Let's interview your main character! Contact me now for an inclusion. It's FREE!

Are you an author looking to give your book character some extra attention? 

Do you want to give your readers a deeper understanding of your character's personality, motivations, and story?

If so, Book Buddies can help you out!

I am currently offering an interview service for book characters, where I will provide a set of questions to help you bring your character to life. 

Simply email me for the interview questions below, and I'll send them in a document for you to get started: info@louisewise.uk

Your readers will love getting to know your characters on a deeper level!

 Your interview will be posted here and on Facebook and Goodreads.

Requirements:

Book cover.

Use a character picture if you have one (make sure you own the copywriter).

Purchase page link (I prefer universal).

Link to the author’s website.

Supply up to three social media links (excluding your email) if possible.

If you wish, supply a short scene of up to 500 words.

Answer up to 15 questions from those below, less if you want, but no more than 15 (you could be smart and answer several questions as *one!).

Please proofread your answers carefully. I may return your interview to dig for more information and to make it sound like a ‘one-to-one’ chat.

Introduction of protagonist

What is your full name? Do you have a nickname?

Where and when were you born? If you weren’t born, how did you come into being?

To which social class do you belong? How does it make you feel?

What is your background? What makes you you?

Where do you live?

Visual

Do you have annoying habits, quirks, strange mannerisms, or other defining characteristics?

What kind of distinguishing facial features do you have?

If you looked in a mirror, would you like what you saw?

Do you have any physical traits that stand out (such as scars, birthmarks, tattoos, etc.)? If you have scars/tattoos, how/why did you get them?

How old are you? Do you worry about getting older?

What colour is your hair/eyes? Do you have hair/eyes?

Are you a human? If not, what are you?

Passions/personal

What are your likes/dislikes?

Why do you hate/love character A or B? Are you going to take revenge on them? Make friends with them? Why do they make you feel like you do?

What is your primary goal in life?

Do you have a job/hobby?

What would be your biggest wish/desire?

Are you in love?

What are you like between the sheets?

Are you a virgin? When/how did you lose it?

Are you easily angered?

Do you easily fall in love/make friends/fall out of regard with someone?

Do you have any regrets in life?

 

Your background/environment/family

Where do you live? Are you happy there?

Who are your parents? Are they still alive?

How would you describe your childhood?

Are you close to your family? How did/do you get along with family members?

Have you started your own family? Do you have any plans for a new addition?

Do you have a spouse or significant other?

Which person in your family (or friends) are you the closest to?

Who is the most important person in your life, and why?

Describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do/or have done today.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why?

Let’s go deeper…

Do you have a secret? Does anyone else know the secret? What would happen if you told someone this secret?

Do you own a gun (or any other weapon)? Killed anyone (either purposely or not)?

If you wanted to kill someone, how would you do it?

Do you have a criminal record? 

What do you consider your greatest achievement so far? Do other people think it’s great?

What would you change about yourself if you could wave a magic wand? If you have a magic wand, what’s stopping you from waving it?

There’s an elderly person and a young child, each on a separate cliff top; each will fall/jump. How do you cope (would you save them or not)? If you save both, how? If neither, why?

You’re in a lift with your favourite TV movie star. How do you react? Or, if you are a famous movie star, how would you respond in front of an awestruck fan?

Are you happy now your story has been told? Is there more to come?

Do you have a motto/favourite saying you’d like to share?

What do you think about the current news (in your area)?

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings?

What, if anything, would you like to change about your life?

Who is the person you despise the most? (can be a fictional person or real-life)

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left.

* Example of answering several questions as one:

Are you easily angered?

Do you easily fall in love?

Do you have any regrets in life?

Which person in your family (or friends) are you the closest to?

I totally lost it and got super annoyed with myself when I fell for my bestie. I didn't just fall for her easily, it took me four whole years to realise my feelings! But when I finally worked up the courage to tell her how I felt, I messed up and tried to hook up with her, which really hurt her feelings. That's my biggest regret because she's my closest friend.

 

Enjoy!

 

How far would you go to uncover the secrets of your past? .@Seb_Kirby #psychological #thriller #IARTG #BYNR

find out in...

