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Author Interview: Christopher Bowron

12/18/2015

Meet Christopher Bowron, Author of Devil in the Grass

BBB: Tell us about yourself.

CB: I am a glass half full type person and I consider myself very lucky; most of the bounces in life have gone my way. I’ve always had a creative flair, I’m very artistic. It’s strange that I ended up in sales. I own a successful real estate brokerage in Niagara on the Lake Ontario, where I live with my wife Carmen and two teenage children Jack and Molly.

I have a Bachelor of Arts from Brock University in history. It was at university that I discovered I was a pretty good writer and had way of putting together succinct sentences. I’ve never considered myself very wordy and my writing is clear.

I’ve taken a stab at writing a book several times. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but would trash them at around 40,000 words frustrated with “my” perceived imperfections. It was my wife Carmen who encouraged me to keep going when I was writing Devil in the Grass. I decided that I wouldn’t worry about the first draft and would fix the thing later. After a few more drafts and the help of an excellent editor (Lori Handelman), I ended up with something I am proud of.

I love most sports, hockey, golf and saltwater fishing in particular.

BBB: What inspired your book, Devil in the Grass?

CB: Since my early childhood, my family has spent a lot of time in South West Florida, where we have a vacation home. I love the nature that is to be found in SWF, from the abundant sea life to the starkness of the Everglades. I have this feeling that the great swamp could swallow you up in its vastness; I mean it just goes on and on forever. The kernel of an idea…I decided to create an evil family of cleaners who use the Everglades to dispose of bodies: The McFaddens, who work for a satanic cult. Of course, the cult is very good at killing people. Devil in the Grass evolved from this premise. I worked very hard on the McFaddens and their benefactor Henrietta LePley. I think that for villains to be scary, they must be believable.
I wanted to tell a story about Florida that wasn’t about the beaches. There is a dark underbelly to the state that most vacationers don’t see- real life stuff.

BBB: Tell us about your main character.

CB: Jackson Webb is a failed professional football player who had all of the tools, but no toolbox- so to speak. Jack ends up being messed up on pharmaceutical drugs and eventually finds himself on skid row due to his apathy. He lands a job with a state senator and is determined to work hard to straighten himself up.
He gets hooked up with a girl – Sarah Courtney who is involved with the Church of Set, a satanic cult which has it out for the senator and one of his proposed Bills. Jack is used and again due to his apathetic nature, finds himself in a pickle. Jack is able to change the course of the story by realizing his shortcomings by being decisive in taking on the Church of Set.
I think that one of the most important aspects of a protagonist is their ability to enact change within the storyline. It’s important that they are not simply buffeted along with the plot. Jack finds himself in many tight spots and in the end I think he becomes a character that one can truly like, as opposed to his apathetic nature, which in the beginning is… unlikable.

BBB: What are you currently working on?

CB: My next book is Called “Doc Dom”, which is about an U.S. army doctor (Dominic Tavano) who goes undercover to discover the truths behind organ trafficking in the third world and how these organs are being used in U.S. Medical institutions. Suspense- Thriller.
I have started a sequel to Devil in the Grass called: “The Senator.” Jackson Webb finds himself in another action packed paranormal mess as he seeks election to the Florida State Senate. Thriller
I am also writing a book about garden gnomes, yes the ones that sit in your garden. Didn’t you know that they are actually sentient beings that protect the families that live within the houses they watch over? Y.A. all the way.

BBB: How can readers discover more about you and your work?

CB: My author’s web site is: christopherbowron.com. I am an active blogger and my blogs can be followed through my website or at: christopherbowron.theblogpress.com
Twitter @notlrealty

Facebook: Chris Bowron
Goodreads: Christopher Bowron
Amazon: Christopher Bowron

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Author Interview: G.W. Eccles

12/14/2015

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Meet G.W. Eccles, Author of Corruption of Power

BBB: Tell us about yourself.

GWE: I’m a Londoner by birth. I read law at the London School of Economics and then went on to become a partner in one of the major financial services companies in the City. In the mid-90’s I moved to Moscow with my firm, then in 2000 I went to live in Almaty, Kazakhstan where I worked for five years as Chief Operating Officer of an US-backed enterprise fund. We had offices, for which I was also responsible, in, inter alia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which form the settings for much of Corruption of Power.

