I interview author, LaTorre Mays!

I had the opportunity to interview a fellow peer of mine, who happens to write some of the most intriguing paranormal horror stories I've come across in quite some time. His name is LaTorre Mays. His books are The Darkened Soul saga. (Photo above) As part of our effort to cross promote, I decided to interview him, and so come and join us for this interview and get to know him and his books!

AT: So LaTorre, what made you decide to become an author?


LaTorre: Ever since I could read and write, I kept to myself. Other than Saturday morning cartoons, you were most likely to find my nose in a book. Narnia. Neverland. Oz. Prydain. Those were the places I wanted to be. Those were the things I loved. Then around 4th grade, I got into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it just took off from there with me writing these little scripts that my librarian let me display in the school library.


AT: Describe your writing process. Are there any rituals or routines you go through before hitting the keyboard?

LaTorre: Ooooo...where do I even begin? LOL!!! For me and writing, usually it depends on what I'm working. I tend to let ideas fester in my head for a while...whether it is months or even years...because I start to put it to pen. I begin with characters sketches to get me more of a feel for some characters. I also mentally start to plot out where the story is going. I have the plot points, but my characters take over along the way. If I feel that I am having a hard go at it, I still start to outline to get a stronger structure to work with. When I am working on a novel or short story, I write when I can. When I'm on the trolley heading to work, on break at work, on the trolley home from work. Definitely, like my coffee so it's not unusual to find me either at Starbucks or a coffeehouse with fast internet. Then I tend to sit for an hour minimum writing. I don't do a set word count when I write, but I do like to write 10 pages a day or barring that a chapter a week. Did I mention coffee? That's usually all the routine I need before I sit and start writing. That...and a good pencil. I'm old school so I write down what I am writing before I type it up on my laptop, different genre of music in my ear. Trance. Pop. Progessive house. Rock. Ballads. Soaps.


 AT: What advice would you give to any aspiring writers out there?

LaTorre: Follow your bliss. Whether it is just one sentence a day, do what makes you happy. You will be surprised how just one sentence a day can translate over a period of time to a novel.

 Just write.

 AT: What inspired you to create the Johnathon, the main character of your Darkened Soul saga?

LaTorre: Uh...I just need to make a brief correction. While Jonathan is definitely the focus of the next book...a novella...I am working on, my main character of the saga is Daniel Westberg. What inspired Daniel? Well...he came to me one day while I was working on another novel that was just a coming-of-age YA novel. I saw this man standing on a ledge, wanting to kill himself. And while I tried to ignore the image in my head, focus on the novel I was working, it was so strong and I was so curious about why he would be on a ledge, that I stopped. I stopped what I was working on...and listened to the story he was trying to tell me. There are several of my friends who had read the first few drafts of Darkened Soul who felt that Daniel was me. One even apologized because she thought that I was brutally harassed in high school. In a way, I guess there were parts of Daniel that were me. I definitely in my life have known loneliness and isolation as well as dark times so that is a natural draw to me. The parts of the self that are hidden. The undercurrent.

Now to just mention him since I do mention him a lot as of late, Jonathan is a secondary character in Darkened Soul. In fact, he says my favorite line in the whole entire novel. It's a line which resonates with me very much. As did his conversation that he has in the novel with my villain Ursula. It was due to that exchange that I wrote a short story She Walks in Shadows (which is on www.facebook.com/darkenverse ) as well as started to write a novella Jonathan's Tale due to there was such an undercurrent to him that drew me. This jolly Nosferatu who in these small moments showed there was a sadness to him involving Ursula and I wanted to see what it was that ultimately separated them.


AT: So what can we expect from LaTorre Mays in the future?

LaTorre: Wow. For now, I'm working on Pieces of a Darkened Puzzle which my novella Jonathan's Tale will be the main part for. It's going to be a short story collection that hope will get readers used to this little dystopia world I created. It will have old short stories that I already have posted online as well as new stories made for the collection that flesh out the world. One of them is even a sequel to a short stories I posted called One or the Other dealing with magicks in this world. I hope to have the ebook out in December...and maybe hardcover as well.

I also am working on having Darkened Soul out in hardcover around the same time as well.

As far as writing beyond that, there's the Darkened Soul sequel Darkchilde that I am going to work on for Spring 2014 dealing with a character very close to Daniel. I like to mix my genres and which it will still have some of the themes in the first book, it will have a love triangle of sorts at the center and a slightly different story structure from Darkened Soul.

