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REVIEW: Rose

megHan

Author: Rami Ungar
Publication Company: Castrum Press —
Publication Date: 19 June 2019
Pages: 208
Genre: Psychological Thriller

Rose Taggert awakens in a greenhouse with no clear memory of the past two years and, to her horror, finds her body transformed into an unrecognizable form.

Paris Kuyper has convinced Rose that they are lovers and as Paris could not bear for her to die, he has used an ancient and dark magic to save her from certain death.

But the dark magic Paris has used comes at a price. A price which a terrible demon is determined to extract from Rose.

As Rose struggles to understand what is happening to her, she must navigate Paris’s lies and secrets; secrets that Paris will do anything to protect.

Rose

Rose wakes after almost dying – apparently at the hands of her stalker – in what she finds to be the penthouse apartment of her boyfriend, Paris, a man and a relationship she doesn’t remember at all. He has done a spell from an ancient book, traded with the Japanese to get and passed down over generations, to save her life, unwilling to live without her, but the spell had some side-effects that Paris had not expected. Changes immediately begin to happen to her body… and that’s just the beginning of this story.

I fell in love with the cover and agreed to read this book based on that. I know I know, but for those of y’all who have been following my reviews for awhile, this should be something that doesn’t surprise you. I possibly skimmed through the book description, but… honestly… I don’t remember reading any of what I posted above [the cover image]. So who knows.

Despite my hinky reasoning behind agreeing to read a book…

This book was definitely not a disappointment. In fact, it was so good that I began it one night before bed (a habit I may one day blog about) and finished reading it around 3 in the morning, followed by writing pages – lots of them – in my journal about the book and how I felt about it. I just… had to let it all out and get my mind around everything that happened… and at 3 in the morning, there aren’t many people awake to hear you go on and on about a book you just finished.

It was one of those moments where you shut your Kindle and just sit there for a few minutes, unsure of what to do next.

The story was something quite different than what I normally find out there.

It was almost a mystery, with Rose having to figure out what is going on, not just to her physically, but around her as well, unsure of what to believe and who to trust. The addition of certain clues that make even the reader wonder if they are false or not really added to the story. Her changes made me think of a fantasy book, especially with magic being involved, and as usual with magic, things don’t always go the way that you have planned. The psychological thriller aspects of the whole thing were evident from almost the very beginning, when you see how characters interact with each other, and start finding out about their different pasts. There was even some horror added to the mix, when you consider one particular character you meet along the way, one who ends up being far more important to the story than you originally think.

Characters

Usually I can pick one or two characters from a story that I absolutely loved, but in this story I can’t say that I particularly liked any of them, but I must have, on some level, in order to have been unable to put the book down.

I was very curious about Rose and who she really was. As the description says, she can’t remember what’s happened over the last two years, but she knows herself and knows that some things that are being said just don’t make sense. Stories being told about her didn’t always add up to that knowledge, which left her confused at times, wondering if she could have really changed that much over the two years she seems to have lost. I found the way the author wrote her intriguing. In almost every story, the main character grows, but her growth was different, as it was more an actual finding herself, rather than a changing to become who she was truly meant to be. A well-done character.

Not all of the characters were who they originally seemed to be, and as more depth was added to them as the story progressed, you found out that some characters you didn’t like were ones that maybe weren’t as bad as they were made out to be, or once you heard their reasoning, you looked at them a little differently. That also happened with characters you took a liking to because, as the story progressed and you found out more about them, things came out that made you question your first impressions.

I wasn’t sure, as the story went on, if Rose was going to turn out to be the hero that the story needed, but in the end, she was definitely that.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Interesting characters.
  • The ever-changing settings were not always described as much as I would have liked them to be, but all had a point and added to the story.
  • The underlying story of magic was intriguing and was obviously well-researched. The magic itself was almost like another character, as it had a lot of parts in the story, not just his use of magic to save her life.

Cons:

  • As I stated above, there wasn’t any particular character that, in the end, I can say was my favorite. Not an actual “con,” but something that usually bothers me when it comes to a story. In this case, though, it didn’t actually cause harm to the story, as the characters were interesting enough – and the story was intriguing enough – that I plowed through.
  • There were some editing issues that drove me bonkers, but I am hoping that they were just in the copy I received and didn’t make it to the final copy.

