They say you should write what you know. But I wonder if the person who came up with that phrase would think about someone writing what they know when also writing about a viral apocalypse.
Well, now they, and you, can find out, courtesy of author C.J. Leede and her new apocalyptic horror novel, American Rapture (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), in which things, and she, get very personal.
To learn how, and why, and other things, check out this email interview.
Over the years, the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” has been turned into a classic cartoon by Bugs Bunny, an iconic musical by Stephen Sondheim, and a blood bath by Family Guy.
But in the following email interview about Cursed By Fur (paperback, Kindle), her take on the classic fairy tale, author D.C. Gomez’s Red says she’s turned the hoodie lover into, “…an assassin / serial killer with a vendetta against werewolves.”
Genre can be a tricky thing, and never let it be said I don’t listen to an author when they tell me a book is one genre or another. Or a couple genres at the same time.
Which brings me to author Caitlin Starling, who, in the following email interview about her horror novel Last To Leave The Room — which is now available in paperback a year after originally being released in hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook — explains that while it has a scientist who may be sinking a city, and there’s an “impossible locked door,” and has some sci-fi flavor, Starling says, “it’s straight up horror to me.”
Usually when someone writes a novel involving a superhero, they’ve been influenced by the superheroes we all know and love: Superman, Spider-Man, and their super friends. Larger larger-than-life characters who use their superpowers for good.
But in the following email interview about his near-future science fiction superhero novel Checkmate (paperback, Kindle), author Ty Drago says his inspiration was not a powerful, larger-than-life hero with a big, cinematic history, but a smaller, more down-to-Earth character who predates them all.
Author Lisanne Norman is best known for the science fiction novels in her Sholan Alliance series.
But in her first short story collection, The Pharaoh’s Cat (paperback, Kindle), Norman is exploring her fantasy side.
In the following email interview, Norman talks about what influences these stories, as well as how she, “…wanted to show I could do more and with another genre.”
With Shadow Of The Smoking Mountain (hardcover, Kindle), author Howard Andrew Jones has reached the half-way point of his five book sword & sorcery / sword & sandal fantasy series The Chronicles Of Hanuvar.
In the following email interview, Jones discusses what inspired and influenced this third book, as well as where things stand for books four and five.
When we think of The Grim Reaper, we usually think of a man in a hooded cloak with a scythe and no sense of humor.
But in author Maxie Dara’s novel A Grim Reaper’s Guide To Catching A Killer (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — which she calls a “cozy mystery against a magical realism backdrop” — there’s more than one soul catcher, and one of them is named Kathy. Yeah.
In the following email interview, Dara talks about what inspired and influenced this novel, as well as the series it kicks off, the S.C.Y.T.H.E. Mystery Series.
If I told you author Nghi Vo’s new fantasy novel The City In Glass (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook) was about someone who loves their city, but that said city is destroyed, and that the principals involves were a demon and an angel, you’d probably think the city was beloved by the angel and destroyed by the demon.
You’d be wrong.
As for why, well, you’ll just have to read the following email interview to find out why Vo decided to defy expectations.