I also want to try my hand at a fantasy trilogy, one of the books I want to try at Nanowrimo in a few days. Unless I change my mind...LOL.

AT: Well LaTorre, I really enjoyed having you on my blog, you seem like a very passionate and talented author and I thank you for being a guest on my blog. I wish you all the best on your endeavor and I hope to read more or your work in the future!

For any of you out there reading this, be sure to check out LaTorre's websites below, as well as the links to his books!



LINK:

AUTHOR PAGE: www.facebook.com/writerguygothic

BOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/darkenverse

BLOG PAGE:  http://www.tumblr.com/blog/someplace-that-is-else

DARKENED SOUL ON AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Darkened-Soul-ebook/dp/B00DY5JMIE/

My review of "Her Sweetest Downfall" by Rebecca Hamilton.

Her Sweetest Downfall by Rebecca Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An enchanting, magical tale full of mystique, imagination and a unique twist on Romance.

Her Sweetest Downfall is a prequel to The Forever Girl series, but could be read as a standalone book. The story was structured in the traditional model, with a beginning, middle and end, so no cliffhangers here! Which was satisfying.

The story opens up with Ophelia, who wakes up one day with "Mark of the Serpent" on her neck--a painful wound that winds up being more than such. On her way to deliver a letter, she encounters a man named Ethan, who informs her that their encounter was not by chance and soon enough, Ophelia learns that the Mark of the Serpent is a sign of a calling...a call of duty, to work for the Universe! I was immediately hooked after the first few pages, and the mystery never lets up either.

Ethan guides Ophelia on her journey, who is on the brink of a new spiritual awakening and doesn''t know why. Everything is thrown on her ever so suddenly, and I felt the character struggle with her new sense of purpose as well as her newfound fears and abilities. As she embarks on a world previously unknown to her, she begins to encounter odd-worldly beings, called, Elementals, who take on the traits of Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. Rebecca Hamilton imagines characters and locales so rich, her writing is superbly detailed and I could sense the characters breathe on the page, and I could feel the atmosphere that felt straight out of a Tim Burton film.

Throughout their adventure, mistrust creeps in around the peripheral, as Ethan's true motives are uncertain; until the latter portion of the story of course. His ability to abstain from forming an emotional attachment to Ophelia contributes to this mistrust, as Ophelia is thrown into a mission, a mission that winds up being about one of the most fundamental of all our journeys in life--the mission to find ourselves, to find our purpose in life, and most of all, to find the answers to the question of all questions-- what it means to be human.



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Interview with Rebecca Hamilton- author of The Forever Girl series !

 Rebecca Hamilton is the author of The Forever Girl series, tales of Paranormal/Fantasy and Romance. She is a prime example of self-publishing success, her novels are highly acclaimed and she has garnered many fans who cannot wait for her next book--Including me! When Rebecca offered to do an interview as part of her blog tour, I was honored, so please do take this opportunity to get to know Rebecca and her work. 

Anton:  

So what made you decide to become an Author? 

  
 Rebecca: 

Truth be told, it started off as a bucket list item. “Write a Book.” Check. As it turns out, it’s hardly that simple! Writing is addicting. 

Anton:. 

 Please tell us something about yourself, especially how you came to love vampires, witches, ghosts, and the paranormal in general. 

Rebecca: 

Great question! I am not really sure what spurned my interest in the paranormal. I’ve always just loved it in film and movies. Maybe because it’s an escape—anything is possible. I am not a religious person, but I suppose there is some part of me that wants to believe in something “bigger” than life. I don’t think witches or vampires or real, but I guess it’s just fun to pretend for a little while. Ghosts, on the other hand—well, either they are real or the mind can play some amazing tricks.

Anton: 

What inspired you to create Sophia, the main character in your Forever Girl series?

Rebecca:
  
The Forever Girl series has several big characters, each with their own story to tell, but Sophia I suppose would count as the “main” character of the series, as she is the only one who we continually re-visit throughout the series. She, like most of my characters, just “came to me”. I start writing and let the character reveal themselves to me as I do so. The only thing I really knew before I started writing about Sophia was that she is Wiccan.

 Anton: 

 Do you have any specific rituals or routines that you follow before writing? Many readers such as myself, always love to ask their favorite authors what their writing process consists of.

