Interview with thriller author Michael Ross

Michael Ross is here today to chat with me about his newest book, a mystery, thriller, romance titled, Hand Over Fist.

During his virtual book tour, Michael will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to one lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Welcome, Michael. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

It was a strange and twisting road that led to the publication of my first novel. From my humble beginnings, as an office clerk, to ownership of a multi-million dollar business I always maintained my love for literature.

Born and raised in Bristol, England. I spent most of my life in business, my companies turning over in the region of $500 million. The majority of that time marketing cars, eventually owning the largest Saab specialist in the world, before a bitter divorce forced me rethink my priorities. Particularly between 2003 and 2005 when I had to accept that I was no longer a millionaire but literally penniless. I avoided bankruptcy by the skin of my teeth and slowly rebuilt my life.

This led me to the life changing decision to leave the bustling city and move to live halfway up a mountain in the Welsh valleys. At the same time I started a part time six year English Literature course at Bristol University, and attended creative writing classes at Cardiff University. I left school at sixteen and this was my first taste of further education and an immense challenge.

I eventually adjusted my thinking to the academic life, and on 30 June 2015 had confirmation of my 2.1(Hons) degree from Bristol University. At the same time I also won the prestigious Hopkins Prize for my essay on Virginia Woolf and the unsaid within her text. Now the university courses are finished it will, with any luck, gives me plenty of extra time that I can devote to my fiction writing.

Thanks to the university experiences, my interest in English literature has flourished over recent years. Hopefully I have evolved as a writer from my earlier work in short stories (over ninety of them.) Although interestingly my first three novels have all been developed from a long forgotten short story.

Life is, once again, very good, and I live very happily halfway up a mountain, in the Welsh Valleys, with my wonderful partner Mari, and our rescue dog Wolfie.

Please share a little bit about your current release.

Martin Russell spends his last coins on a bus ride out of the city with barely enough motivation to face the future. The following day, a chance incident near his home triggers a sequence of positive opportunities for him, including a deepening relationship with an old friend, Hannah. Old friends rally around him and life is exceptionally good for Simon until he receives a phone call informing him that Hannah has disappeared. As he begins his search for her he uncovers details that prove she is not the uncomplicated person he believed her to be.

People's lives change forever, and who can be trusted? Certainly not the obsessive stalker Nash, nor the slimy underworld figure they call The Chemist. How about successful entrepreneur, John Staples, better known as Pin-up, is his renewed friendship with Simon genuine or suspicious? And what is going on with Zachary and Danny? What could a schoolboy drug dealer and a disgraced ex-copper have in common, other than Zachary's attractive sister Zoe?

How do all these people's lives interact? You might well consider asking The Chemist's terrifying enforcer, Xenon. But that could be a big problem, because no-one in their right mind ever questions Xenon...

What inspired you to write this book?

The story evolved from a short story I had written a few years earlier and I was intrigued about the protagonist's past and future.


Excerpt from Hand Over Fist:
      A shabbily clothed man closes the door to his flat, connects the ancient padlock and turns the key. He’s not sure why he bothers. There's nothing inside worth stealing but that doesn't seem to matter much around here. The route to the ground is an outside metal staircase and his shoes scuff away flakes of rusty black paint as he descends.

Disparate pieces of litter and waste lie scattered around his feet as he scrapes his way through the alley. Waste bins as tall as giants line the walls with an old uncomfortable stench; soiled newspapers and grubby polystyrene boxes are strewn like sacrifices at their base. An ancient rat, its body mottled with the scars of many lost battles, can hardly be bothered to drag its feet under the wire fence and stops briefly to watch the man's progress before sliding out of sight.

The silence is eerie and unsettling as the man shuffles slowly towards the main road with its tired charity shops and dirty fast food outlets. This is a street where money resists journeying too often. Fumbling through his pockets, he finds a half stub of a cigarette and sucks it to life as if his whole being depended on it. He drinks in the silence. He is a head with no thoughts, a body with no life.

The plastic watch on his wrist shakes. It is time to go. Half heartedly, he kicks an empty tin of dog food and heads for the bus stop. The street is empty, as if the world has ended and nobody has told him. He hovers in the shadows for a few minutes before the bus arrives, lumbering like a slug as it makes its grateful way out of the city.

What exciting story are you working on next?

