Q&A with Author A.B. Michaels, The Jade Hunters

In The Jade Hunters, a lot of bad things happen because of a small pair of earrings.  Why pick those objects as the centerpiece of the action?

The tiger earrings, which were introduced in my historical novel The Depth of Beauty, are made of rare jade and would be valuable on their own. But as a symbol of an earlier period in Chinese history, their power would be much, much greater—and extremely deadly in the wrong hands.  I find it fascinating that innocuous objects can cause such destruction, which is why I chose them.

Both your male and female leads (Regina and Walker) have unusual fears, what some might call phobias. Why saddle each of them with such quirks?

For starters, I suffer from both of those neuroses all on my own! [laughs]. I thought it would be fun to explore those fears and how the characters cope with them. But I didn’t want it to be one-sided—that is, I wanted Reggie and Walker to be equally vulnerable and equally powerful in their willingness to help the other. But I will say, I hope I never have to face what I put them through! 

San Francisco is a beautiful city, but it has been in the news lately for having problems.  Why did you choose that as a setting for The Jade Hunters?

Both of my series take place in and around San Francisco – one is in present day and the other is during America’s Gilded Age (around the turn of the twentieth century). In fact, many of the characters in The Jade Hunters are descendants of characters from “The Golden City” series.  I grew up near the city so it’s very familiar to me—such a wonderful, fascinating place! I hope San Francisco’s board of supervisors can figure out how to help the homeless so that everyone (both visitors and residents) can exist in a safer, cleaner environment. 

What’s your next writing project?

Over the course of writing my two series, I’ve found I really enjoy the mystery aspects of the story. It’s a challenge to come up with a dire situation that isn’t immediately solved by the reader.  I’m also reluctant to let many of my characters go! So, I’m developing two different mystery series: one is set here in present day but has a “time slip” element. Leo Blunt, the private detective introduced in The Jade Hunters, meets his match and finds himself in all sorts of adventures as he pursues mysteries surrounding art objects and collectibles.  The other series, set in San Francisco after the great Earthquake of 1906, features the attorney Jonathan Perris and his assistants, whom readers met in The Price of Compassion.  I can’t wait to write them!

The Inspiration Behind Off the Grid by Robert McCaw

Readers sometimes ask me where I get my plot and character ideas. I believe that all good fiction is grounded in some germ of truth. That’s what makes stories believable. But truths from different sources can be twisted together to form believable fiction. The original inspiration for Off the Grid, for example, came from a painting my wife and I commissioned from an artist who lived in a remote part of the Big Island in a rather ramshackle house deep in a rain forest. The inside was cluttered with mismatched bric-a-brac, art supplies and partially finished paintings. I knew immediately that the house had a story to tell. The artist, an eccentric painter, exacting in rendering natural detail, was for me a character in waiting. That her husband had some sort of clandestine military background made the pair a writer’s dream.

Shortly thereafter, a small rural restaurant we frequented closed because the authorities arrested the proprietor as a fugitive from justice, and research revealed that the restauranteur was not the only wanted man hiding out in the backwaters of the Big Island. Other refugees from justice had been apprehended after living for years in remote corners of rural Hawaii. The merger of these two experiences led me to the first inklings of a story about two fugitives, an artist and an ex-military orchid grower, living in a remote dwelling off the grid.

The death of a pair of fugitives creates a mystery for the police who must discover their true identity and reconstruct their lost lives. I imagine the fugitives’ lives and create a trail of clues leading up the discovery of their identity and then to the reasons they are fugitives. But first they must be murdered and their bodies discovered.

I have long loved Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, where legend holds that Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanic fires, lives and breathes. From the early 1960s until 2018, she erupted from Pu’u O’o launching successive waves of lava down the mountain and into the sea. Pele’s fury repeatedly propelled lava through the community of Royal Gardens until she consumed all of its sixty homes. Fortunately, no one died in these eruptions, but what a perfect place for a murderer to conceal a body . . . or worse.

My fugitives had to be running from something—something sensational—like an international incident involving clandestine players. An unresolved international crisis cloaked in mystery would be perfect. One such incident that had long intrigued me and about which I had read every scrap of information available in the press and government documents came immediately to mind. Voila. I had my fugitives and a credible reason for them to be hiding. I won’t identify the incident here. No spoilers.

