Today, my guest is Stephen B. King, West Australian author, and he has agreed to answer any questions I ask, so here goes:
What is your greatest temptation:
In women: Wow, what a question…OK. A woman who is flirtatious, who smiles with her eyes and hints of more to come. A woman who touches my arm as she talks to me, who is well dressed, but offers the merest glimpse of underwear – a colorful bra strap. A woman who is self-confidant, assured, intelligent, but feminine and makes it obvious, but in subtle ways, she desires me………gulp.
In food: I am a true Taurean. The way to my heart, is through my stomach. While that may be a little messy, I love my food, especially fresh, grilled seafood.
In clothes: On me, a suit, crisp shirt and colorful tie, on my partner, a backless gown in white (red is a good second)
What is your greatest weakness (example: buying shoes)? My writing, sadly. Telling stories is my passion and I’d do it non-stop if I could, but it is a very selfish pastime, so I have to find a balance so I don’t neglect my wife.
If you could have any kind of car, what would it be? James Bond’s Aston Martin DBS. Has there ever been a more beautiful car? I don’t think so. (I’m with you on that, Stephen!)
Your dream home – mountains or ocean? Mountains, preferably with a view of the city so there are things to look at in the dark as well as during the day.
What inspired you to become a writer? A song by Leonard Cohen called Nevermind. In fact one line from that song still gives me goose bumps: ‘I live among you well disguised.’ That line inspired firstly a long poem looking through the eyes of a serial killer called Forever Night. Thanks to my daughter, and then my wife who both cajoled me to explore the idea further, helped to create my fist book. I’ve now published twelve.
Do you have a daily writing routine? If so, please share. Up at five-thirty, make a green tea and write for an hour and a half. Then make coffees and take one through to wake up my wife. In addition to that, any chance I get.
What is your favorite book? Tough choice – there have been so many. I think it’s Disclosure, by Michael Crichton, followed closely by Airframe, by the same author. For those who don’t know he also wrote the books thet were turned into such movies as Jurassic Park, The Terminal Man, The Andromeda Strain, Westworld, and many others.
What is your favorite movie? Inception. I wish I was cleaver enough to have written it. Smart, and sharp that demands you pay attention.
Who is your favorite historical figure? Winston Churchil. A very funny man, who stood up to Hitler, and made the greatest speech of all time about fighting them on the beaches, etc.
If you were given the opportunity to spend a day with any person, living or dead, who would it be? Christopher Nolan. Movie director and producer extraordinaire. I’d like to ask him how he came up with the idea of filming Memento backwards to show the main characters short term memory loss issues. And the big one for those of us who love Inception: Is Cob still dreaming at the end of the film; will the spinning top keep going (dreaming) or fall (awake). That is to my mind the greatest unanswered question in movie history.
In your books, who is your favorite hero and please introduce him? Dave Barndon, in my book Domin8 was the most fun to write for. He allowed himself to give in to temptation and fell down a very slippery slope of online dating and chat rooms to alleviate his boredom. He is targeted by a murderer who kills his lovers one my one framing Dave as he goes. Dave must not only fist for his freedom but find redemption for his poor hedonistic, selfish lifestyle..
Who is your favorite heroine and please introduce her? Patricia Holmes from my Glimpse series. She is a woman who has degrees in criminal and clinical psychology and psychiatry. She is independently wealthy, yet spent her working life with the criminally insane, and teaching psychology. That is till the police come calling and ask her to help profile a murderer and allows Pat to follow her dream of becoming an investigator and helping catch the worst of the worst killers. She has all the attributes I love in women (see above answer to question 1).
What do you have out now? Excerpt, blurb, book trailers, buy links Winter at the Light is a thriller set in 1952 on a remote island lighthouse. Here is the blurb:
Forbes Lighthouse is a dangerous place. Twenty-year-old Molly McLaren agrees to tend the light when her father breaks his leg, so she leaves behind the city and her nursing career. Molly dreads the thought of three months as the sole inhabitant on the tiny island, nineteen nautical miles off the rugged coastline of Augusta in Western Australia.
Molly discovers she enjoys the solitude, and when a massive storm arrives bringing a life raft, Molly risks her life to save the unconscious man inside. On waking, he says he has lost his memory but as Molly nurses him back to health she wonders if he has. When the storm finally clears, Molly has fallen for the man she’s nicknamed John, but still has doubts about his honesty.
