Month: October 2018

The Long-Distance Leader is one of the best business books of the year!

For many in the business book world, a recommendation from Soundview is a big deal. They do summaries of the best of the best, and help their readers find the good stuff. Well, I’m a lucky guy because The Long-Distance Leader- Rules for Remarkable Remote Leadership has been named one of Soundview’s Best Business Books of 2018.

Kevin Eikenberry and I are extremely proud of the book. You can find the summary on Soundview here, or visit Amazon. Of course, if you too think this is a helpful book, please leave a review for the rest of the world to see.

 

A 1960s Childhood Reimagined Joe Van Rhyn

One of the exciting things about moving to a new city is the chance to meet a whole new crop of writers and artists. Las Vegas has a thriving writing scene, as you’ll learn over the next few weeks as I interview new friends and people I’ve crossed trails with.

One of the first writers I met here is Joe Van Rhyn. He’s written a number of historical novels including his newest, Born Yesterday. I’m not happier realizing that the 1960s were nearly 60 years ago than you are, but they qualify as history. I have managed to come to grips with that.

Joe, tell us about you.

I’m a “late bloomer.” I didn’t start writing seriously until I retired. Over the years, I toyed with the idea of writing a book, retirement just freed up the time. I had written things like press releases and news articles. My first published work came as a contributor to another author’s book on the town we grew up in. My first solo project was a twenty-page history of my wife’s family’s one-hundred-year ownership of a tavern in Berlin, Wisconsin. I considered myself a good story teller, but wondered if I could hold it together long enough to finish a full-length novel? I’m proud to say, I not only finished the first book but have completed two more, since.

So much of my writing is drawn from the things I’ve experienced in my life. I grew up in a small resort town in Wisconsin. My family owned a Supper Club. We aged and cut our own steaks. I started tending bar when I was eighteen. I loved it. It gave me a master’s degree of knowledge in human behavior, both good and bad. Every night I’d get a new cast of characters to study. (Editors note: the Wisconsin Supper Club is its own little world, and someone needs to write a novel about it. Not me, you understand, but someone.)

I did a lot of acting in school and summer theater. Writing and acting come from the same part of the brain. Scenes are built on action and dialogue. In both, you have to be able to climb into your characters’ skin to fully expose their strengths and weaknesses.

In a nutshell, what’s Born Yesterday about?

My first book, “Born Yesterday,” is set in 1964. It’s how life and relationships change when a stranger is found unconscious in the park of a small resort town, and how fate brings two people together.

What is it about that time period that intrigued you?

When I began writing it, the thing I knew for sure, Pine Lake, the fictitious town, based on the one I grew up in, had to play a large role. I wanted to capture the flavor and values of the community as I saw then. The story is made up. The characters are composites of people I knew.

What’s your favorite scene?

Growing up I spent my entire summer on the lake, swimming, fishing, boating, and water skiing. On weekends we had competitive sailboat races. People said, in the race scene, they felt they were in the boat and caught up in the excitement of the race. I guess it would be my favorite, too.

What more should people know, and where can they learn it?

In the usual places, I have three books on Amazon in both paperback and for Kindle. Along with “Born Yesterday,” I have the follow up book, “Battle Born,” and my latest, a novella, called Life Along the Humboldt.” This last one has no relationship to the first two. It is a pioneer story set in the 1860’s.

The idea came out of the blue. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Everyday I’d be adding new parts to the story. Finally, I just had to put everything aside and write it. Nutshell? “Even in the midst of tragedy and hardship, love finds its way.” I’m also on Facebook and have a website. www.joevanrhyn.com

You mentioned “Battle Born,” what’s it about?

One of my editors, loved the character of Nora, the crusty head nurse, in “Born Yesterday”. She suggested I should do something more with her.  “Battle Born,” the second in the series, is Nora’s story going back to 1945. She a headstrong Army nurse, with a caring heart. A chance meeting with a fifteen-year-old girl sends Nora on a path, loaded with conflict, murder and mayhem.