The third in the Out of Hand Series, the second is already with my editor and more or less done and dusted. This third book will spend more time with Pin-up and Xenon who readers seem to really like.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Tomorrow.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

More or less full time. I do some work with a charity that works with individuals struggling with drug and alcohol dependency, which takes up a little time. I get up, have breakfast, walk the dog, and then react to what happens when I switch on my PC.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I get through a mountain of chewing gum

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A professional footballer.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I have four books coming out this year, including a light hearted romance and another short story anthology.

Links:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Thank you for being a guest on my blog!

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Special excerpt for dystopian sci-fi novel Nighthawks by Jeremy Flagg

I’m featuring a special excerpt from Nighthawks today. This is a dystopian sci-fi novel from Jeremy Flagg.

During his virtual book tour, Jeremy will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!

Jeremy shares a bit about himself:

I’m high school graphic design and marketing teacher, at a large suburban high school in Massachusetts. Working as a high school educator and observing the outlandish world of adolescence was the inspiration for my first young adult novel, “Suburban Zombie High.”

My inspiration for writing stems from being a youth who struggled with reading in school. While I found school assigned novels incredibly difficult to digest, I devoured comics and later fantasy novels. Their influences can be seen in the tall tales I spin.

I took the long route to becoming a writer. For a brief time, I majored in Creative Writing but exchanged one passion for another as I switched to Art and Design. My passion for reading about superheroes, fantastical worlds, and panic-stricken situations would become the foundation of my writing career.

I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2006 and continue to write an entire novel every November. Now I am the NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison to the Massachusetts Metrowest Region. I also belong the New England Horror Writer’s Association and to a weekly writing group, the Metrowest Writers.

A little bit about Nighthawks:

Twenty-six-year-old painter Conthan Cowan takes art to a shocking frontier…

His debut exhibit features the transformation of his high school friend, Sarah, as she went from a shy, soft-spoken girl to a Child of Nostradamus—an individual gifted with extraordinary abilities. Living in a society where the Children of Nostradamus are captured by the government, Conthan’s exhibit draws attention from officials and protesters alike.

A government psychic may be dead, but that doesn’t stop her from manipulating the future…

The deceased White House aide is only remembered for her failed assassination attempt on the president decades before Conthan was born. Foreseeing her own death, she scribed letters to bring together specific Children of Nostradamus on a mission that will change the world.

On the night of the gallery exhibition, Conthan receives one of those letters…

whispers from the past direct him to visit Sarah, the subject of his paintings, who like many Children of Nostradamus, is being detained in a government research facility. It’s there he finds himself aligned with a rogue group of Children on a mission to prevent a dark future.

As a dark future unfolds, there's only one hope to stop the destruction of the world...

The Children of Nostradamus.

Excerpt from Nighthawks:

“…Seabrook, New Hampshire is gone. If you’re just tuning in, the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant has just exploded. We have no word yet on what caused the explosion, but we do know there was a catastrophe resulting in failure of the systems at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.”

“God help them,” said the woman at the news desk.

He could hear Elizabeth gasp at the announcement. His mind was moving a million miles an hour. His wife, still covered in sweat and grime from giving birth, his newborn son, his office calling him to alert him to the news, all of it caused his head to swim. He was unsure of what his next move would be.

The television flickered and turned to static. Mark reached up and smacked the side of the box. The static began to take the shape of a person. He stepped back to see the solid outline of a man on the TV.

“United States of America,” said a voice through the static, “land of the free and home of the brave. We are calling out your discreet operations. We know all about The Culling. Individuals who for years have been in your employ, using their more-than-human abilities to further your goals, will not die in vain. Killing empaths, slaughtering clairvoyants, and the genocide of telepaths will be responded to in kind.”

“Eleanor,” he said in a hushed voice as he realized what they were talking about.

“The United States has declared war on the wrong people. We can see you coming. We can hear your plans. We will not be eliminated. You’ve seen our reach.”

  

Links:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

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Special excerpt from The Dead Survie by Lori Whitwam

We’re wrapping up the week with a special excerpt from the zombie / post-apocalyptic novel Fallback: The Dead Survive, Book 2 by Lori Whitwam.

