Category: Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Vera Nazarian

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Compete

Cover from Amazon

Vera Nazarian is a Russian immigrant, now American citizen, presently living in Vermont after leaving Los Angles, which she obviously remembers fondly (or maybe not) considering some of the things which happen in Qualify, the first book of The Atlantis Grail series. Compete is the second book of the series and Ms. Nazarian’s most recent publication. The third in the series, Win, is due out shortly.

She has previously published the Cobweb Bride series, several stand-alone novels, a couple novelette, and a myriad of short stories. Ms. Nazarian runs the small press of Norilana Books.

Bobbing along, minding my own business, trying to find some fictional romance stories based on Hades and Persephone after coming out of my own private six months the dark underworld of Taxes, I discovered the Cobweb Bride and was blown away. The layers of world building, the unique characters, the lyrical language – it’s like Ms. Nazarian is specifically writing for all my “love” buttons.

I had to find more.

Since then, I have gobbled two more short stories and both of the published books of her Atlantis Grail series. All her books contain the wonderful love of language; some readers claim she dips into “purple prose” – but I do not find this to be the case. Purple prose is page after page of description; Ms. Nazarian balances description with action and dialogue. Anytime my inner editor starts speaking up saying “this type of writing – narrative or dialogue – has been going on too long”, the very next sentence switches the mix up.

If you want non-stop action, then she is not the writer for you. But if you rub against books for the texture of the velvet described (right before the knife is slid through the silk doublet), then you will enjoy her writing.

The novels I have read have a lot of characters, casts of dozens to hundreds. Somehow Ms. Nazarian makes each a unique character. Often when you first meet them, it is like in real life; you instantly categorize the person by the environment and situation you meet them in. But as time goes on, and you get to know them, the characters don’t stay in their nice little categories. No one does exactly what you expect, but everyone does what is within their character.

I hope you take a moment to explore this incredible storyteller. She has a few free items available on Amazon.

Her website can be found here: http://www.veranazarian.com/

 

Author Spotlight: Gail Z. Martin

Erin Penn

Book Cover from Amazon

Gail Z. Martin is a prolific writer of multiple genres. Her series include the epic fantasies of The Ascendant Kingdom Saga (with the just released book Shadow and Flame) and The Chronicles of the Necromancer; the urban fantasy of Deadly Curiosities; and steampunk The Jake Desmet Adventures (Iron & Blood) written with her husband Larry N. Martin. Plus she has written several non-fiction books on how to publish, for example 30 Days to Social Media Success (how to use twitter, blog, linkedin etc)

I have the great advantage of living near this author. It is advantage because this wonderful writer is open to teaching and helping others on the publication path. She hosts a monthly meetup in the Charlotte area “The Thrifty Author’s Publishing Success Network” which she and several of her published author friends share their experiences. This is not a writer’s workshop or a critique group, but a once a month meeting on the status of the publishing industry. Topics covered have included how to attend a convention as a panelist, how to leverage social media, what to expect from an editor, and using Kickstarter, Patreon, and other crowdfunding sources. I’ve learned so much from the meetings, plus have met a lot of great authors in the Carolinas.

Ms. Martin regularly attends ConCarolinas, which is where I first found out about her monthly meetup as well as a regular contributor to MagicalWords. I’m just amazed at how open and willing she is to help people who make the effort to learn about the business. Is she going to help critique you work or say you did a good job writing? … no, that is not her thing. What she does do through her non-fiction books is give you the tools to actually publish through an agent or by yourself, develop a marketing plan, and know about the business – taking the mystery out of what do after you finish writing.

As for her own writing, she carefully researches her topics, bringing a level of reality I rarely find in reading. Her style includes several short repeats throughout the books which lend themselves to reading, putting down to due chores and go to work, and picking up again. Since I tend to swallow series whole in a weekend, I find this particular part of her style annoying but I know it is beneficial to many readers.

My personal favorite of her series is the Deadly Curiosities and related e-short stories The Deadly Curiosities Adventure Books. Her research into different types of historical artifacts, whether dead photos or Indian blankets makes the antique shop really come alive.