Final Thoughts

This is definitely a story that I would recommend to others, especially people who enjoy several genres, as this one could fit perfectly in more than one.

Just don’t blame me if you, too, are up until after 3 in the morning unable to put it down…

Rami Ungar knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of five, when he first became exposed to the world of Harry Potter and wanted to create imaginative worlds like Harry’s. As a tween, he fell in love with the works of Anne Rice and Stephen King and, as he was getting too old to sneak up on people and shout “Boo!’ (not that that ever stopped him), he decided to merge his two loves and become a horror writer.

Today, Rami lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio. He’s self-published three novels and one collection of short stories, and his stories have appeared in other publications here and there. Rose, his first novel with Castrum Press, was released June 21st, 2019.

When he’s not writing your nightmares or coming up with those, he’s enjoying anything from the latest horror novel or movie to anime and manga to ballet, collecting anything that catches his fancy, and giving you the impression he may not be entirely human.

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Rami Ungar

megHan

Meghan: Hey, Rami. Welcome to Meghan’s House of Books. It’s great to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Rami Ungar: My name is Rami Ungar, and I’m a horror author from Columbus, Ohio. I first started writing with the goal of being published around age ten, and started gravitating towards horror after reading the works of Stephen King. I’ve previously self-published four books, with Rose being my first with a publisher. Along with King, my major influences include Anne Rice and HP Lovecraft.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Rami Ungar: Tough question, as I’m an open book. But if I had to pick five, I would go with that I hate wearing socks; I am fascinated with Victorian England; I sometimes make homemade sushi, though it’s never restaurant-quality; the last movie I watched was The Best of Enemies with Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell; and I’ve been to the FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Rami Ungar: Probably Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m sure there are others, but that one’s prominent in my memory, and was first responsible for making me want to write in the first place.

Meghan: What are you reading now?

Rami Ungar: At this moment, I’m reading The Institute by Stephen King, which is proving hard to put down. I’m also listening to The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on audio book.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

Rami Ungar: When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson. I first saw the movie, but the book has its own special magic to it.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

Rami Ungar: I can’t remember what impetus made me decide to write. At some point around age ten, I realized I liked coming up with and writing down stories, so I decided to pursue that career. Sixteen years later, that dream’s coming to fruition, though there’s still a long road ahead of me.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

Rami Ungar: Not exactly, I just sit at my desk at home and write on my laptop. That being said, I do try to make it as comfortable and conducive to creativity as possible.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

Rami Ungar: Not especially. I do tend to outline most of my stories I write them. And I like to have incense burning while I write and some music playing in the background, but that’s about it.

Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?

Rami Ungar: Staying focused on task, which is the bane of everyone who has ADHD like myself.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

Rami Ungar: I suppose my horror-thriller novel Snake. Throughout the writing process of that, it was just a lot of fun to work on, and I still think of that story when I think of stories that I had the most fun with.

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

Rami Ungar: Obviously, King has been a great influence. IT made me realize what power horror has, and I’ve been trying to bring out the feeling that book left in young me in my readers ever since. I also think HP Lovecraft’s stories have been a powerful influence on me. I am fascinated by the idea of powerful entities that have no care for us but whose very presence can have profound effects on our lives.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

Rami Ungar: That is so subjective, I’m not sure how to answer it. I guess with the stories I write, if it at least stays with you, maybe leaves you with a sense of disquiet, then that’s a good story.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

Rami Ungar: You know, I don’t know. I guess I fall in love with characters whom I want to hug and tell them it’s going to be alright, even when I’m the source for most of their problems. Which creates a conflict in me, so I don’t always use those sorts of characters.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

Rami Ungar: Probably the protagonist of Snake, if only we have such a love of horror and slasher films, especially Jason Voorhees.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

Rami Ungar: Not always. Sometimes the covers hide the best stories. And except for Rose, I had a big hand in the creation of the covers for my stories. For Rose, my publisher took a bigger part in that, and I have to say, I like the results.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

Rami Ungar: That good storytelling is always an ongoing process, and there’s always something new to learn.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

Rami Ungar: There was a scene that left me so shaken that I had to take a walk to the convenience store, in the pouring rain, just to get my head on straight. However, since that story is unpublished and I still would like to put it out someday, I will keep that a secret.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

Rami Ungar: If I had to guess, I’d say my embracing of the weird. My stories involve girls turning into plant creatures, car races involving ghosts, and more stuff that just seems so ludicrous and strange that you wonder where they come from. It enhances the joy to put that stuff in the story, and I don’t know of any other writer who includes that sort of thing in their work.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

Rami Ungar: Not really. More often than not, the title makes itself known to me early on. If it doesn’t, it comes to me while writing the story, and I am like, “That works. Let’s use it.”

