interview: Author Peter Lefcourt

What did it mean to become American in the mid-20th century? Peter Lefcourt goes beyond assimilation to take a nostalgic and dramatic look at what makes us truly American in AN AMERICAN FAMILY. Lefcourt reaches back to his own family and memories to inform this saga. “Though this is not an autobiographical novel, it is, in a larger sense, a ‘cultural autobiography’ – specifically, that of Jewish-Americans born in the 1940’s. Our experiences are similar to that of all immigrants – Italian, Irish, Vietnamese, Iranian, etc. – as we all navigate the tide of our new culture.”

To celebrate the release of AN AMERICAN FAMILY, here's some interview I have with him and wanted to share with all all of you ;p


D: Is there a specific element in your writing that you find most challenging?

PL: Writing is not easy and never gets any easier, no matter how much you do it. There is nothing that requires more concentration, patience and inner self-criticism than writing. The more I do it, the more I edit. As the zen proverb goes, words are the enemy of the writer. Trust the music, not the notes.

D: Which author inspires you most?


PL: Patrick O’Brian. The twenty novels in the Aubrey-Mathurin series are consistently readable, absorbing and enlightening. I have read all of them at least twice, and some three or four times.

D: What is your guilty pleasure?


PL: Chocolate and champagne every Sunday afternoon with my wife.

D: You’ve had a long, successful career in Hollywood— what was your favorite project?


PL: “Beggars and Choosers,” the two-year Showtime series that I co-created (with the late Brandon Tartikoff), wrote and produced, 1999-2000. The show was a satire on the television business, a subject I know very well; it was a lot of fun to write about the universe and people that I was familiar with. Moreover, Showtime gave me a great deal of creative freedom. That, and the collaboration with some very talented, co-writers, directors, and actors – made the experience particularly rewarding. It’s not often in Hollywood that creative egos merge and work well together, and “Beggars and Choosers” was clearly a lovely exception. 


D: Do you prefer writing screenplays or novels? 


PL: Novels, because they are yours and don’t have to be shared with directors, actors and producers. And because with novels the writer’s voice still matters. However, occasionally the loneliness of writing books gets to me, and I seek out and enjoy the collaborative experience of screenwriting. HHHooooo



Book Excerpt

His fraternity brothers were in a rowdy mood. There was a keg party scheduled at the house that Saturday night, and the prospect of getting laid was in the air. The brothers lounged around the tables bragging about all the sex they were going to get. Michael filtered it out. Most of it was bullshit. The more you talked about it, the less you got. He had a girlfriend, Naomi Berks, whom he had met last spring and with whom he’d been going steady ever since. They’d been doing it pretty regularly in his room beside the kitchen, but he didn’t have to talk about it. It was nobody else’s business. He was taking Naomi home for Thanksgiving next week. She was from Shaker Heights and had never been to New York City. His sister Elaine had volunteered to share her room. On the phone, his father had asked, Mickey, is this the one?

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About the Author

Peter Lefcourt

Peter Lefcourt is a refugee from the trenches of Hollywood, where he has distinguished himself as a writer and producer of film and television. Among his credits are “Cagney and Lacey,” for which he won an Emmy Award; “Monte Carlo,” in which he managed to keep Joan Collins in the same wardrobe for 35 pages; the relentlessly sentimental “Danielle Steel’s Fine Things,” and the underrated and hurried “The Women of Windsor,” the most sordid, and thankfully last, miniseries about the British Royal Family. He is a 30 handicap golfer, drinks too much good wine, and has never been awarded the Nobel Prize for anything.

interview: Author James Macomber

Hello peeps! We got James Macomber in the house today. I would to welcome the author to my blog with an interview. I would love to suggest all of you to read the book compilation of great stories including so many brilliant authors. Without further ado, James Macomber.

D: What is your guilty pleasure?  


JM: Some things are better left unsaid :-) but, confining this answer to the literary world... I, of course, read thrillers. But almost as much, I read histories, British history in particular. If I have a guilty pleasure, however, it will be Austenalia is that a word?). I only recently read Pride and Prejudice and loved it. So much so that I now look for the...I'm not sure what they're collectively called...derivatives, spin-offs, maybe?   I particularly enjoy Carrie Bebris' Mr. and Mrs. Darcy mysteries.    