So, what’s next for you?

I’m well into book three. (still untitled) Our fifteen-year-old becomes the protagonist and she brings everything full circle back to the wonderful town of Pine Lake.

 

Subscribe to my newsletter and get a chance to win a signed paperback copy of  my upcoming novel.  Each month you’ll receive links to interviews with great authors, news about upcoming events and previews of my work in progress, Acre’s Orphans. Look at the bottom left of the page for the sign-up sheet. No spam, just once a month updates and a chance to learn about great new Historical Fiction of all types from around the world.

Ancient Rome and China Meet – Lewis McIntyre

Whenever I hear people freaked out by other cultures (and you see it all the time) I think about what it must have been like when someone would literally see a different colored face or hear a different language for the first time. I’m not alone in this, I presume, because Lewis McIntyre has written a novel about a literal clash of cultures: Ancient Rome crossing paths with the Chinese for the first time in his novel The Eagle and the Dragon.

So what’s the Lew McIntyre story?

Hello to all.  My name is Lew McIntyre. I have done a little bit of everything, it seems. I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1970 and spent my career in Naval Aviation flying special-mission C-130 Hercules aircraft. I retired in 1990 and continued to support my aviation community to this day as an engineer, though the “Herc” has long since been replaced by the “Merc,” the E-6B Mercury.

I am an odd character, an engineer that seems to have mastered the art of writing.  Over the past twenty years I have done a lot of technical writing that people actually seem to enjoy reading.  About twenty years ago, I began The Eagle and the Dragon, and now here we are, two books out, three in the oven, and my wife Karen has published two, with a third in work. We seem to have found our third careers!

Besides writing, I enjoy biking, amateur radio (call sign KB6IC) and deer hunting.

OH, he tries to sound all normal-guy and non-engineery, then he goes and gives us his HAM sign. Probably not helping your cause any, but I digress. What’s The Eagle and the Dragon about?

The Eagle and the Dragon is a fictional account of the first Roman mission to China, set in 100AD, and modeled loosely around an actual Roman mission to China in 166AD.  Like most first missions, nothing goes according to plan:  Senator Aulus Aemilius Galba, tapped by Trajan to lead the envoy, expects an easy path to fame and fortune.  But the Fates have other plans for him and his unlikely companions.  From the storm-tossed Indian Ocean to the opulent court of Han China, from the grassy steppes north of China with the wild Xiongnu nomads, to the forbidding peaks of the Pamir Mountains guarding Central Asia, they will fight for their lives, looking for the road leading back to Rome. It’s quite an epic adventure, with a few love stories thrown in for good measure.

Writing it was a lot like watching a TV series, I had to go write the next chapter to find out what happened next!

Fun. That’s how I felt writing Acre’s Orphans. What intrigued you about this time period enough to invest the time writing a novel?

What intrigued me most about the era was the extensive contact the Romans had with “The Distant East”, the Oriens Repositus as they called it. Every year for over two centuries, 120 ships a year sailed from the Red Sea ports over the open Indian Ocean for India, loaded with gold, silver and Mediterranean wine to purchase silks, peppers and spices, and artwork.  Even tortoise-shell, from which they made a plastic-like, decorative waterproof finishing for wood furniture. The scale of trade was almost modern in scope, about a half billion dollars in gold going out each year to purchase goods that would be marked up ten, twenty, thirty-fold and taxed at 25%.  There were Roman interest sections, today we would call them consulates, in dozens of Indian cities, along with Roman temples.  Buddhism made its way to Rome as a popular, philosophical religion… things we never heard of.  Roman coins of the era have been found in Nagasaki, Roman shipping jugs have been found in Vietnam, and they even got as far east as Kattigat, somewhere in Borneo. Outside London, two Chinese skeletons were found in a Roman grave across the Thames two years ago… I know their names, they figure in my sequel!