Most people who visit the Big Island for the first time are surprised to learn that the slopes of its five volcanoes are dotted with herds of cattle, some tended by paniolos, descendant from Mexican or Spanish cowboys brought to the island to tend King Kamehameha cattle in the 1800s. I had a dear friend who worked on the Parker Ranch, the largest ranch in Hawaii. With a fictional makeover, he and his paniolos play important roles in the story. They are suspects . . . but did they orchestrate murder?

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Criminal lawyers know that the police work closely with prosecutors whose responsibility is to win convictions. That part of Law and Order reflects reality. During my years as a practicing lawyer, I’ve both fought and assisted prosecutors, finding most to be hard working and ethical. Zeke Brown, the Hawaii County Prosecutor in Off the Grid, is a composite character pieced together from a handful of prosecutors I’ve admired. Zeke is armed with an arsenal of tactics I’ve seen used over the years. Like many prosecutors I’ve known, Zeke, who occupies an elective office, is not particularly fond of politicians. He’s one of my favorite characters and deserves a book of his own. Someday.

Chief detectives need friends and confidential sources. One such character came from the Suisan fish auction that used to take place in Hilo shortly after dawn most mornings. The man I call Hook Hao was the real-life Suisan auctioneer, a giant of man who used a short-shanked gaff to haul the catch from fishermen’s ice chests to the scales and then the sales floor. His size, his gaff, and his commanding presence on the auction floor made him a perfect model for a fictional character. And who is better positioned to inform for the police than a player in and around the Hilo Bay docks?

There are, of course, countless other moving parts to be assembled into a mystery novel, but more of them come from experiences than pure imagination.

How I Survived the Guilt of Losing a Baby by Alexis Marie Chute

When I gave birth to my first child, my sense of pride was all encompassing. I couldn’t stop smiling. I could hardly believe that I had made such a beautiful daughter. Every curve of her face was perfect and her seven-and-a-half-pound-frame fit just right in my arms. When my husband texted our family and friends, he wrote, “Alexis did amazing! Both mom and baby are doing great!” Our early visitors were also complementary. “Well done, Mom!” they told me. I felt like Super Woman. Strong. Invincible. The hero!

With all the wonderful affirmations mothers receive for delivering healthy children, it’s no wonder, unfortunately, that bereaved moms experience such inward-focused anguish.

My second experience giving birth was a stark contrast to my first. My husband and I learned – at 25 weeks gestation – that our unborn child would not live beyond the womb. The complications from our son’s cardiac tumor eventually triggered labor. The delivery room was silent that day my stomach tightened with contractions as my baby, Zachary, was born at 30 weeks. He never cried as he emerged into the cool air, and only moved briefly in my arms. I knew Zachary had passed. I kissed and rocked my baby boy; I told him I loved him and held him to my heart. The commentary following Zachary’s death was supportive, but also what you’d expect from our grief-avoidant culture.

In those moments – and in the years that followed – I felt intense shame and guilt. I could not make sense of what happened. Inwardly, I beat myself up with the ‘why’ questions: Why did my body fail me? What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?

After talking about my loss with my girlfriends, I learned that I was not alone. Many of them had experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant loss. In our own ways, we all carried the weight of our tragedies on our shoulders, even when, medically, we were not at fault.

It is human nature to crave reason. One of my family members suggested Zachary may have passed because I got pregnant with him shortly after giving birth to my daughter. One girlfriend shared with me that her father guessed her demanding work schedule caused her baby to be stillborn at 38 weeks. When Nancy Kerrigan, two-time figure skating Olympic medalist and current contestant on Dancing With The Stars, recently opened-up about her six miscarriages, I wondered: Had anyone in her life blamed her training regime for her losses? While the words of others can deeply wound, often the most scarring blame-game happens within.

As women, it is ingrained in our societal-predisposition that we are innately knowledgeable and proficient babymakers; our bodies know what to do. Therefore, when Zachary died, I felt like a complete failure. I wondered for so long: “What is wrong with me?” That question unstitched many pieces of my identity and I found myself lost as a mother, woman, and artist. At that time, I believed things happened for a reason. When my family’s nine-months of genetic testing concluded with one simple word – random – I continued to wrestle with self-doubt.

I began to lose faith in my marriage and in God. However, the more intimate loss was the faith and love I could no longer find for myself. When I got pregnant again, I struggled to picture giving birth to a child that lived. I felt like my body was a tomb, not a protective sanctuary for a baby. The fear of another silent delivery room haunted me for months.