SUGAR FOR SUGAR 

by

Seb Kirby

How far would you go to uncover the secrets of your past?

Issy Cunningham has made a new life for herself but that's all about to come crashing down.

If only she could recall what happened that Valentine's Eve, she would be able to tell the police what really took place.

But those memories won't come because there's too much in the past that troubles her.

How can she set the record straight when her past won't let her be?

Amazon

Excerpt from

Sugar for Sugar

A sound from somewhere far off, getting closer all the time.

I open my eyes. The phone is ringing.

I pick it up and look at the image on the screen.

The bearded man again, the one with the name Colin Tempest next to his photo. Someone I must know. I have to answer.

I take the call.

A male voice. “Issy, I’ve been trying to reach you but you haven’t been answering.”

I can’t concentrate on what he’s saying. I say the only thing that comes to me. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t be foolish, Issy. It’s Colin. We need to talk.”

It’s a voice I’ve heard before.

  “I can’t talk now.”

He’s insistent. “I can come over. Where are you?”

I look around the room. It doesn’t look familiar. I say the only thing I can. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this place before.”

There’s a new note of concern in his voice. “I’ll find a way to help you, to make amends if you just tell me where you are.”

Make amends? So he’s done something to me. He thinks the reason I’m not talking to him is because of that.

  “Tell me what you did to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Issy. I’m really sorry but he left me no choice. You were the only one I could turn to, the only one who might have convinced him to change his mind.”

  “What happened to Mike?”

  “You know what happened to him, Issy. He died. A heart attack. You must know that. Why are you trying to pretend that none of this has happened?”

Mike is dead. I must have known that. 

Is this the reason for these feelings of guilt I can’t control?

“I’m not pretending.”

He pauses for longer than he should. “The police have been here. What if they start interviewing everyone? It won’t be long before they get round to you and me. Whatever else is said, I need you to promise you won’t reveal our secret. You know it would ruin me and my family.” 

I don’t know any secret. Why would he think I did?

  “If anyone asks it’s not going to be a problem for me to tell them I don’t know.”

  “Thank you, Issy. I knew I could depend on you.”

I stare again at the profile picture of the bearded man.

He wants me to trust him again but I know I can’t.

His voice breaks into my thoughts once more. “Look, Issy. I’ve got to go. Something urgent. Thanks for your help. Thanks for being so understanding. Thanks for everything.” 

He closes the line.

I know that what’s been said won’t last long in my mind. I make a note on the phone.

Mike is dead. 

Why do I feel so guilty? 
Colin behaves like he owes me.

WEBSITE | TWITTER | AMAZON

Cowboys, Vampires and romance. Oh my! by @cowboyvamp

The Cowboy and the Vampire:

A Very Unusual Romance

by 

Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall

Prologue

“I cannot believe one person is worth this much trouble.” She leaned forward and tapped her clove cigarette into the ashtray. Julius patted the back of her hand. The scented smoke irritated his sinuses, as she was well aware, but he smiled frigidly through the haze of it and through her pettiness.

“Elita, my dear, jealousy is so unbecoming.”

Buy NOW

“Julius, I have known you a great number of years, too many perhaps.” He maintained his smile, but it failed to reach his eyes.

“And you know I have nothing but respect for your judgment,” she said, pausing long enough to measure the effects of her remarks. No change was visible on his pale countenance.

She shrugged her shoulders, a delicate motion. “Why not simply take her and be done with it? Why make such a fuss out of it?”

“Fuss? You have adapted well to the clichéd words of this era, my dear.” His expression abruptly changed and, smooth as the velvet texture of his words, he leaned forward, drawing her close with a fierce stare. “I wonder, Elita, how you can question me at all.” His voice reverberated with buried passion. “You, of all people, should fathom the importance of her blood. In her veins run two thousand years of royalty. The first family. And with it, the power of the uncreation. Our people will have their due, and I shall be the one who gives it to them. We will honor the past by seizing the future.” He leaned back into his chair and luxuriantly sipped a cognac.

 
“This,” he waved futilely, setting the snifter on the table, “this centuries-old Diaspora will end. The Adamites had their chance. We let them play their little games and live their little lives in the sun. We have hidden away from them as if they were to be feared.”

