NK Chats To…Michael Wendroff
Hello Michael. Thank you for joining me today and for inviting Novel Kicks onto your blog tour. Can you tell us about What Goes Around and what inspired it?
What Goes Around is my debut thriller. It is about mysterious shootings in a small town, and two detectives, one male and one female, are assigned to the case. They hate each other, and have to find the killer before they kill each other. On the pursuit they encounter secret groups-Incels, Boogaloo Boys, supremacists. Torn in the middle is a naive boy. The ending twist is out of this world.
I was inspired by what my mother said to me the second I was born. Or so I’m told. I was put on her chest, she looked me deeply in the eyes, and said, “Oh! How nice to see you, again!” It was that “again” that always intrigued me, and I always wanted to write something about it, but life and working in business got in the way.
It was actually the Covid pandemic that got me to write my novel–there was that period when you couldn’t do anything, couldn’t go to movies, restaurants, couldn’t even go to the beach! So, I had no more excuses. Had to write it, and thankfully, got very lucky, and What Goes Around was born.
I was also “inspired” by events I didn’t understand–like the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia a few years ago. I needed to research that, to understand what was behind some of the crazy thinking, so that’s how I got into the secret world of Incels and Supremacists. Scary stuff!
What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have any writing rituals and a favourite place to write?
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I usually write in the mornings, when I’m freshest. Water really inspires me, and I’m very fortunate that I have two places near water. In the winter months I’m in Florida, so I can sit at a beach and think up plots and scenes, and I also get to sit on my lanai and look out on a pond behind my house. Though I do sometimes get distracted by the alligators running around.
Michael’s Writing Space – Lake Garda.
In the summer months when Florida just gets too hot and humid, I head to Italy. I love Northern Italy, and get to write from a terrace overlooking Lake Garda (when I’m not eating the amazing Italian food).
I love writing, and my process is plot, research, write, and edit.
My daily ritual is to sit at my pc to get the words out, just get the story going. I don’t worry about things like grammar or even the specific words used, I just want to get the writing flowing. The next morning I will reread what I’d written, and try to make it real writing. Make sure every word is the right word and fits with the others in the sentence, make sure each sentence fits with the others in the paragraph. Add the analogies and metaphors. After that’s done, I’ll start scribbling out the next part of the story on my pc, which will be rewritten the next day. That process of write then rewrite continues everyday, until I can write my favorite two words: The End
But before I actually start the writing itself, comes the plotting. There are actually two types of writers-plotters and pantsers. Pantsers simply sit in front of their computers and write by the seat of their pants. They have no idea where the story is going. That’s not me. I have to know everything upfront, so after ideating I write a detailed plot outline. I need to know not only what the ending will be, but where I’ll plant the red herrings, and where I’ll put the twists and turns.
And it’s not like things won’t change. Once I became really attached to one of my characters, and the plot called for the character to die, but I couldn’t do it. I had to change the plot. Another time I did kill off a character I loved, but my wife yelled at me because I was walking around for a week in depression. She said “They’re not real!!” But to an author, they are real!
If you were putting together a playlist for What Goes Around, which songs would you pick?
by 
NK Chats To… Evie Jacobs
Hi Evie, thank you so much for joining me today and for inviting Novel Kicks onto your blog tour. Can you tell me about your book, Dangerous Decisions and what inspired it?
Thanks for having me! Dangerous Decisions is the story of Nate Hughes, a pilot who shares a business with his siblings, and Angie Liu, a CIA agent who is investigating an informant’s death. The two meet at a casino in Miami and have a one-night stand. Everything is great–until Angie realizes Nate is actually the son of the man whose death she is investigating.
Dangerous Decisions is an interconnected standalone, meaning that while it is technically the second book in the Dangerous Skies Adventure series, it does not have to be read after or with the first book.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what inspired this story, but while I was writing Dangerous Descent, I always knew that Nate would investigate his father’s death in the second. Thinking back, it seems like Angie’s character came easily as well. I wrote a good chunk of this book during COVID and wasn’t happy with the result. It wasn’t until I published Dangerous Descent that I decided to revisit Dangerous Decisions and turn it into something I was proud of.
What was your route to publication?
Evie’s Main Writing Office
I queried my first book, Dangerous Descent, with no luck, and was about to shove it in the metaphorical drawer when I decided to try a few small publishers. I wasn’t expecting much, but one publisher responded within a week asking for the full manuscript. After that, things moved pretty quickly, and I had a publishing contract by the end of the month. The experience of publishing through a small press was invaluable. I learned a ton, but more importantly, the validation that someone wanted to publish my book gave me the confidence to stick with it. Despite all the positives, I also wished I’d had more control over the final product. For the second book, I went it on my own.
What elements do you feel make up a good thriller?
Tension, danger, high stakes, momentum, immediacy, and characters you care about.
What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have any writing rituals? A favourite place to write?
by Book Extract: The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon by Barry Maher
I’m thrilled to be kicking off October by welcoming Barry Maher to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon.
Thrillers set in the 1980s have a special kind of atmosphere—before cell phones, before constant connectivity—where the shadows felt darker and the dangers closer. The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon takes full advantage of that tension, weaving together a decaying church, occult rituals, and a reluctant hero who doesn’t believe in any of it…until he has no choice.