When I worried my anxiety would hurt my next child, I tentatively tiptoed into artmaking, among other intentional healing efforts, such as therapy and meditation. After losing Zachary, I had avoided art, terrified of what grief and anguish may subconsciously appear on the canvas. That season of life I call my “Year of Distraction” in which I busied myself with everything but self-care.

In returning to artistic activities – painting, making wood sculpture, dancing around my living room, writing in my journal – I tapped into the right-side of my brain. In contrast to our left-logic-brain, the right thinks abstractly, solves problems creatively, experiments, invents, plays, and more easily goes with the flow. By being in that headspace, I made peace with the answerless ‘why’ questions.

Through storytelling, vulnerability, and creativity, I surrendered to the unapologetic yet beautiful mystery of life. There I found personal hope and freedom, not to mention my wayward identity.

Expressing myself through art gave me a healthy outlet for my pain, rather than storing it inside in a pressure cooker of guilt. It gave me power over how I was feeling in that moment. I did forgive myself for being unable to save Zachary, whether or not I actually needed forgiving. Slowly I began to realize that I could be my own hero, caring for and showing myself kindness and acceptance. Losing a baby was the hardest thing I have ever endured, but when I think back to my delivery room experiences – all four of them now – I appreciate the gift of each and every one.

An Unexpected Hero by Gail Z. Martin

Jonmarc Vahanian is the son of a blacksmith and a weaver whose world is no larger than his fishing village, until raiders destroy his home and kill the people he loves. One of the raiders curses Jonmarc with his dying breath, and as Jonmarc does his best to move forward, meeting tragedy at every turn, he starts to believe that the curse is real.

Jonmarc’s story charts an adventure that takes him across kingdoms, first as part of a traveling caravan of wonders, and then as a mercenary and smuggler. Along the way, he gains the fighting skills that will make him the best warrior of his generation, ultimately placing him in the path of destiny to be the making of kings and queens. And it all begins with a tremendously unlucky day.

Soldier. Fight slave. Smuggler. Warrior. Brigand Lord. You may have encountered Jonmarc Vahanian in the Chronicles of the Necromancer but you don’t really know him until you walk in his footsteps.

Q&A with Paullina Simons, The Tiger Catcher

Your last epic love story began with The Bronze Horseman, which you published in 2001. Why have you waited so long to go back to this type of story?

I will admit that after The Bronze Horseman I wondered whether or not I would ever write another book. I honestly thought there was nothing left in me to write about. Then I began the second book in the saga.

 And then I had another idea, and another...

 In 2014, I had an idea for a story about lost love and one man’s desperate search and an adventure to make things right, to get a second chance, to try again.

The story got bigger and bigger. I didn’t realize at first it was going to be this huge. But after about a year of writing and thinking about it, I knew. It just kept growing.

Without giving anything away it’s fair to say that The Tiger Catcher has some mystical elements. You’ve been writing for twenty-five years, why enter this realm now?

I can’t say it was an intentional move. The fact is that, for me, this story came from the same place that all my others have come. I simply had an idea. In this case, the idea was about a man who loved a woman so much he bridged time and space to find her.

The book also delves deeply into historical London, how did you do your research for that? How did you select the time periods in which to base your story?

I lived and worked in London from 1984 to 1990, so I always felt a real connection to the city. And, of course, literature makes it hard not to have a sense of the history of London. There’s Shakespeare, Dickens, the romantic poets. As a child, the worlds of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Sherlock Holmes were as real to me as my own. For me, the history of London feels like the history of Western civilization AND of my life. 

As for research, living there helped. And I have been back many times since I left.

I’ll admit I was a bit jealous of my daughter’s favorite writer, Cassandra Claire, who is an American but lived in London for many months while she was working on her 19th century supernatural stories set in England. I wish I could do that. Maybe when the kids are all out of the house.

The time periods were an organic process that evolved from the story, itself. Where were Julian and Josephine in the narrative of their love affair? What stage was the progress of their souls? Where did they begin, where were they going, where did they need to be? And so each part of their story informed the next part, and the next. It was almost as if they, themselves, chose the settings for their adventures.

You’ve published at least five books in your Bronze Horseman saga (not including a memoir and a cookbook), yet you published those novels over fifteen years. The End of Forever books will all be publishing in a single year. How did that come about? Why such a different publishing approach?

