The Thrill Begins

Karen Dionne was interviewed recently for an article in the February issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine on environmental thrillers.

“With topics like global warming headlining the nightly news,” WD editor Jordan Rosenfeld writes, “the eco-thriller is heating up, scaring readers with a dose of ‘what if’ reality. Thriller writers draw from plausible terrors, even if these are enhanced with fantastic leaps. So it makes sense to those in the publishing industry that, just as novels about Sept. 11 began to surge into the market a few years after, the eco-thriller is on the rise because so much attention is being paid to climatic change.”

Karen’s debut novel, FREEZING POINT, is set in the Antarctic, where extremists plot to stop an energy company from melting icebergs into drinking water, neither realizing that the water is contaminated with an unknown deadly disease.

“One of the things that makes eco-thrillers so compelling,” the article quotes her as saying, “is that the earth is our home. If the environment turns on us, there’s no safe place.”

You can read the entire article online at Writer’s Digest’s website.

CJ Lyons‘ debut medical suspense novel, LIFELINES, has received 4 1/2 stars and a Top Pick from Romantic Times Book Reviews.

Here is what RT had to say about LIFELINES:

Pittsburgh’s Angel of Mercy Hospital comes brilliantly alive in Lyons ‘ debut novel. This enthralling medical mystery offers an intimate view of the personal and professional lives of its characters. It’s a winner.

Today is dedicated to Patry Francis and the release of the paperback edition of her debut novel, Liar’s Diary. Go here to see what it’s all about and here to read Patry’s blog and here to buy the book.

One of the things remarkable about Patry and her battles (to be published, to fight cancer, to continue sharing her work and world view) is that she has learned to live a life without “buts.”

No, not that butt, the one brought on by holiday over-indulging. I’m talking about the more insidiious, poisonous one that infests our society and prevents so many from daring to dream, much less live their dreams.

You know what I’m talking about. The “but” that starts so many conversations…and brings them to a screeching pre-mature halt. Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from being authors, what do Kahled Hosseini, Neil Gaiman, Jennifer Weiner, Lisa Jackson, and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford University Irvin Yalom have in common? They’re all blogging today to boost the sales of another author’s novel.

Patry’s Francis’s debut THE LIAR’S DIARY came out in hardcover from Dutton last spring. The trade paper release is today, January 29th, but a few weeks ago, Patry was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. She’s had several surgeries, and her prognosis is good, but given that she doesn’t have much energy for promoting, these five authors, along with over 380 others, have banded together to do it for her.

What’s going on? Why, in a business where only a tiny percentage of all the books written ever gets published, would total strangers help another author’s sales? What happened to cutthroat competition? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always had a pretty healthy self image, I think. At least I used to believe so. But I’ll freely admit I’m starting to feel a little schizophrenic.

It all started when I began negotiating with my editor at Penguin-Putnam about generating a series of cozies for them. (The first, FATAL FIXER-UPPER, will be released in November. It’s about a home renovator, and it has those cutesy tips for Do-It-Yourself projects in the back. It also has two cats, a hot handyman, missing heirlooms and a few dead bodies. But more about that later.)

We had established that I was qualified to write the books, that I wanted to write the books, that I was willing to write the books for what they were willing to pay me… and then my editor said, “Oh, by the way… we’d like you to use a pseudonym.”

Hunh. Read the rest of this entry »

By Theo Gangi

My debut novel, Bang Bang, has been coined a gritty urban thriller. I’ve always written about urban dynamics, since I’m a city kid and don’t know much else.

I found the thriller genre by accident—a professor of mine at Columbia’s MFA program saw a gun in a chapter of a previous novel and said, ‘So, clearly we’re dealing with noir here.’ I hadn’t read noir at that time—I thought I was writing literature.

Once I dove into thrillers—starting with Hammett and Chandler and working up to Connelly and Child– I realized that these guys were not only having more fun, their work was culturally viable, personally engaging and readers didn’t need a PHD to get it. I always felt my work should appeal to everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Kolman

NAKED OPTION, my first novel, is about a disgraced options trader who tracks a multi-million fraud and a murder through Wall Street’s gay subculture.

I wrote it because I couldn’t find many novels that fit the reality that I saw as a financial journalist. Most of the characters in the Wall Street thriller genre are one-dimensional portraits of greed. There’s certainly plenty of greed on Wall Street, but it’s only one of many powerful emotions — and not necessarily even the dominant one.

I tried to make the plot as exciting as I could – without bending reality. Dave Ackerman, the narrator of NAKED OPTION, is a brilliant young trader, but one day, recklessly trying to one-up his firm’s superstar, he goes naked on an option trade — and loses $112 million in two hours. His career is over. Then he hears about an auditing job at an investment bank. He knows within minutes that something is very wrong, but he’s so desperate he takes the job.

Read the rest of this entry »

Publishers Weekly lathered praise on both Jordan Dane’s debut, NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM, and CJ Lyons’ LIFELINES.

They called NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM “…a dynamite debut. Dane’s smooth style, believable characters and intense pacing will remind readers of Lisa Jackson, Lisa Gardner and Tami Hoag.”

And PW branded LIFELINES “a spot-on debut….Lyons delivers a breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller.”

Congratulations, ladies!

ITW Debut Authors members Leighton Gage (BLOOD OF THE WICKED) and Laura Benedict (ISABELLA MOON), as well as four other ITW members whose first novels debuted this year were featured recently in an article by Barbara Hoffert in Library Journal.

“Everybody has a story to tell,” Hoffert writes, “but not everybody can tell it well, which it why some first novels jump to the best sellers lists and others fade away. This year’s crop of successful first novelists come from all walks of life . . . But they share a way with words that allows them to deliver incandescent stories that could change your life.”

ITW members whose debuts were featured alongside John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize nominees Junot Diaz, Austin Grossman, Mischa Berlinski, Daniel Alarcón and Jon Clinch as well as Quill nominee Pam Jenoff include Marcus Sakey (THE BLADE ITSELF), Brent Gelfi (VOLK’S GAME), Elizabeth Benedek (RED SEA), and Derek Nikitas (PYRES).

You can see the full list at: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6483884.html

I was about to call the doctor and report my hallucination when I found other reports announcing the same thing. Surely not everyone was on codeine … wow.

Convivium is the first short story I’ve written since I was 16, and while it’s not been an eon yet, let’s just say I can measure the span in dog years. So it’s my first short work as an adult, it’s got a Latin title, Latin words, it features a character who will be making his debut next July in my first novel, NOX DORMIENDA, and it’s got cabbage in it. Not exactly an orthodox combination even in hardboiled, noir or historical, the genres I commingle and flirt with.

I’ve been happy as a clam at having it published in Dave Zeltserman’s wonderful Hardluck Stories, especially among such esteemed company. The fact that anyone actually read it … liked it … and then voted for it … well, I’m still half-suspecting the world drank from my cough syrup bottle.

If you feel so inclined and haven’t read Convivium yet, I’d be delighted if you did. And please exercise your reader’s constitutional right and vote in the Spinetingler Awards. There are many creative categories (best editor; best cover design), and plenty of great nominees to vote for. The deadline is December 30. Details can be found on the Crime Zine Report. I am truly humbled, exceedingly surprised, and very, very grateful to those who nominated me. And I feel a lot better. I think I’ve discovered a new weapon against pneumonia.