Steve Witowski’s life is already in shambles—he’s a failed songwriter and a fugitive—but everything unravels further after he rescues Victoria from a violent assault. Victoria has just bought a crumbling church with a haunted past, and the secrets inside refuse to stay buried. Soon Steve finds himself in a world of grave robbing, fire-lit ceremonies, and a demon whose desperation grows more terrifying by the day. Even as visions plague him and the face of the man he killed appears on his skin, Steve insists it’s all delusion. But denial won’t save him, and the cost of survival may be more than he can pay.
Barry has kindly shared an extract from The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon with us today. We hope you enjoy.
(Content warning: language.)
*****beginning of extract*****
Back in the 60s . . .
On Wednesday October 13th, 1968, a faculty panel recommended the dismissal of Professor John Harris—in absentia, as no one at Harvard had seen or heard from him in weeks. Harris later bragged about delivering his final lecture on “one shitload and a half of LSD.” According to the recording made available to the faculty panel, this was the sum total of that lecture:
“Good afternoon. Wow. American Literature, hunh? Let’s see. Moby Dick today. Right?”
“Moby Dick?” asked a confused voice. “No. What happened to The Scarlet Letter?”
“Right. Moby Dick,” Harris continued. “Great book. None of you have read it. None of you are going to read it. Nobody ever does. What you need to understand is that as far as I’m concerned—and I’m the fucking professor—Moby Dick is the same story as The Great Gatsby, which some of you may read. I call it, ‘the half-assed struggle of the individual to put their world to rights in the face of a failure that threatens to define their life.’ I think that’s from my thesis. Though maybe it’s not pretentious enough.”
by Book Review: Murder In Trafalgar Square by Michelle Salter
I’m excited to be welcoming Michelle Salter back to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her latest book, Murder in Trafalgar Square – book one in The Fairbanks and Flynn Mysteries series.
A murdered suffragette. A missing politician. A stolen artwork.
London, 1910
Coral Fairbanks is a contradiction. As well as a suffragette, she’s a bit-part actress and nude model, earning her the disapproval of her fellow suffragettes.
Guy Flynn is an artist. He’s also a detective inspector at Scotland Yard, who doesn’t always see eye to eye with fellow officers in the Metropolitan Police.
When Home Secretary Winston Churchill orders the police to terrorise the suffragettes during an afternoon of violence that becomes known as Black Friday, the battlelines are drawn – and Coral Fairbanks and Guy Flynn are on different sides.
But when a young suffragette is found murdered in the National Portrait Gallery and one of their paintings is stolen – Fairbanks and Flynn must put their differences aside and combine their knowledge to track down the killer.
Introducing an iconic detective duo in Fairbanks and Flynn, this is an exciting and gripping historical mystery, which will delight fans of Agatha Christie, Benedict Brown and T. E. Kinsey.
*****
Coral Fairbanks fights for women to have the vote. When a Suffragette mission ends in murder, she meets artist and Scotland Yard detective, Guy Flynn. Can they find the murderer together or will their differences get in the way?
I absolutely adore the Iris Woodmore stories so when given the chance to read the first in a brand new series by Michelle Salter, I jumped at the chance.
by Book Extract: The Queen’s Necklace by Adrienne Chinn
I’m pleased to be welcoming Adrienne Chinn to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her novel, The Queen’s Necklace.
The most famous necklace in the world has finally been found…
Bryher Finch’s life isn’t just a disaster, it’s a catastrophe, until a chance invitation to chart her family tree changes everything. As Bryher uncovers the ancestry she never knew about, she stumbles on the find of the century – Anne Boleyn’s ‘B’ necklace, as enigmatic as Henry VIII’s most notorious Queen herself.
But Bryher isn’t the only one who wants the necklace…
Adrienne has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
*****beginning of extract*****
In this excerpt from The Queen’s Necklace, American actress Bryher Finch, who is filming a Tudor mini-series in England, is out on a dinner date with Dr Pieter de Beer, the historical advisor on the series. She had loaned him her cousin Betty Pilcher’s ‘B’ necklace that she’d found in an old box under Betty’s bed (she’s staying at Betty’s house while she’s filming). The cheap necklace she’d been given to wear in the series was breaking her out in hives so she borrows Betty’s necklace to wear instead. Pieter has examined the necklace and discusses it with her over dinner.
*****
Bryher scoops some dhal onto her plate. She watches as Pieter spoons a dollop of mango chutney onto the side of his plate. He couldn’t be more different from Jake, the quintessential sardonic American hero with all his rough edges. Pieter is smooth and, well, sophisticated. Where she’d always felt like a slightly clumsy girl around Jake, albeit, a lucky clumsy girl, she feels like a grown-up woman around Pieter. And she likes the feeling.
‘You said this afternoon that you wanted to talk to me about something. What is it?’ ‘
Yes. It’s about the necklace.’ He frowns. ‘Where is it?’
She swallows a forkful of the mildly spiced lentil dish. ‘I gave it back to Betty.’
He sets down his fork. ‘What?’
by Book Club