The Bronze Horseman saga grew over a number of years. For me, it started back in 1996, with an image of a soldier and a young woman walking through night-time war-torn Leningrad. They were desperately in love, and they were starving. I saw them, and that image carried me for years, past writing and publishing Eleven Hours, my third book; and past a trip to Russia, and the writing of my non-fiction memoir Six Days in Leningrad. Finally, in 1999, I wrote The Bronze Horseman. I thought I was done, but the story wasn’t done with me. I kept coming back to it over the years, new stories kept popping up, I kept writing, and writing. Over twenty years, a million and a half words came from that original wordless image of a soldier and his beloved.   

The End of Forever trilogy was different from any books I’d previously written because the entire story arc came to me all at once in one two-hour sitting. It wasn’t an acorn, it was an entire oak. I didn’t realize how big an oak it was until I finished the first book and saw that I had barely scratched the surface of the story, maybe planted the roots and tilled the soil. In total, I spent five years planning, writing, and then polishing these books.

But, the fact that we had all three books finished — and we didn’t have to wait a year or three for me to conclude the story — allowed my publishers to come up with this creative publishing approach. They wanted to tap into the way we as a culture consume our entertainment. We binge on it. We want it all, and we want it now. It wasn’t always the case, but it is the case today.

The Tiger Catcher is billed as the first book in a trilogy. What can readers expect from books 2 and 3, A Beggar’s Kingdom and Inexpressible Island?

The Tiger Catcher is the first step in an odyssey. The book tells the story of Julian and falling in love, and it’s the story of how we deal with loss and how far we’ll go to save the ones we love. All I can say about the next two books is that there is a lot more story to tell.

Usually your readers have to wait at least two years for a new book from you, and now they will be getting three books in a single year. Have you thought about what’s next?

Yes and no. On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine starting something new since I have been in Julian’s world for five straight years. On the other hand, I started feeling the itch for my next book a year ago, and I have another three that I’m dying to get to.

You published your first novel, Tully, twenty-five years ago. Now, twelve novels later, the End of Forever books are a departure for you in terms of storytelling and publishing. Did you make a conscious decision to shake things up in your work and career?

I would like to say yes, that it was a considered choice, but the reality is that when an idea comes, it comes. And this was the story that came; it just happened to stay longer than most of the others. And the publishing evolved from the nature of the story itself, not the other way around. I can’t say that it won’t happen like this again, but I’ve given up making plans. Much of writing stories for me is a welcome surprise.

Can readers hope for more books in the Bronze Horseman saga? Or other stories with any of your other characters?

On the one hand, I keep saying no to more books in The Bronze Horseman saga, but on the other, I’m five books into the trilogy, that was originally intended to be a single book. I actually have an idea for another Bronze Horseman story, something I’m still toying with and thinking about.

 I often think about the characters in my books and where they’ve ended up. Thus, I also have an idea for a story with Spencer O’Malley from Red Leaves and The Girl in Times Square. We’ll see.

Q&A with Victoria Helen Stone, False Step

The main character in this novel, Veronica Bradley, has an exterior life that’s completely different from her interior life; the way others see her is not at all how she sees herself. What drew you to a character who embodies such a contrast?

I’ve always been interested in secret lives. I’m sure the roots of that started with my small-town Midwestern origins. There are all these tidy little communities where everyone knows each other and yet… life keeps happening. Divorces and affairs and quiet dreams that no one else knows about. I’ve had the same experience as a suburban mom. When my kids were young, I used to sit at the park and wonder what the other parents were thinking about. Because surely it couldn’t just be soccer.

Your novels typically feature complex female protagonists (Veronica is no exception), and you’ve been praised for telling the kind of stories about women that don’t exist elsewhere. Is this something you consciously set out to do, and if so, why?

I absolutely set out to tell stories about complicated women, because these are the women I know and love in my own life. It’s funny to me that we can treasure our sisters and our friendships with truly flawed women and want the best for them, but so often when we’re reading we want the female protagonists to be above reproach. We want them to be perfect so we can know they are worthy of happiness. But we complicated women are lovable, too. When I started writing, I desperately wanted to see women I know on the page, so I make an effort to write my own protagonists in that vein.

Central to this novel is the joy and heartbreak of motherhood. The book would be a very different one without the presence of Sydney, Veronica’s daughter. How do you think being a mother affects Veronica’s perceptions and her decisions in False Step?

Veronica feels she has an obligation to preserve her marriage for the sake of her daughter. She’s past the point of feeling she owes her husband anything, but she can’t bring herself to dismantle the life she’s build for Sydney. But of course, there are trade-offs.