 

Rebecca: 

I always write at night, when the kids are in bed. I play music, usually through my playlist created on grooveshark (I make a new playlist for each book). And in the actual writing process, I just . . . write. I see where it takes me. I write down ideas for future plot points and events, or sometimes I start to map out the rest of the story, but my characters are always changing things on me.

Anton:  

What advice would you give to other aspiring writer's out there? 

Rebecca: 

Persevere. Never give up. I really believe this is the number one key to any author’s success! I shiver to think what would have happened if I had given up on my writing. My life would look so different now, and I rather like the way it is  

Anton:  

What can we expect from Rebecca Hamilton in the future? 

Rebecca: 

Later this year I’ll be releasing a co-written paranormal horror story with Riley J. Ford called Circus of Lost Souls. I’m also in the editing process for Come, the Dark (book two of the Forever Girl Series). Finally, I have a literary fiction novel on the backburner and I plan to resume working on another two paranormal horror stories with author R.P. Kraul; I’m pretty excited about these. 

 Anton:

Well Rebecca, once again, I thank you for the time to conduct this interview, it's been my pleasure.To those who joined us, If you are interested in learning  more about Rebecca or the Forever Girl series, please make sure to visit Rebecca's websites listed below. She'll be partaking in various blogs over the course of November and there’s a list of blog stops and activities listed over on her BLOG, complete with opportunities to win prizes! 

Rebecca's BLOG : http://www.paranormalfantasybooks.com/

I discuss what motivated and inspired me to pen my debut novel, "The Last Overseer"

The Last Overseer by Anton Troia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not going to review my own novel, but I'll write a brief essay on what inspired me to write it.

I've always asked myself questions regarding the state of our civilization on Earth and its technological stagnancy. Sure, we're living in a world connected- plugged in by social media, confused by the blurs between CGI and reality, and of course, we're all linked by our handhelds. However, most of our technological advancement is in the toy department! The combustion engine is dirty and has outlived its usefulness. We have failed to discover some of the universe's physical laws that would help heal our planet, and if the planet can't be healed, then we're kinda screwed because we haven't developed a space program yet that would lead us into far space, and potentially solve our over-population problems.

And so I asked myself. What are the dangers of progress? And what are the dangers of no progress? Are we headed towards something Orwellian? Or something that Gene Roddenberry envisioned with Star Trek over 50 years ago? And most importantly...is humanity progressing or regressing? And why not? Why yes?

The answers to these questions can be speculated upon in my very first and very latest novel, "The Last Overseer" Expect a good blend of science fiction, paranormal horror, dysfunctional romance and the ever ongoing tug of war between science and ethics. Whilst the novel was written to entertain and be mysterious... it was also designed to make the reader ask themselves- why? and what if? What repercussions will the high tech. future of tomorrow have on our ecology? And also, what effects will it have on our psychology, physiology, political system and social structure? These are the questions I try to answer in the Last Overseer, all while wrapping them around with a high octane chase story!
Also, If zombies are your thing, then you'll enjoy this novel for sure. The setting takes place in a very near future, where both zombies and vampires must receive a cure or face imprisonment.

And so- if you do decide to read my novel, do so with caution! Side effects include bouts of intense paranoia due to psychological nudity!

Happy reading !

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My review of "The Wolf Gift" by Anne Rice

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Review re-written after I went back and re-read some parts of the novel)

The Wolf Gift really pulled me in, but it quickly lost steam after the inciting incident. It's not exactly a page-turner, but, it was a relaxing read and a perfect book to read in bed at night just before bedtime. It's easy to put down at anytime, because very little happens in this book. Don't get me wrong, Anne Rice's writing is a joy to read, and the atmosphere of the Nideck mansion and surrounding woodland is described in such rich, pristine prose. But sometimes a book can get overly descriptive. I mean, I felt as if Rice described the same bedrooms over and over again, and spent whole pages describing the furniture of a house in the later chapters, when she should've focused on pacing the mystery. Then, another gripe worth mentioning is the action scenes. There were far too many hunting scenes, where Reuben, the Werewolf, ventures out in the woods to hunt animals. This might satisfy the gore-junkies, but I think the hunting scenes were repetitive and served as filler material--henceforth, ruining the pacing of this story.