D: Describe your favorite meal.   


JM: New England Clamboil. That's clamBOIL, not clamBAKE. ClamBAKEs are the hot stones in the sand tradition and they're good enough but a clamBOIL involves a huge pot with clams at the bottom covered in water, then all varieties of meats and sausages and sometimes fish then potatoes, eggs, onions on top. The pot is covered and the liquid brought to a boil then a simmer and everything cooks in the steam from the simmering clams. Moist and with a flavor that isn't duplicated anywhere...not even in a clamBAKE.    

D: If you were not a writer, what would be your career?   


JM: Well, I was a lawyer for a while, among other things. As some bios show, I have a rather eclectic background. My brother is an archeologist and that work utterly fascinates me. My older sister is a librarian and I have often said I would be very happy as a librarian or owner of a bookstore. But, way back when, my original plan was to be a history professor. I think that might still apply though at this point in my life, I think I'd enjoy being a historian – just reading and research, no teaching. Coming full circle, I'd probably like to write historical fiction. Hmm, maybe I will.    

D: If you could time travel, which year would be your destination?   


JM: Wow, that's a tough one. Some time in British history, probably. Most any time really. But if I have to pick one, maybe mid-sixteenth century Edinburgh. According to my brother's family genealogy work, we're first cousins to Mary Queen of Scots, something like fourteen times removed and I'd like to meet her – preferably while her head was still attached. Or a few years earlier, our mutual grandfather, James IV of Scotland. And Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities to visit. But then, being accustomed to twenty and twenty-first century amenities, I'd not enjoy the privations that go with that time period. Now if there was a nice Marriott in sixteenth century Edinburgh...    

D: What inspired your contribution to LOVE IS MURDER?   


JM: Actually, the story grew out of the characters I've created in my novels. I write about a Washington DC-based international law firm with ties to the intelligence community...from which some of their lawyers are recruited. The central characters of John Cann and Katherine Price are two such individuals, highly competent and highly accomplished, both in their pasts and in their presents. They were colleagues for years but finally became a couple after the third novel, “A Grave Breach”. So when the call went out for 'romantic thrillers' for “Love is Murder”, it was a matter of setting the scene in London, with Katherine representing a client...and then bad things start to happen. And to what lengths will one go to save the other?


James Macomber – Execution Dock

“No.” Refusing to look at the woman lawyer seated across from him, Sarnath Dutta addressed his remarks to the male magistrate. “I have a superior order from the Sharia court of Jessore that I, as father, have all rights.” “No, Mr. Dutta.” Katherine Price, senior partner with Loring, Matsen and Gould, leaned forward and just as pointedly addressed the dark-skinned Bengali man directly. “You married Mrs. Dutta in the United States. That marriage produced two children, now four and six. The marriage failed and divorce proceedings ensued, also in the United States. For good and valid reasons—we won’t  get into the issues of abuse unless we have to— that court awarded sole custody to Mrs. Dutta. You received specific and, under the circumstances, generous visitation.”

About the Author

James Macomber is the author of the international legal thrillers featuring former Special Forces/NSA/CIA operator, now lawyer, John Cann—whom Booklist described as a strong, multilayered protagonist with the star power to keep this series going for a very long time”—along with an ensemble cast of memorable characters in a Washington, D.C., international law firm with very close ties to the intelligence community. At one time or another, Macomber has been a serviceman, student, bartender, waiter, salesman, tennis instructor, actor, lawyer, photographer and writer. This eclectic background—or checkered past—is reflected in the range of subject matter for his novels, which include terrorist networks in academia in bargained for Exchange, assassinations in the Netherlands during the trial of the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombers in Art & Part, atrocities, international crime and human trafficking with the Bosnian war crimes trials as the backdrop in A Grave Breach and, in Sovereign Order, the horrifying prospect of a catastrophic WMD attack on the “crown jewel of Formula 1 racing,” the Monaco Grand Prix. When he’s not hanging out on Siesta Key, Florida, Jim is completing work on his fifth novel, Extraordinary Rendition.

Visit his website at www.jamesmacomber.com.