He reached across the table and stopped her hand in midair as she moved her cigarette toward her lips. “My dear, I have seen the future and the future is Elizabeth Vaughan. Are we clear on this?”

She nodded sullenly and stood. As she did, every man in the bar stopped to study her: the pale skin, the silky black hair falling to her shoulders, the cling of the dress to her narrow hips, the erotic strength flowing from her. Women turned too. Elita, aware of the eyes but heedless, ran her fingers through her hair, arranging it behind her ears to reveal her slender throat. Bending toward the table, she stubbed her cigarette and brushed at imaginary lines in her dress as she straightened.

“Very clear,” she said. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your machinations. As if I could. Elizabeth Vaughan. Such a tedious name. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

He tilted his head in agreement, his lips forming a dismissive but appreciative smile. Elita turned and walked toward the door. Pausing by the bar, she laid her hand on the shoulder of a young man sitting alone. Leaning close to him, her lips brushing against his hair, she whispered in his ear. He nodded vigorously, gulped at his beer and slammed the glass down. Quickly he stood, marveling at this turn of extraordinary luck.

With eyes mocking her young victim’s adoration, Elita twined her arm around his waist. Smiling over her shoulder at Julius triumphantly, she disappeared into the night, hips swaying, her conquest in obedient tow.

He paused, savoring the taste of his own words, and then dropped his voice to a low, soft growl, a mesmerizing tone. “That is about to change,” he said. “I caution you, lovely Elita. It would serve you to remain on the winning side. Should you take it upon yourself to make some misguided effort to turn back this tide, well, I would miss you.”

End of Prologue

Read the first chapter here

Back page book summary for A Very Unusual Romance (Book 1):

Amazon

Welcome to LonePine, Wyoming, population 438, where the best of the west faces off against the rise of the undead. It's a love story for the ages when a broke cowboy and a glamorous big city reporter fall lipstick over boot heels in love. But she carries a 2000-year-old secret in her veins that will test their unusual romance to the very edge of death, and beyond.

Saddle up for a hilarious, sexy, existential gallop through the dying American west with an army of ancient bloodsuckers in hot pursuit.

First published in 1999 and now re-released in its third printing, the definitive author's cut,” The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance is the first book of The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection. A genre mash-up that deftly navigates the darkest sides of human nature while celebrating the power of love, it's been called everything from a campy cult classic to a trailblazer in its own new genre: Western Gothic.

Let 'er buck!

Review quotes:

“Pour yourself a shot of the good stuff and settle in for a wickedly good read. It’s sexy, it’s funny, it’s scary, and it will get your heart jumping like a pickup truck on an old county road.” East Oregonian

“A thrilling page-turner…an outstandingly entertaining series. Introducing racial issues isn’t the only adjustment the authors have made to the vampire mythos, but it’s more than just the details that set this series apart. Rather, it’s the way the authors utilize those details to create meaningful conflicts and world-altering choices for the characters.”Kirkus Reviews

 Pump Jack Press | Cowboy and Vampire | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Domestic abuse drama by @JenLGilmour #mustread #abuse #blogtour @emmamitchellfpr

Isolation Junction:

Breaking free from the isolation of emotional abuse

by

Jennifer Gilmour

Rose is the mother of two young children, and finds herself living a robotic life with an abusive and controlling husband. While she struggles to maintain a calm front for the sake of her children, inside Rose is dying and trapped in ‘Isolation Junction’.

She runs an online business from home, because Darren won’t let her work outside the house. Through this, she meets other mums and finds courage to attend networking events, while Darren is at work, to promote her business.

Amazon.UK | Amazon.com

It’s at one of these events that Rose meets Tim, a sympathetic, dark-haired stranger who unwittingly becomes an important part of her survival.

After years of emotional abuse, of doubting her future and losing all self-confidence, Rose takes a stand. Finding herself distraught, alone and helpless, Rose wonders how she’ll ever escape with her sanity and her children. With 100 reasons to leave and 1,000 reasons she can’t, will she be able to do it?

Will Tim help her? Will Rose find peace and the happiness she deserves? Can Rose break free from this spiralling life she so desperately wants to change?

