s the character I have been dying to write. She’s the celebrity defense attorney who is very well known nationwide. She has a reputation. She’s very smart. I have no idea right now what her background is. I don’t know how she became what she became or why, so I’m really looking forward to figuring that out. She will be paired off with somebody we meet in book four, Granger Powell. I want to cause as much conflict and tension as I can, and I think putting those two on the page together is going to be really, fun. It should be out next summer, hopefully late June, early July. I am in the dark as much as the readers are right now as far as how the Circle organization is going to work out because the person I thought headed it, that is not the person. But part of the fun of not being a plotter is that I get to be surprised along with the reader. As far as I know, these five will be the only books in the “Red Lily Series.” That said, I am going to be introducing one or two new characters for a new series.

The new series will take a darker turn, and I’m not sure if traditional publishers would be interested in that. I’d really love to write something where I’m untethered and anything is open to what I want to write. The new series is a story about revenge and justice. I am 90% sure I’m going to be self-publishing it, and if I do, it would probably either be late 2027, early 2028. There’s going to be four books in that series.

The McKenna series is going to end with book four. That’s Aidan’s story and that will be out in February. Readers will meet a bunch of characters for my new series with Harlequin Romantic Suspense, which is called “Deep Current Solutions.” It will revolve around a security agency that deals with aquatic situations working on oil rigs or underwater science facilities. I’m really looking forward to writing those. I believe the first deep current book will be out next fall.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: DOG and The Girl Who Rode the White Lion by Yishay Ishi Ron

DOG and The Girl Who Rode the White Lion by Yishay Ishi Ron are very powerful novels. Both these novels are mirrored in realistic events including October 7th. They have mystery, good versus evil, revenge and resolution, and are page turners that both inform and entertain.

Elise’s Thoughts

DOG is a poignant and unflinching exploration of the search for meaning after the wreckage of war, told through the eyes of an Israeli combat officer returning from Gaza. Haunted by trauma, he spirals into heroin addiction, finding himself among Tel Aviv’s community of misfit junkies—until a stray dog enters his life and becomes a beacon of hope, guiding him through a transformative journey marked by despair, resilience, and ultimately hope for salvation.

Beyond its deeply personal narrative, DOG offers a raw and immersive examination of PTSD’s mechanisms— how extreme stress, moral injury, and the experience of combat can rewire the brain, making a return to civilian life seem nearly impossible. With sharp social critique and profound emotional depth, the novel sheds light on invisible wounds and those who carry them, while illustrating the therapeutic power of a simple soulful connection, and how the path to redemption can be illuminated in the most unexpected of ways.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Girl Who Rode the White Lion shows the cruelty of the Nazi SS. It takes place in two timelines. The first begins in the city of Darmstadt, Germany, on November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht, and follows the plight of the young girl Sarah Frank and her escape from the SS officer, Hauptsturmführer Hubert Zimmer. She finds refuge in the marvelous circus of Adolf Frey. Adolf, the circus owner and famous lion trainer, is married to Louis, a Jewish French
woman and elephant trainer. The circus has already committed to performances in German cities, but Adolf’s plans are disrupted when the SS officer, searching for Sarah, shows no intention of giving up.

The second timeline of the book takes place in New York City, on January 6, 1957, when Mark Spencer, a veterinarian at the Central Park Zoo, performs a post-mortem examination on a rare white lion named Christmas, and discovers an SS ring made of silver inside its stomach. The mystery of the story has Mark wondering about the ring and searching for clues that has him meet Sarah in Israel.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: The book, DOG, delves into PTSD; can you elaborate on this issue?

Yishay Ishi Ron: Its theme is the horror of the war and what happens when the war is over. A lot of the public attention in Israel now is the after effects of October 7th because so many civilians and soldiers experienced severe PTSD. Some people say that at least one fourth of the population in Israel now has it. Of course, you can see it with soldiers committing suicide, so many, something like 140 since October 7th, and those are only the formal numbers. And of course, survivors, their families, and those injured also have PTSD. Since October 7th, those with PTSD have more than doubled because they were all traumatized. They remember the memories from October 7th, and the anti-Semitism is not helping.

EC: The book, DOG, does it relate to October 7th?

YIR: Although it was written before October 7th, yes. Everybody in Israel knows a family that had a member kidnapped or injured or killed or their son or daughter were killed in the war. PTSD is so common now, and I think that when people read DOG, they should understand deep in their hearts what it means to have PTSD and how it can pull them easily from being a functional normal person to someone that cannot deal with life. They are so haunted by what they’ve seen or what they heard. So, this is the connection to October 7.