I recommend it though, to patient readers, who don't mind slow, dramatic buildup. It really pays off in the end, especially if you are interested in the science of Werewolf-ism or Lycanthropy. Anne Rice gives her take on the origin of the myth, although with a bit of fluff and sugar coating, but I liked what she was implying and felt as if some of her characters had a hidden meaning behind them and were rooted in real world history. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves philosophy as well.

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My review of "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Known as the greatest science fiction novel of all time, but perhaps it was the greatest for its time. I found it to be a fun read overall, full of quirky characters and a plot that anyone could understand. The near future setting is full of really cool technology, but the near future setting is not to far off from our present world. The science fiction was minimal, don't expect to find a lot of techno babble in this story. I thought it was more of a spiritual and metaphysical story.

On the downside, I found that the characters were a bit to overly chatty and the dialogue driven scenes dragged for a bit. Actually there was too much dialogue and the atmosphere was lacking at times.

Still, the plot driven part of story was simple, yet powerful. All in all, the message I have gotten from it is that it is best to maintain a hold of your child-like innocence if you want to stay pure of spirit.

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Interview with Mitchel Grace !

The first author I'll be interviewing is the talented Mitchel Grace, author of the Wrong Place series. I picked up his debut novel, "Wrong Place" the other day and was absolutely captivated by page one. If you love a good drama with deep, engrossing characters, then check out his books! But first, here's a few words with the book's author, Mitchel Grace.

Anton:

 So Mitchel, what made you decide to become an author?

Mitchel:

I always loved writing when I was a teenager, but I lacked the confidence to show what I wrote to anyone. When I got to college, almost every class seemed boring to me, but there was one thing that I liked about school, and that was writing papers. I excelled in writing about almost anything at school, and that made me think. I thought that maybe I could write a book, but I still wasn’t very confident. Last January, I found myself jobless and purposeless, and honestly, I didn’t really feel like I had anything to lose, so I wrote the prologue to Wrong Place. At first, I didn’t know about what I had written, so I walked away from it. My mind kept wandering back to it, however. The next day, I wrote chapters one and two, and after that, I was just hooked. Writing was no longer something that I could do, it was something that I had to do. To put it simply, I decide to become an author because writing is what I love to do.

 Anton:

 Do you have any rituals or routines that you go through before hitting the keyboard? Describe your writing process.

Mitchel:

The first thing I do before writing is find some music that goes with the scene I’m trying to write. After that, it usually all flows from there. I try to write around three thousand words every time I sit down, and I never limit myself while writing. If I have an idea, I just throw it in there because I can always edit it out later if I don’t like it. To me, that’s probably the most important thing about the writing process. You should never let there be any limitation on how you express yourself or your story.

Anton:

What advice would you give to any aspiring writers out there?

 Mitchel:

I would advise them to write what they love. If you’re writing about something that matters to you, it never feels like work. After that, I would say that they should always try to block out any negativity in their lives. Let writing be your escape and never let what you do become a job. If you can do those two things, you’ve succeeded no matter how much money you do or don’t make.

Anton:

 What inspired you to create Nathan, the main character in the Wrong Series?  

 Mitchel:

Nathan and Sam are the only two characters I’ve ever created that I feel like are literally a part of me. I was inspired to create Nathan because we always see male characters in books that have life completely figured out and who have to save whoever the leading lady is. Nathan doesn’t have things figured out, and he isn’t the muscular man that we see on every romance novel in America. He’s just a regular guy who is extremely adaptable and smart but limited in other ways. In a way, I wanted to show that a male character doesn’t always have to be the strong and brainless character that we’ve become accustomed to in action novels.

 Anton:

What can we expect from Mitchel Grace in the future?

 Mitchel:

You can expect to see me release the final Strange Visions book, Strange Visions: The Storm sometime very soon, and after that, I’ll be working on getting the sixth and seventh Wrong books out there. At that point, my two series will be finished up, so I guess I’ll have to come up with some entirely new imaginary friends to share with everyone.

Anton:

Mitchell, I would like to thank you for offering to take this interview. I wish you all the best, and I look forward to reading the rest of your novels! 

For more on Mitchel Grace and his Wrong Series, feel free to click the links to his websites below. 

*Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/Mitchel.Grace.Author?fref=ts

*Twitter username -MGraceAuthor

*Goodreads page- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7141779.Mitchel_Grace