Extract from Isolation Junction

Chapter One

Ice cold rain splattered her face; her toes and fingers were numb and yet she sat there huddled up and gently rocking herself. It was a black night with no stars, like someone had just switched off the sky. The only light shining on her face was the orange glow of a single street light. Rose couldn’t cope anymore, she was crying into her hands so hard it hurt her heart; it was a deep spike of a pain rushing through her body and this wasn’t the first time she had felt it. Rose had felt this often through the last 5 years of her life and yet this felt like an eternity. She sat there in the mud at the front of a run-down old church surrounded by old and wonky gravestones, completely soaked through. Rose didn't care, she had learnt to become care-free from her own feelings and thoughts. It was like she had become a robot. Rose had lovely long red hair down to her bottom with stunning green eyes, a curvy figure with a peachy bottom. She used to be the centre of her family, everyone wanted to be around her because she brought life to a family gathering. She was always comical and sometimes stepping over the line, but her family and her friends loved her for who she was. Lately she had become muted at gatherings and would never go out socially unless Darren was by her side.

            Rose’s mind was racing through those years in which she suffered, spent and wasted with Darren. Better known as Den (a name Rose had always hated), he was a short and overweight man in his 30’s. He had ended it with her, again, but this time Rose was going to act on it. This was a regular statement from Den to try and keep her in his possession by panicking her. Den didn’t know that this time Rose was going to stand up to him, but how? Rose’s parents had never approved of Darren simply because of the 10-year age gap.
            “You're young and naïve,” they had said to her after the first introduction. “He's not the type of man you normally go for either,” Rose's mum had expressed and she was correct. Rose did have a type and Darren wasn't her usual.
            Rose had explained to her parents, “He tells me I'm beautiful and no one has ever complimented me like he does.” Why hadn’t she listened to them? They were correct, but Rose thought that perhaps it was good to go away from her usual type.
            Why hadn't she taken the countless offers of a temporary place to stay when she became trapped?
             Rose knew the relationship wasn’t going to last just weeks into the mess. She thought back…

About the author in her own words:

'Born in the North East, I am a young, married mum with three children. I am an entrepreneur, running a family business from my home-base and I have a large readership of other young mums in business for my blog posts.

From an early age I have had a passion for writing and have been gathering ideas and plot lines from my teenage years. A passionate advocate for women in abusive relationships, I have amalgamated and fictionalised other survivors experiences alongside my own to write my first novel detailing the journey of a young woman from the despair of an emotionally abusive and unhappy marriage to develop the confidence to challenge and change her life and to love again. I hope that in reading my debut novel, I will raise awareness of this often hidden and unseen behaviour and empower women in abusive relationships to seek help for themselves and find the confidence to change their lives.'

Website: www.isolationjunction.com

Kickstarter campaign which is live right now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/690571062/isolation-junction

Facebook: www.facebook.com/isolationjunctionbook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/JenLGilmour

Probably one for the lads (sorry no naked boobies).

Mobsters, Monsters and Nazis

by

Dan O'Brien

Here's a one-of-a-kind reading experience for the guys that have refused to grow up! Dan O'Brien has teamed up with illustrator Steve Ferchaud to blend hard boiled, dark, detective stories with pulp comics.

Sounds perfect for those cold approaching winter nights, eh, fellas?

Mobsters, Monsters and Nazis follows private investigator Derrick Diamond as he searches for a device that the Nazis need for their nefarious experiments. He's aided by Ava Harpy, a lounge singer at the Yellow Monarch, and as they dive deep into the underbelly of the city, they uncover a sordid plot that is much larger than they could have possibly imagined.

So without further ado let's introduce Dan O’Brien’s latest project: Mobsters, Monsters and Nazis: a collaboration between Dan O’Brien and Steve Ferchaud, who illustrated Conspirators of the Lost Sock Army and the Loose Change Collection Agency. 

What Dan is revealing today are the sketches for some of the interior illustrations (which will be black and white) of the first issue of Mobsters, Monsters and Nazis. The books will be released as six issues (eBooks) starting on Halloween.

Influenced by film noir, pulp comics, and an abiding love of Lovecraft, it is now available for pre-order so what are you waiting for?

Dan would love to hear what you think of it so far. Visit him at the Dan O'Brien Project or find him on Twitter.