I just had to capture this wholly unknown side of ancient Rome, the big ships they used, how they would have defended their lucrative cargo against pirates, what they thought of the world of the East, so different from their own.  I had to experience for myself what it was like to make that trip, and bring that experience to my readers.

What’s your favorite scene in the book?

I have two, I think.(Editors note: why does everyone always have two?)  One is a violent storm that blows up while the Europa is transiting the Indian Ocean.  I think it was a tropical cyclone, the time of year was right, but I believe they just grazed the fringes of it, otherwise, I might not have been able to finish the book.  The Europa was a big ship, a three-master of about 200 feet, but the seas were bigger, and they fought through the night to keep the ship afloat and facing into the forty-foot waves, wind gusting to perhaps eighty or more knots.  And the next day, de-watering the ship, surveying and repairing the damage, tending the injured.

Yes, the Romans had ships of that size.  I modeled the Europa, Asia and Africa off the Mediterranean grain freighters, which were of that size, perhaps 800 to 1200 tons displacement, for you nautical types. You can read about one such ship, besides my own, caught in a Mediterranean storm with St Paul on board, in the Acts of the Apostles.  It was a very detailed contemporary description of a prolonged storm at sea, accurate enough for a detailed reconstruction of the incident.

The second involves my heroine, Marcia Lucia, Chinese name Si Huar, who begins as an abused concubine of a mid-level Chinese official.  She rises throughout the story, coming to leave that life behind and find love with the grizzled centurion Antonius, for whom love is also a new experience. She learns to fight, much to his disgruntlement, taught by Hina, a warrior woman of the Xiongnu nomads.  Hina is a hard taskmaster and Marcia masters everything Hina sets her to do.  But when she faces her first real fight, a fight with her former consort that must be to the death if she is not to return to the life she left behind, she hesitates… almost fatally.  The doubt, the fear, the uncertainty of that first real fight, the agonizing pain of a serious wound that must be ignored.  Then sitting beside the dead body of the man she has known for ten years, the man she has just killed.

That’s intense. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

You can find my book at Amazon, in Kindle or paperback. Or email me at mcintyrel@verizon.net and I will send you signed copy for just $20, shipping included at no extra charge.

https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Dragon-Novel-Rome-China-ebook/dp/B01MSEAC3I/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

I have a second book out, a short story, Come,Follow Me, a Story of Pilate and Jesus, that first Easter weekend told from the point of view of that most reluctant executioner, Pontius Pilate.  Also on Amazon.

 

Subscribe to my newsletter and get a chance to win a signed paperback copy of  my upcoming novel.  Each month you’ll receive links to interviews with great authors, news about upcoming events and previews of my work in progress, Acre’s Orphans. Look at the bottom left of the page for the sign-up sheet. No spam, just once a month updates and a chance to learn about great new Historical Fiction of all types from around the world.

 

 

My latest short story- The Towel- is on Storgy.com

My latest published short story, “The Towel,” has been put into the world by one of my favorite fiction sites, Storgy.com. It’s a tale of boxing and blood, both literal and metaphorical. I am really proud of it, and I’d be honored if you’d read and spread the word. TAKE A LOOK  HERE

I don’t know what it is about the fight game that inspires these short pieces, but this is the third pugilism-based story I’ve done in the last couple of years. The first was based on a real-life incident, “Bayamon, 1974,” and published in the Irish journal, Dodging the Rain. (For the record, Storgy accepted this one too but DTR had already accepted it for publication.) READ THE STORY ON THEIR SITE

Image result for Los Angeles, 1952The final entry is a story I love and have never found a home for. Also history-based, “Los Angeles, 1952” is a tale of boxing, old Hollywood and a first date that may or may not be going well. The only place it has a home is on Scriggler.com (which is the online elephant graveyard for pieces I couldn’t place anywhere else) and my site here. CHECK IT OUT AND SHARE IT IF YOU LIKE IT.