Author Spotlight: Janet Kagan

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Uhura's Song

Cover from Amazon

Mrs. Janet Kagan is … was … one of my all-time favorite authors; she went to play in the Big Sky in 2008. In her time she managed to write only two full novels for publication and one collection of stories assembled from magazines articles (the overall arc makes the sum even better than its parts, which is very appropriate for Mirabile). The full list of her works can be found here: 

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1485

Her demanding scientific dayjob kept her world count unfortunately low but brought a richness to her worldbuilding few writers ever reach. Uhura’s Song is arguably the most critically acclaimed of the Star Trek prose. Most people are familiar with her through this work.

My personal favorite is Hellspark (alternately pronounced Hell’s Park and Hell Spark – read the book to understand). I love worldbuilding on a sociological level, and this science fiction story truly captures why sociology is important to creating alternate worlds of the science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction genres. People on other planets are not just going to be Americans on strange new worlds, but people being shaped by the worlds as much as the star-travelers are shaping (terraforming) the planets. Hellspark captures both the sociology and the biology of future planetary explorations in ways which hold me spellbound as I read through it for the third or fourth … and eventually the fiftieth time if my books hold up that long.

Only the Star Trek story is available on Kindle. Maybe if enough interest continues in her other publication, Tor will release them in Kindle format too.

(Update 5/23/2016 – The publisher, Baen, has just released Mirabile, Hellspark,and her collected short stories on Kindle.)

Author Spotlight: J. Matthew Saunders

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Daughters of Shadow & Book Book I: Yasamin

Cover from Amazon

Author J. Matthew Saunders first full-length novel “Daughters of Shadow & Blood – Book I: Yasamin” is a delight of wordsmithing. Images of the Prologue alone are worth the price of admission to this book; Darin Kennedy of the Mussorgsky Riddle correctly describes as “Dracula meets The DaVinci Code, a contemporary thriller masterfully interwoven with historical dark fantasy.”

The weaving of four different main timelines and locations, plus a few side trips, produces a spell-binding story. Book 1: Yasamin captures the horrific beauty of the first bride of Dracula.

Matthew Saunders lives in the greater Charlotte NC area and has published numerous published fantasy and horror short stories. He has degrees in history, journalism and law – and like most lawyers, in very elegant with his words. He is an unapologetic European history geek, which is woven throughout his first novel.

His author blog can be found at Write Wrote Written and centers on his passion of history and monsters. He put together a cool soundtrack of music related to Yasamin – link here.

Author Spotlight: Sarah David

Erin Penn

Book Cover for Decaf & Drones

Cover from Amazon

Author Sarah David’s debut novel “Decaf & Drones” was released by Three World Press in November 2015. A teacher, graduate student, and mother of an active toddler, Ms. David still found time to start a new cozy mystery series “Northwood Barista” themed around coffee, something of an obsession for Ms. David and her main character.

The protagonist, Jordan Nimsby returns home after failing the big city life because of personality conflict with the owner of private investigation firm where she worked, but her love of excitement remains. When a bomb goes off in a stripmall in her small Wisconsin town, she starts investigating even before the police show up.

The inspiration for the “Northwood Barista” series came from an article about Millennials returning home. The first story percolated from the constant news coverage of drones. Eventually the brew boiled, and Ms. Davis put fingers to keyboard between cups of java and chasing a toddler around the house. She continued all three tasks until “Decaf & Drones” poured forth.

Ms. Davis’ blog can be found at http://wordsandcoffeewriting.blogspot.com/ and has lots of cool gifs, something I haven’t even attempted. Interested readers can also connect through her twitter feed wordsandcoffee1. (9/20/2023 – Twitter is now X, and locking itself behind a paywall. Look for the author under other social media.) For her blog, she created an interview with her MC. The interview can be found at: http://wordsandcoffeewriting.blogspot.com/2015/12/interview-with-jordan-nimsby-of-decaf.html. (I need to steal that idea for the future.)

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Full disclosure: One of the small presses I edited for was Three World Productions, of which Three World Press is an imprint. I do not review books I have edited, but I may spotlight authors I have worked with.