@AuthorBorg describes her perfect death

Inge. H. Borg

in her

The Boring Author Revisited!

 

Amazon ~ Smashwords ~ Barnes and Noble

What’s so great about your crap book? (Don't want the boring details, a couple of lines is suffice!)

Khamsin, The Devil Wind of the Nile (Book 1 – Legends of the Winged Scarab), plays out in 3080 BC (yes, that’s slightly before almost everything). Hence, nobody can call me out on the facts – if they do, they must be really ancient  or very learned—in which case they wouldn’t read fiction anyway!
A girl who thinks like me! When can we hang out?

What do you really think about erotica? Is it the low of the lows for writers?

Not necessarily. It sells, doesn’t it. Very frustrating to those of us who cower alone in our garret to hammer out “enduring literature,” starving while we do it.

If you didn’t have your book professionally edited: What made you think you’re so perfect that you didn’t need to pay a professional?

Because I seem to be one of the few people left in America who observes the difference between “to lay” (an egg), and “to lie” (in bed). Everyone is always “laying” about; even mattress sales people.

Yawn, so basically you're the same as all the rest of the authors on Amazon and you’re the Next Best Thing. I don’t think so. Come on, tell me why should I spend time reading YOUR book over more well-received authors?

Because I just slipped you a free copy – and because you might learn something. Oh, and because you’ll give me a rave, I mean honest, review!
Yeah, right...


Is there an author who inspires (perspires) you? Do you think you write better than them? Is your aim to out-sell them?

James Clavell and James Mitchener are two of my favorites– they may be regarded as old-fashioned these days; but then…(you are not rudely going to ask my age now!)

However, somebody just said that Book 3 (Cataclysm) is “like Dirk Pitt novel, only better.”
Are you old? I mean really, really old like 40 something? (as my son would've said!)

In the writing world, have you ever regretted anything i.e written your own review (or written a bad review on a competitor's novel), argued on-line, copied someone else's idea? 
Wow, any one of that would be lower than writing Erotica.

What qualifications do you have for writing in your genre?

A darn good European education, and an even greater patience to Google facts and the imagination to weave them into fiction.  Why don’t you check it out for yourself.
Are you saying I don't use Google for fact-finding? I'm the OO in Google, Missus!

Many authors use their qualifications to show off their so-called talents i.e. crime writers are often coppers (police, for the non-Brits present) and the book becomes boringly technical. How have you managed to keep your knowledge low key? Or haven’t you bothered?

Even in “good Historical Fiction,” the action has to outweigh the setting no matter how exotic (a love triangle, some palace intrigue and the occasional murder always tend to liven things up).

If I were to read your book would I have to scroll through lots of acknowledgements saying how wonderful your book is before I got to the meat of a story?

No. But I do start each of my “Legends of the Winged Scarab” with a short evocative (and generally unjustly maligned) Prologue to set the stage. If you can’t hear the winds (Khamsin and Sirocco) howl about your ears, and taste the sand between your teeth at that point, I failed you.

What part of the world do you come from?

Born and educated in Austria, studied languages in London, Paris and Moscow before winding up in the southern US (that took care of my former beautiful British accent).

What do you think of your government?

The same as I think of any government. I’d rather not expound on this here. After all, I do purport to be a lady.

If your book is set outside England would I understand your jargon? I mean, fanny means lady front parts NOT backside, car hood is a car bonnet--everyone knows that, right? Are British Englishisms/Americanisms/Australianisms etc important in your book? It's all about identity, isn't it?

“… fanny means lady front parts…”

You’re kidding! I didn’t know that. But then, it took me a year to guess what OMG might mean; I surely hope I guessed correctly because I have used it a couple of times.
OMG - oh my God? Original Mafia Gangsta?

Why that shitty title?

Are you talking about MY Khamsin, The Devil Wind of the Nile? The one who was just short-listed for the 2014 Indie Historical Fiction Award of the Historical Novel Society to be doled out in London in September? I am crushed. Just wait ‘til I turn the Curse of the Mummy on you and suffocate you with a mouthful of desert sand.

Did you run out of ideas?

You mean, as far as a title is concerned? Not for the first two ‘windy” books; for Book 3, however, I had to blow up a Supervolcano. Now, I am out of ideas.