EC:  In DOG you have a dedication that reads, “To the combatants whose eyes have seen things that their minds refuse to forget.”  Does this apply to those who saw the horrific acts against the victims on October 7th?

YIR: I’m a PTSD veteran, and I believe that, for many Israelis, veterans, all Israel was traumatized very deeply. Even for me as a veteran I suffered, because I remember those days as very, very traumatic. And I wasn’t there, but it was enough to watch the news and to hear the people who had been there. I remember in my therapy sessions that I was just crying. I couldn’t even deal with my PTSD because I was so traumatized by what happened to us. And I feel that in a way that is how it is with most Israelis. They can’t sleep. It was horrific, what they saw and who were there and what they had to deal with.

EC:  What do you want to say about DOG?

YIR: It’s not about a war, but it’s about what happens when the war is over. What happened to soldiers and to heroes and to people that experience it. As a PTSD survivor, I started to write DOG before I knew I had PTSD. For years I suffered from PTSD and its many manifestations. I couldn’t admit to myself that I’m suffering from PTSD because I did not want to be perceived as weak. So, I started to write DOG a few years before my psychological collapse. I had a breakdown during COVID after my team had a reunion and I met the soldier, a friend of mine, who I accidentally shot during the combat operation. I really collapsed mentally. And that was the first time I really admitted to myself that I had PTSD. I couldn’t work, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. It was very hard for me, very difficult times, so my psychiatrist and my therapist told me ‘You are a writer, go write it to help you to process everything.’ So, I came back to DOG and I started to rewrite it. I wanted to make it more interesting so I wrote it as a novel. I think it’s more reachable for people but also to experience from Geller, my protagonist, his perspective as a Commando officer.

EC: Your other book, The Girl Who Rode the White Lion; how did you get the idea for the story?

YIR: I came upon it many years ago, maybe 10 to 15 years ago, A Jewish acrobat named Irene Danner pleaded for those in the circus to hide her. They accepted to hide her, to give her a job and a new identity. And later, they also took in her sister and grandma. They hid two other families, which was very, very risky for them, because the SS and the Gestapo used to check up on the circus looking for Jews. So, it was very, very dangerous for them, but they decided to do this. As an author I was intrigued by the atmosphere of the circus. I mean, in this insane place that Europe became, and especially Germany, such a place of horrors and of drama and of craziness of what happened. So, it really mesmerized me. I couldn’t get it out of my head and I decided to write the story, but I didn’t want to write the biography so I wrote a fiction novel that deals with this circus, and what happened.

EC: There is a quote in the book that can also refer to today with anti-Semitism. Can you comment?

YIR: You are referring to, ‘The Nazis taught us to stand up for ourselves. They taught us that no one in the world would volunteer to save a Jew.’ On the contrary, many would step up to kill a Jew just for fun. I think that many a Jew was shocked that their non-Jewish friends looked the other way after October 7th. I was not very surprised. Nothing changed. From the beginning of today’s time, and when Christianity and Islam came, Jews were persecuted, everywhere in the world, in all times. 

EC: How would you describe the female protagonist, Sarah?

YIR: She did not believe in love and attachment. She’s quiet, vulnerable and has PTSD. She drinks a lot. She disassociates from herself when she drinks. She can have unattachable sex, but she cannot have long-term relationships because everyone she counted on was killed, was taken from her, and she even says it to Mark Spencer. She tells him that everyone that comes near her is dead, is killed. She’s seen a man being murdered, her house being destroyed, and her father being taken to a concentration camp and killed. She also saw her new parents being killed in Germany during a bombing and animals also killed. So, it’s very, very, very traumatic for her. And I think that she’s has classic PTSD

EC: How would you describe Mark, the male lead?

YIR: He was born with a silver spoon. In the beginning, he is a very successful American, a peacock. He likes to show off. He likes to have many girlfriends, and he cannot stay with one because he feels that he is the alpha man. 

EC: What about the relationship between Mark and Sarah?

YIR: When he falls for Sarah, it’s not only because she’s beautiful because he had many beautiful women before her. When he meets with Sarah, he has a girlfriend in New York who is very beautiful. I think he falls for her because he falls for her honesty and for the feelings and pain that she carries. Like a lot of us, he had sympathy with someone who was suffering. He went on a journey that changes from this person as not being much more sensitive to being sensitive of what happened to the Jews. Then suddenly he finds himself understanding that there is anti-Semitism around. So basically, I think he starts the book as a peacock and finishes it as someone who is much more sensitive and connected to the pain in Sarah.

EC: What do you think the role of the lion was in your story?