The real danger arrives with two men who are searching for her mystery man. They want to kill him and anyone else who can identify them, and Molly quickly learns; on a lighthouse, there is nowhere to hide.
Here is an excerpt:
Before she could change her mind, she picked up her lamp and headed back up the stairs, determined to get her check done as quickly as possible, and get back to bed; perhaps the worst of the storm will be gone by morning, she hoped.
Molly was panting by the time she stepped up into the watch room. She placed her lamp on the floor, then grasped her knees as she bent at the waist and took several deep breaths.
Molly looked out of the windows and saw an incredible sight. Forbes Reef was instantly lit up by three forks of lightning, which simultaneously streaked from the sky. They snaked across the darkened clouds and hit the reef and ocean all around her.
In the harsh, blinding flash, she could see the rain being driven at a forty-five-degree angle by the wind, and as the glare died down, it was replaced with the sweeping beam radiating outwards from the light in the watch room.
“Wow, Molly, my girl, that is some sight,” she uttered.
As her eyesight followed the beam, in the murky distance beyond the shoal, she could see the waves were mountainous as they rose and fell upon themselves to boil and bubble then rise again. It was as if the howling wind was stealing away the white caps from their tips to add to the torrential rain.
Molly no longer felt scared. The fear was replaced with awe and appreciation for nature’s beauty and wrath. Her eyes followed the revolving ray of light, loving everything that was illuminated in its glow, as thunder crashed overhead again. This time it didn’t make her jump. Molly realized she could no longer hear the wailing. It was probably just the wind through the lean-to all along, she thought.
A lightning fork flew from the clouds and disappeared into the heaving seas to her right. Then came another to her left. “Oh, my goodness,” she exclaimed, “I’m so glad I’m here to see this; it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
Molly felt warm wearing the oilskin and shrugged it off; it had become superfluous because she didn’t need to go out on the balcony. Molly could see all she needed to from inside. And there was still no sound of screaming. For a moment she hoped that wasn’t because whoever made the noise had died or passed into unconsciousness. Nature’s light show will show me all I need to see, especially with my binoculars, she decided.
Molly unhooked the Weiss Glasses, strung the lariat around her neck, and raised them to her eyes just as another obliging explosion of light flooded out from a twin fork. Under the magnification, everything became more evident, and even more visually spectacular, as she scanned the three hundred and sixty degrees around the island. Using the recurring lightning flashes and rotating beam from beside her, Molly’s vision was crystal clear in the harsh, stark black and white view.
Molly was diligent and pleased with her sense of responsibility as she studied every rock and crevice on the island and surrounding reef her from her vantage point. She paid particular attention to the rocks around the cave knowing full well she was only doing that because of the ghost story she’d heard over lunch. Once completed, Molly turned her attention to the reef, her gaze traversing across it slowly as she allowed for the waves to subside so she could see behind them when they receded. She took her time, enjoying the task, and had no idea how long her vigil lasted. When she finally lowered the binoculars, she was satisfied there was no-one in trouble. There was no shipwrecked boat that had run aground, and no one lay injured on the rocks screaming for aid, so the wailing noise was nothing more than a trick of the wind.
Molly breathed a long sigh of relief, turned and hung up the glasses. She realized she was no longer tired and made a spur of the moment decision to stay for a while longer.
New releases anytime soon? My next release will be Glimpse, The Angel Shot, book 4 in a series that was only supposed to be a trilogy. I was absolutely delighted when readers wrote and asked, and in some cases demanded, to know what happened to my characters after book 3. There is no greater compliment to pay a writer than that, and once I delved back into it, I had to agree that while I thought I had finished, my characters hadn’t, they were in peril. And so, The Angel Shot was born; now completed and contracted to my publisher. I know I am biased, but I think it’s the best one, and that has been backed up by my three favorite beta readers who all agree.
Where can eager fans find you?
Stephen B King
www.stephen-b-king.com
twitter: @stephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor
Here’s a list of my titles:
Forever Night
The Vigilante Taxi
Burial Ground
Repo
Published by The Wild Rose Press (NY):
Thirty Three Days (2019 NN Light Award WINNER)
The Deadly Glimpses Trilogy:
Glimpse, Memoir of a Serial Killer
Glimpse, The Beautiful Deaths (NN Light Award Finalist)
Glimpse, The Tender Killer
Domin8
Winter at the Light
Glimpse, The Angel Shot
Glimpse, Friday The 13th (A short story published in October)