If you were me (you know, perfect) and knew nothing about a person and you were told to interview them, what’s the one question you would ask? (answer it).

“I am working on it.”

How long did it take you to complete your book (from idea to publication)?

There you go again, trying to figure out how old I might be. Let me just say, when I started, my computer didn’t have a hard drive but I used large floppies for the program itself as well as the documents (yes, those big black things now on display at the HP/Compaq Museum).

When I began I had an Olivetti typewriter! The floppies came later for me. I still have them, in fact. Can't bear to throw them away.

If it took under a year to write: It didn’t take you long to write so does that mean it is poorly researched, edited and written on a whim?

Try 20 years of writing, querying, gathering dust in a drawer. Happy now?
Wow, you're OLD!

If it took over a year to write: Does that mean this book is boringly long and laborious to read?

It was! But I slashed 100,000 words (gosh, the money I could have made turning those lost words into …something).

Do you have any bad habits, or stupid rituals you HAVE to do in order to write?

I am not sure if it’s a stupid ritual or even a bad one. But daily turning on the computer usually precedes furious keyboard-pounding.

Authors are usually labelled as ‘dreamers’ and ‘loners’. Have you been labelled as such? And what implications do you think that has on a writer?

Call it what you will, but extroverts who “talk, talk, talk” usually don’t have time (nor the patience or intellect) to write it all down.
Love that answer!

What do you think of social media (pick one answer):
1. Somewhere to advertise my book.
2. Somewhere to interact with other writers.
3. Somewhere to find information.
4. All of the above.

Number four in small doses. On the whole, it’s a bloody time-suck with everyone mostly crowing about themselves.

Does ‘being a writer’ make you feel like an outsider with normal, everyday people such as your family and friends?

Not unless they are “laying on the couch,” ignoring the past participle. “Oh, my,” some might gush, “I should have went there. Then I could have did this…” That’s when I become the ear-holding outsider. On the whole though, my friends see me as exasperatingly normal.

Describe your perfect death (in case I have to kill you)?

Ah, now your reveal your true colors!Please, I’d like not to be found naked; or on top or under something (or someone) scandalous.

Just give me a glass of wine, dribble the content of a few pills into it, and wait (you can sing or hum if you want). Luckily, you won’t have to look for my teeth because I still have all of mine. Just run a brush through my hair and pull my lips into a smile as I slip deeper into oblivion. You can do that much for me, can’t you? After all I did for you, telling you those secrets.

“Don’t touch that wine! Didn’t I just tell you about the pills! Some people never listen.” Oh my, too late. Sorry kiddo, I guess it wasn’t my time after all.

Give me the a) first, b) middle and c) end line in your trilogy.

Book 1 (Khamsin, the Devil Wind of The Nile)

a)    “Rih al Khamsin!” It was an eerie howl, rather than a cry. It multiplied and it traveled fast.

      b)  Maceheads thudded against human anvils to mingle with the last wails of                  the mortally wounded, the blasphemies of the defeated.

      c) “Remember, the end is but a new beginning for the eternal Ba.”

Book 2 (Sirocco, Storm over Land and Sea)

a)    “Trexa! Sorokos!” Barely, the fishermen pull their boats onto shore when the wind arrives all in a rush, malevolent and laden with Libyan Desert sand.

b)    “Mayday! Mayday! Can anyone hear me?”

c)    At last, the tortured planet exhales. Tomorrow has become today.

Book 3 (After the Cataclysm)

a)    At first, it feels as if the world needed to relieve itself of an irksome burden.

b)    “Fuck the Germans.” Lorenzo glanced at Naunet. “Pardon me, my dear, I didn’t mean to offend you.

c)    Not until then shall we both find eternal peace.

If this is all too exasperatingly long and literary, and boring, you can always grab a free copy of Edward, Con Extraordinaire. But a word of caution: That scoundrel has wormed his way into Book 2 and 3 somehow (where he is no longer quite so charming). Oh, he also has a cameo appearance as a bad memory in “Shadow Love.” Really, I must do something about that guy!

Whaa-at? Time already? Yawns. Oh, you're still waffling, er, talking. I meant talking.