Please not to forget to visit http://booktrib.com/blog-tour-love-is-murder-heart-pounding-stories-of-romance-suspense/

interview: Author Andrea Kane

Today I have author Andrea Kane to the blog and happy to have and interview with her. She's on tour promoting the new romantic suspense anthology, "Love is Murder", to which she contributed a story, entitled LOCKDOWN.


D: What is your guilty pleasure? 


AK: I don’t even have to ponder this one. Ice cream. Always ice cream. If I could, I’d take a quart (maybe even a half-gallon if I had room J) of homemade ice cream, a giant spoon, and eat it all in one sitting. Too bad broccoli and ice cream can’t switch places in terms of calories, fat content, and healthy eating!

D: Describe your favorite meal.


AK: I’d start with a Caesar salad, move on to filet mignon and lobster tails with a lovely glass of Beaujolais, and end with some fabulous profiteroles. I’m getting hungry just answering the question.

D: If you were not a writer, what would be your career?


AK: I can never answer this question, because I can’t imagine being anything BUT a writer. I almost went to law school, but then my writing called me back. It’s no use. I’m just a diehard storyteller.

D: If you could time travel, which year would be your destination? 


AK: I’m fascinated with Regency England, which is why I set most of my historicals there. I’d have to visit some of the grand balls of the nobility, see the carriage rides through Hyde Park, and watch the Bow Street Runners in action. But I could never deal with the chamber pots!

D: What inspired your contribution to LOVE IS MURDER? 


AK: I really wanted to give my readers romantic closure on FBI agents Sloane Burbank and Derek Parker. But I was also dying to mix in one of my new Forensic Instincts team (the series I’m immersed in right now). “Lockdown” gave me the opportunity to do both, and to do it in a romantic setting and a life-threatening situation.

About the Author

Andrea Kane’s psychological thriller The Girl Who Disappeared Twice became and instant New York Times bestseller, the latest in a long string of smash hits. It introduced Forensic Instincts, and eclectic team of maverick investigators, each with different personalities and talents, all with one common bond: a blatant disregard for authority. The Line Between Here and Gone is the next exhilarating installment in the Forensic Instincts series. Armed with skills and talents honed by years in the FBI and Special Forces, and training in behavioral and forensic psychology, the team solves seemingly impossible cases while walking a fine line between assisting and enraging law enforcement.

With a worldwide following and novels published in over twenty languages, Kane is also the author of eight romantic thrillers and fourteen historical romances. She lives in New Jersey with her family, where she is plotting new ways for Forensic Instincts to challenge the status quo.

About the Book

Prepare for heart-racing suspense in LOVE IS MURDER, edited by New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown, this original collection features 30 of the hottest bestselling authors and new voices writing nerve-racking romantic suspense today. Bodyguards, vigilantes, stalkers, serial killers, women (and men!) in jeopardy, cops, thieves, P.I.s, killers—these all-new stories will keep you thrilled and chilled late into the night.

 Go on vacation with Allison Brennan’s Lucy Kincaid, where she saves a man from drowning, only to discover he is in far greater danger on land. Meet Roxanne St. Claire’s “bullet catcher”—bodyguard Donovan Rush—who may have met his match in the sexually charged “Diamond Drop.” Debut author William Simon shows us what happens when the granddaughter of the president of the United States is kidnapped. And Lee Child’s pitch-perfect “I Heard a Romantic Story” puts a whole new spin on LOVE IS MURDER.

Love Is Murder is the third Thriller anthology written exclusively by members of International Thriller Writers, Inc. Barely seven years old, ITW has a roster that reads like a who’s who of thriller writing, with 1635 members representing 28 countries worldwide and over three billion books in print. Headed by current co-presidents Douglas Preston and Kathleen Antrim, its board of directors has included such notables as Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Steve Berry, James Rollins, M. J. Rose, Carla Neggers, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell and David Hewson. More information is available on the ITW website, www.thrillerwriters.org.

Book Excerpt

It was times like this that Claire Hedgleigh hated her psychic gift. Her best friend was about to get married. The chapel was alight with anticipation and joy. But all Claire could sense was darkness. Dark energy. Filling the room. Hovering over the fairy-tale setting.

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