I am married with two adult children. The whole family came with me to Moscow and then to Almaty. The children went to a Russian school for several years before going to boarding school back in the UK. My wife, and our cat called Lenin, now live in the South of France, and our children both work in London.

BBB: What inspired your book, Corruption of Power?

GWE: The short answer is my experiences during the period I lived in Russia and Central Asia.

Much is spoken about the threat to personal security in the former Soviet Union countries, but personally I didn’t find this an issue – unless you worked in certain key industries where turf wars were taking place, in particular, oil and gas, mining and banking.

What did strike me soon after I arrived in Moscow, however, was how alien the business world was when compared with what I was used to in the West. All dealings required a contract, but for many Russians the terms of a contract remained negotiable long after it was signed. Management of large and small companies would run side-businesses, using their companies’ assets for personal gain – and in many ways, they didn’t try to hide this fact as they lived well beyond the standard possible on their salaries. Life outside the major ‘Westernised’ cities was incredibly harsh for the average Russian.

During this period I worked with several oligarchs to help them maximise the return from the major Russian companies they had bought for an knockdown price from an enfeebled Yeltsin government. I was repeatedly struck by how young they were – by and large, apart from senior Soviet or FSB officials, it was the young who seized the opportunities that the post-Soviet collapse in regulation made possible.

When I moved to Central Asia, many of the same factors applied. In addition, I came across significant direct interference by the security services (eg I was followed for a whole day by a KNB official in Ashgabat because I tried to take a photo of the entrance to the KNB HQ which is located right on a main street), and repeated cases of judicial corruption. Judges were not just open to bribes – they pretty much insisted on them – so cases were for the most part decided almost before they were heard.

Finally, the settings of Corruption of Power are likely to be unfamiliar to most readers. Many may have been to Moscow, but few probably have ventured to Tashkent and Ashgabat, let alone into the Karakum Desert or onto the Garabil Plateau. I travelled extensively while I lived in Central Asia and got to know these places well. Getting around, though, was never easy: a relatively short journey from (say) Almaty to Ashgabat might take two days as it meant flying first to Tashkent, then waiting two days for the onward connection to Ashgabat. Sometimes the planes were pretty basic, and sometimes the fellow passengers were highly unusual. On one occasion we had to make an unscheduled stop to unload some goats that had been tether in the aisle!

BBB: Tell us about your main character.

GWE: The main character of The Oligarch and now Corruption of Power is Alex Leksin. He is the son of Russian emigres and raised in England. He had a glittering school and university career, and was recruited by MI5 while he was finishing his MBA at Harvard Business School to work in a new financial forensic unit aimed at combating ‘big ticket’ crime by following the money. After honing his forensic skills, he concludes that the biggest and most lucrative market for his services would be Russia, and moves there. By the time Corruption of Power takes place, his reputation and his contacts are fully established, and his services are so much in demand, his success fee rises to a non-negotiable one million euros.

Back in England, one of Leksin’s hang-up was not being quite British enough. To his surprise the same problem dogs him after his move to Moscow (not quite Russian enough). He’s a man of few real friends, but those he has are very close. Key among them is Nikolai Koriakov, a friend from his Cambridge days who is now deputy minister at the Department of Overseas Development and has the ear of Karpev, the Russian President.

Leksin is a man who is exceptionally driven. It’s not just a matter of money, it’s a matter of pride that he succeeds. While his initial approach to his assignments is methodical, it tends to be his intuition in the end that sees him through. If the need arises, he can look after himself, having been in his university karate team.

One of his driving forces is the desire to reconstitute his great-grandfather’s art collection. Before the Russian revolution, his grandfather had been a collector of some repute, but when he’d fled from the Bolsheviks, he’d been forced to leave his paintings behind. Each time Leksin gets paid for another completed assignment, he buys back another of these paintings which he displays in his apartment in Skatertny Lane, right in the heart of ‘old Moscow’.