YIR: It’s a symbol. It’s a symbol for Jews for strength and for courage. My protagonist, Sarah, found the courage to deal with the situation. I mean, the lion was so frightening, but when she understood the situation, that the real beast is the Nazis, and compared to them, the lion suddenly is not so frightening to her. She understands suddenly that if she does not succeed in riding the lion, she will be dead and everyone she loves will be dead. So, this was the symbol she had to overcome her deepest fears.

EC: How would you describe the Nazi SS Zimmerman?

YIR: He has an inferiority complex, cruel, a control freak, a predator, and a sadist. I saw him in my mind as a combination of Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Eichmann, who were both pathetic, weak physically, and damaged people. So, it was very important for me to show this aspect that the master race was not always such a master race. He became a classic villain, because he’s such a weak person. His hatred for the Jews is based on jealousy of Sarah’s family. His childhood friend was an officer during WWI in the army, and later became a doctor, had a beautiful wife, and a beautiful home, and they were rich. Zimmerman was unsuccessful in his prior life, and became successful as a Nazi, only because he was so extreme and full of hate. He was jealous of the Jews. 

EC: What was the importance of the ring found in the lion’s stomach?

YIR: I read about the Nazi rings, which were given as a present by Himmler to officers in the SS. And the rings were more important than the officers themselves, meaning if an officer was killed, the commands were to bring back the ring. Or when an officer was dead by nature or by accident or by battlefield, the ring had to be brought back to Himmler. It was a gift only to the time the officer was alive. The ring belonged to the SS, and it was a symbol. So, when I looked for a symbol to connect Sarah, to the SS, to the lion, and to Mark Spencer, it was like suddenly as I saw it as a vision that Mark will find the ring in the lion’s stomach. 

EC: Next book?

YIR: It is titled, Jacob the Birdman. It’s about this guy that was feeling that all his life he was a bird. And, suddenly in the park, in Tel Aviv, he goes to the park and meets a strange man that encourages him to take out the bird inside of him and to become a bird. It’s very Salvador Dali, very dreamy, like.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Beyond Honor by K.B. Brodsky

Book Description

A man forged by war, paramilitary operative Kevin Rhoads is recruited for a solo extraction mission deep inside Siberia. CIA analyst Whitney Skyler’s investigation into a Russian-backed bank on American soil leads to the President of the United States.

Director Cynthia King plays an audacious gambit, leveraging a thirty-year debt of honor to save a captured American agent. But in this world of shifting alliances, even the most careful plans can unravel. Skyler faces an impossible choice: expose her mentor’s dangerous game to protect national security or reveal the truth to Rhoads. Already shattered by loss, Rhoads discovers the devastating betrayal that will transform him into a force of vengeance, leaving death in his wake.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Beyond Honor by K. B. Brodsky (the pen name for the husband-and-wife team of Karen and Bill Brodsky) is a fabulous debut novel.  It has everything that a Vince Flynn/Mitch Rapp novel had including action, great character development, and timely geopolitical scenarios with themes of loyalty, duty, sacrifice, and revenge.

There are multiple sub-plots in the book. Readers meet Kevin Rhoads in the first chapter as a 17-year-old Alaskan hunting guide and pilot who takes two US army veterans bear hunting. The veterans were so impressed with Kevin’s skills they told him to call when he finished school. He does just that, fast forwarding, to become a Delta working in the Special Activities Center. He and his team, joined by rising CIA analyst Whitney Skyler, are sent on an operation to accompany US technicians assisting Ukrainian forces. At the last-minute, Rhoads is pulled from the mission so that he can head to his father’s side, who has been hospitalized, and Skyler is called back to Washington. After hearing the team’s transport has been shot down by Russian forces with all dead, they both feel guilty for surviving.

The second plot line has real estate developer, Peter Michaels, being blackmailed by Russian spies who bailed him out of financial trouble.  Whitney uncovers a financial trail that leads from Russia back to a Michaels, a close friend of the newly elected US President Kemp.

The third plot line has Skyler also discovering during her investigation that a CIA asset believed dead is alive in a Russian prison. Rhoads is asked to do a solo extraction. Cynthia King, CIA Director of Special Situations, is behind putting Skyler in charge of the investigation and choosing Rhoads for the extraction. Plus, she uncovers a financial trail that leads from Russia and connected to the failed op that killed Rhoads teammates.

The authors have hit the ball out of the park with this debut novel as they pit US and Russian intelligence agencies against each other. Readers will take an emotional journey with the characters as they deal with loss, grief, and complicated relationships. There is a lot of action as the characters are on a quest for vengeance.