During her virtual book tour, Lori will be awarding (1) one prize pack consisting of a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card, plus a signed print copy of Fallback, as well as bookmarks and magnets (international) to one randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

A little bit about the author:

Lori spent her early years reading books in a tree in northern West Virginia. The 1980s and 90s found her and her husband moving around the Midwest, mainly because it was easier to move than clean the apartment. After seventeen frigid years in Minnesota, she fled to coastal North Carolina in 2013. She will never leave, and if you try to make her, she will hurt you.

She has worked in public libraries, written advertising copy for wastewater treatment equipment, and managed a holistic veterinary clinic. Her current day job, conducted from her World Headquarters and Petting Zoo (her couch) is as Managing Editor for Limitless Publishing, as well as editing for a select list of indie author.

Her dogs are a big part of her life, and she has served or held offices in Golden Retriever and Great Pyrenees rescues, a humane society, a county kennel club, and her own chapter of Therapy Dogs International.

She has been a columnist and feature writer for auto racing and pet publications, and won the Dog Writers Association of America’s Maxwell Award for a series of humor essays.

Parents of a grown son, Lori and her husband were high school sweethearts, and he manages to love her in spite of herself. Some of his duties include making sure she always has fresh coffee and safe tires, trying to teach her to use coupons, and convincing the state police to spring her from house arrest in her hotel room in time for a very important concert. That last one only happened once—so far—but she still really, really appreciates it.

A little bit about Fallback:

After being rescued from a brutal band of marauders, Ellen Hale rebuilt her life in the fortified neighborhood that became her home. A heartbreaking decision and devastating loss pushed her to become a fierce fighter, because weakness only got you and those you loved killed.

Now her community is facing a deadly threat, and Ellen has another choice to make.

Ellen volunteers as a member of fallback team three, tasked with establishing a temporary refuge for their citizens in the event their community is overrun by the enemy. As the danger intensifies, she and her adopted sister, Melissa, set off with the rest of their team on the road trip from hell.

Their mission is cloaked in secrecy, but suspicions of a traitor arise.

Something is affecting the zombies’ migration patterns, and when blacksmith Tyler Garrett is discovered trapped in a farmhouse, the team refuses to trust him. But Ellen believes his story, and it’s not just because of his rugged, blond good looks and soft-spoken manner—his skills can greatly benefit their team.

As the team struggles to reach the fallback, previously secure locations are overrun, and their chances of success seem remote. With the likelihood of a traitor nearly certain, and the lives of everyone she loves at risk, Ellen must figure out who to trust before the traitor—or the zombies—destroy them all.

Is there a spy among the fallback team,or is there another threat lurking in the Kentucky hills?

An excerpt from Fallback:

Chapter Three

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” I said gently. I was familiar with Mason’s sadistic nature and penchant for blood. I’d been his damned bloody canvas too many times.

“I know that now,” Melissa replied, “but I didn’t then. I started struggling, and the guy hit me. Mom started screaming again and fought like crazy. She caught Mason a good one in the face, and he lost it. He hit her, and she fell. Then…” She swallowed and looked back and forth between Rebecca and me, not speaking until we raised our eyes to hers. “Then he cut her. He took that butterfly knife of his, and he cut her throat.”

Rebecca uttered a soft fuck and stood, moving stiffly to the kitchen window.

I couldn’t help it. I was crying, tears silently burning down my cheeks, even if Melissa’s eyes were dry. I flashed back to Mason shooting Matt in the warehouse, and his body sliding to the floor. It was…too much.

“So that’s it,” Melissa said. “We stayed where it was familiar, like as long as we were quiet and patient nothing bad would find us. You can’t get hung up on familiar. You have to think about changing, even if you don’t want to, before you decide what to do. Falling back on familiar just because it feels safe is a sure way to get killed.”

We both stood up then, and I pulled her to me in a tight hug. And finally, she cried. Rebecca stood stiffly a short distance away, looking very much like she needed to kill something. Or several somethings.

Once the tears subsided and faces were mopped, I said, “I get it now, honey. I see why you’re willing to go, and I know how hard it was for you to make that decision.”

Rebecca grabbed her sword sheath and strapped it over her back. She gave Melissa a hearty slap on the shoulder—again, comforting wasn’t really in her skill set—and said, “Well, chicks, it’s about that time. Let’s go find out if we’re hittin’ the road.”

Fifteen minutes later we had our answer. We were leaving the Compound. We were all officially part of fallback team three.

Time for a post-apocalyptic road trip.

Links:

Facebook | Twitter | Website | Publisher | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

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