Leksin’s relationships with women tend not to run smoothly. His sister, Lena, is a highly-strung but very talented pianist who, when the book opens, is recovering from a nervous breakdown in a Swiss clinic. His engagement to Vika Ustinov, an oligarch’s daughter, was broken off following a car accident – something that proves awkward since she is now running her late father’s conglomerate, the object of Leksin’s investigation in Corruption of Power.

BBB: What are you currently working on?

GWE: I’m about half-way through the third Leksin thriller. It’s planned right through to the end in detail, but it hasn’t got a title yet. It’s slightly different from The Oligarch and Corruption of Power. In both those books, Leksin is commissioned by the President and the issue is of national importance. In the new book, Leksin is commission by an individual who has been defrauded in a massive investor scam, and for various reasons President Karpev is uncomfortable about him taking the assignment. It will take me at least another six months to finish it, I suspect.

BBB: How can readers discover more about you and your work?

GWE: I have a website: http://www.gweccles.com, and author pages on Amazon and Goodreads. If anyone has any questions they’d like to ask me, or comments on my books after they’ve read them, they can contact me via the contact page on my website. I’d love to hear from them.

Book Purchase Links:
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corruption-Power-G-W-Eccles-ebook/dp/B018XXLKAE
Amazon USA: http://www.amazon.com/Corruption-Power-G-W-Eccles-ebook/dp/B018XXLKAE
Amazon India: http://www.amazon.in/Corruption-Power-G-W-Eccles-ebook/dp/B018XXLKAE

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Author Interview: Greta Cribbs

12/10/2015

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Meet Greta Cribbs, Author of Amelia's Children

BBB: Tell us about yourself.

GC: I am currently a stay-at-home mom teaching exercise classes part-time at the YMCA. I have a degree in music education and play a variety of instruments. For pleasure I study Spanish and take dance lessons. I have been writing for most of my life. I wrote my first poem when I was nine, and that poem actually won an award in a local contest, then I started my first novel, a ghost story, when I was eleven. In high school and college I was more focused on my music than on writing, but I do have some personal poems that I wrote during that time. Amelia's Children is my first published work.

BBB: What inspired your book, Amelia's Children?

GC: I love paranormal stories, and the inspiration for Amelia's Children came from several different sources. There are definitely elements of Supernatural and Twin Peaks. Those are two of my favorite television shows, but I was feeling frustrated with both of them. I had all these ideas of how I would have written them, so I decided to make up my own story based on some of those ideas. I think I was also channeling a little bit of Harry Potter when I created the relationship between my three main characters. Knowing where my inspiration was coming from, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to create my villain, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't stealing from any of those stories. I also didn't want the ending to be too predictable.

BBB: Tell us about your main character.

GC: Well, there are two. There's the narrator, Sarah, who I based primarily on myself. Her backstory is different from mine and she's a little more outgoing than I am, but a lot of her thinking mirrors my own. The other character, David, is the real center of the story. Being inspired by Supernatural and Twin Peaks, I made him sort of a combination of Agent Cooper and Sam Winchester. Agent Cooper because he is the mysterious stranger who comes to town and investigates a crime. Sam Winchester because of his backstory, which I won't reveal here because it will give away some important plot points, but if you are a Supernatural fan, think about Sam in the first two seasons of the show and that will give you an idea. David also may have a little Harry Potter in him, though that wasn't entirely intentional.

BBB: What are you currently working on?

GC: I've started a new book that is also paranormal, but it is a little more urban fantasy than mystery. The main character's name is Damian. He has tried for five years to move on from his traumatic past, but now something has happened to one of his childhood friends. The key to saving his friend appears to be in the secrets that his family has been protecting for centuries, so now Damian has to relive some of the most horrific moments of his life in order to come to the rescue.

BBB: How can readers discover more about you and your work?

GC: People can follow my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/GretaCribbs They can also read my personal blog:http://gretacribbs.blogspot.com/

My book is currently only available on Amazon, and can be found here:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01663954Q/ref=s9_simh_gw_p351_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=176X7T7FB8G32XMDKKEB&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2079475242&pf_rd_i=desktop

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