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: What’s it like writing together?

K. Brodsky: I think we have a pretty good system where Bill wrote the first draft, and then invited me to join him in the rest of the process. I think we both bring different strengths to it and we have a good system where we write on a Google Doc. All our edits, all our changes, all our thoughts are sort of off to the side in comments and nobody changes anything unless the other person agrees. I think, we got it worked out. What do you think, Bill?

B. Brodsky: I think it’s super fun. You know, putting aside the technicalities of it, we talk about it, and we have a drink over it, and we have a lot of laughs on it.

EC: Idea for the story?

K. B. B: It organically grew, where the components became more complicated, more nuanced as we were going through the story writing process. But we always knew we wanted to make this story about honor and betrayal, and we kind of had the sense that the end of the book will have Kevin and Whitney separated in some way.

EC: What was the purpose of the hunting scene in chapter one?

K. B. B: We wanted to land our character, Kevin Rhodes, in an environment where he can display his talents. We wanted to also show his very deep relationship with his father and the lodge that they work in. The grizzly bears were just a vehicle to show his talents, whether it was the shooting or his resilience when he hurt his ankle, or his confidence in flying a little plane. Once a retired Delta Force and sent to Siberia, readers see a lot of those talents come back, including flying of the plane. So, it was kind of a consistent thing throughout the book. The two hunters he was a guide for were veterans of the army. At the end of the hunt, they were very impressed with him, and they gave him a card and said, ‘When you finish college, call this number, and, there’s a job. We’re in the Delta force.’

EC: How would you describe Kevin, the male lead?

K. B. B: Kevin is determined. A tracker, brave, family minded, calm, laser focused, and went on a mission. He kind of has two sides, one when he’s on a mission, and one when he’s a civilian. We really wanted to show in his character how he is compartmentalized.

EC: Do you think some of the settings was timely?

K. B. B: I think it’s timely, because we tried to paint a geopolitical picture, but we tried to keep it relatively simple and more from the individual’s perspective. In the Ukraine part of the book, while we don’t get into the politics of it, we get into the human cost of it, the people being killed, the toll that it takes on the soldiers, since some of them don’t make it. I think the goal is if you pick up this book 20 years from now, it would still feel relevant, regardless of what was happening in the geopolitical sphere. It would still feel relevant because it’s grounded in characters, versus what was happening in the world at that time. Which is why it wasn’t written to sort of be a rip from the headlines either.

EC: How would you describe Whitney?

K. B. B: She’s is incredibly responsible. I think she carries the weight of what happened to her brother with her, and she doesn’t want to let anybody down. Part of what we really wanted for Whitney was to see growth from her from the beginning to the end. She starts out, not naive, but very earnest, and we wanted her to sort of become more complicated than nuanced as she became more grounded in these situations. But we also made a point to make sure that she didn’t become like a superhero, picking up a gun and turning into a female version of Kevin. We wanted her to have her own skills, which were more of an analyst. She learns from her mentor, Cynthia King.

EC: How would you describe Cynthia King, CIA Director of Special Situations?

K. B. B: She’s willing to do things that go outside of what would be considered good. In all these characters is this concept of being pushed beyond honor. She is pushing people, taking advantage of the debt of honor with Somers, the CIA Director, to get what she believes is necessary.

EC: What role did Daniel Komoroff, CIA asset captured by Russia play in the story?

K. B. B: I think he’s a vehicle to get King really engaged, so that she uses her debt of honor that she feels Somers owes her. So that we really see King manipulating Somers who had no choice but to say yes because of what happened in Berlin 30 or 40 years ago. King pushes Somers beyond her comfort zone. And Komoroff provided a vehicle for King to get passionate, to try to manipulate everybody, because she saw herself in him.

EC: How would you describe President Kemp?

K. B. B: He’s a political animal. I think he’s smart. I think he’s a manipulator and impulsive. He’s a politician, and I think, for better or for worse, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, he’s supposed to be kind of an amalgamation of lots of different politicians, really the worst of our politics. It’s hard to figure out exactly what they really believe in. They kind of blow with the wind, depending on their polling numbers. They are trying to manipulate people to get votes, to get money, and do not ask the right questions. I think what they believe in is power, period.

EC: What about Anya the Russian Agent?

K. B. B: We kind of set her up to be disillusioned but she does things to help Russia against the US.

EC: Next book?

K. B. B: We explore Anya more deeply in book two. We had a cliffhanger in book one because we are setting readers up for the next phase. Kevin and Whitney will be back. There is no official title yet. The setting is in Venezuela

THANK YOU!!

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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.