If you’re new to my work, welcome. If you’ve been a patient reader, you don’t know how much I appreciate you. The new novel, Acre’s Bastard, is set for January. Get on my email list and you’ll learn more as soon as I do.

Thanks for following me, and I hope to keep giving you reasons to stick around.

Don’t let the weasels get you down.

1920s Italy, Intrigue and Murder with John Anthony Miller

The trauma of World War 1 created the environment that allowed the ’20s to roar. It was an amazing time of change and trying to figure out exactly what the hell had just happened. I was intrigued when I heard about John Anthony Miller’s new novel, “Honour the Dead.” It goes on sale November 1.

So what’s the John Anthony Miller story?

I like to write about ordinary people who are compelled to do extraordinary things, driven by events or tumultuous times. My first four books are about WWII, but not generals or admirals or politicians, but a reporter, a history teacher, a banker, a violinist. They become heroes, just as many other ordinary people became heroes during the global conflict, their stories difficult to imagine in a world that is now so different, but in some ways, still the same. I also like to use the location of the novel as a character, often exotic, richly described, a place where people have either been or might someday like to go. My first four books are set in Singapore, Berlin, Lisbon, and Paris. For my fifth novel, a murder mystery entitled Honour the Dead, I chose Lake Como, Italy, one of the most beautiful places in the world and a personal favorite of mine.

I agree, I prefer writing about “ordinary” people as well. What’s “Honour the Dead,” about?

Honour the Dead is about six English survivors of WWI who converge on Lake Como, Italy in 1921: four men, two women = one corpse and one killer.

Penelope Jones, a wealthy socialite, is admitted to Lakeside Sanitarium, convinced someone is trying to kill her. Her husband, Alexander Cavendish, a WWI hero, is having an affair with her closest friend and owes gambling debts to Billy Flynn, a London gangster. Her father, Wellington Jones, is fighting the collapse of his business empire and knows about Cavendish’s affair and gambling debts. Wellington needs money desperately and knows Penelope will inherit Cavendish’s estate. Dr. Joseph Barnett, Penelope’s doctor, struggles to control images of a war he can’t forget. He despises Cavendish, having served with him in the war. Barnett doesn’t see a war hero, but a despicable murderer who forced young men to die. Rose Barnett, the doctor’s wife, is a famous poet with a sordid secret. Rose was a nurse in France during the war, where she committed five mercy killings on horrifically wounded soldiers. Cavendish, the only witness, is blackmailing her. Who is the corpse and who is the killer?

I am a total geek for the post-WWI era. What is your fascination with it?

I set the novel in the 1920’s because I was intrigued by the utter devastation wrought by the First World War, which has since been overshadowed by the cataclysmic Second World War. I wanted to write about survivors, people desperately trying to forget the horrific tragedies they endured, losing family and friends, neighbors and coworkers – all victims to a war waged in muddy trenches with chlorine gas, the horror amplified by modern inventions like the tank and airplane. And even in 1921, three years after the fighting ended, I wanted to show that, regardless of how bright the future might seem, the past still clings tightly, refusing to let go.

Without giving away the farm, what’s your favorite (or favourite) part of the book?

My favorite scene from Honor the Dead is the epilogue, where a series of twists and turns show the reader that nothing is ever as it seems.

I think you may be the first person to say “the epilogue.” Now I’m intrigued. Where can we find more about you and your work?

https://www.amazon.com/JOHN-ANTHONY-MILLER/e/B00Q1U0OKO/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9787380.John_Anthony_Miller

https://twitter.com/authorjamiller

Website:  http://johnanthonymiller.net/

Subscribe to my newsletter and get a chance to win a signed paperback copy of  my upcoming novel.  Each month you’ll receive links to interviews with great authors, news about upcoming events and previews of my work in progress, Acre’s Orphans. Look at the bottom left of the page for the sign-up sheet. No spam, just once a month updates and a chance to learn about great new Historical Fiction of all types from around the world.