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

Rami Ungar: Writing a novel. Novels require a lot more research, planning, and work, so seeing them through to the end, as well as watching each subsequent draft become better and better, is extremely satisfying. Not to mention seeing the book possibly published.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.

Rami Ungar: One book is called The Quiet Game, and it’s a short collection of stories I wrote in college. I also have a sci-fi trilogy called the Reborn City series, about street gangs in a dystopian future. So far, two books in the series, Reborn City and Video Rage, have been published. Snake is a horror-thriller about a serial killer hunting down members of a powerful mafia family in New York. And Rose follows a young woman who starts turning into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems).

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

Rami Ungar: The only ones worthy of mentioning are from Rose. In that book, there were a lot of flashback scenes in earlier drafts, which really made the protagonist a complex character. However, those scenes didn’t contribute much to the plot, so I ended up cutting them out around draft four or five. Was worth it, in the end.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Rami Ungar: I have another novel I plan to edit as soon as the beta reader is done with it. I also have a project I plan to start in November for National Novel Writing Month. And I’m putting together a collection of short stories, though I’m not sure at this time when it will be done.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Rami Ungar: Blog ** Email ** Facebook ** Twitter ** Instagram ** YouTube

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

Rami Ungar: If you’re a horror fan, never let anyone shame you for it. Just enjoy the stories you enjoy, and let others know that you do. There’s a lovely group of fans around the world, full of some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and they love a good story as much as you do.

Rami Ungar knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of five, when he first became exposed to the world of Harry Potter and wanted to create imaginative worlds like Harry’s. As a tween, he fell in love with the works of Anne Rice and Stephen King and, as he was getting too old to sneak up on people and shout “Boo!’ (not that that ever stopped him), he decided to merge his two loves and become a horror writer.

Today, Rami lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio. He’s self-published three novels and one collection of short stories, and his stories have appeared in other publications here and there. Rose, his first novel with Castrum Press, was released June 21st, 2019.

When he’s not writing your nightmares or coming up with those, he’s enjoying anything from the latest horror novel or movie to anime and manga to ballet, collecting anything that catches his fancy, and giving you the impression he may not be entirely human.

Snake

How far will you go for love and revenge? When a young man’s girlfriend is kidnapped by the powerful Camerlengo Family, he becomes the Snake, a serial killer who takes his methods from the worst of the Russian mafia. Tracking down members of the Camerlengo Family one by one for clues, the Snake will go to any lengths to see the love of his life again…even if it means becoming a worse monster than any of the monsters he is hunting.

Rose

Rose Taggert awakens in a greenhouse with no clear memory of the past two years and, to her horror, finds her body transformed into an unrecognizable form.

Paris Kuyper has convinced Rose that they are lovers and as Paris could not bear for her to die, he has used an ancient and dark magic to save her from certain death.

But the dark magic Paris has used comes at a price. A price which a terrible demon is determined to extract from Rose.

As Rose struggles to understand what is happening to her, she must navigate Paris’s lies and secrets; secrets that Paris will do anything to protect.

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Mandi and Matt Hart

megHan

Meghan: Hi, Mandi and Matt. Welcome to my blog. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Mandi & Matt Hart: We started our writing career shortly after we got married and found out that we both had a passion for writing. We are currently working on our first novel and expecting our first child.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Mandi & Matt Hart: 1) We like to be creative in all areas including art and music, 2) We enjoy collecting eclectic and unique things, 3) We started practicing for our son to come by reading each other bed time stories, 4) We have a joint journal where we write letters to each other, 5) We live in a haunted house.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Mandi- Black Beauty, Matt- Old Yeller

Meghan: What are you reading now?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Pete’s Dragon: The Lost Years.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

Mandi & Matt Hart: The Odyssey

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Matt did poetry in high school and after winning a few poetry contests, he got bitten by the bug. Mandi has been writing since high school and has enjoyed it, but was too shy and afraid to let anyone read her work. After we got married, Matt read some of Mandi’s work and really enjoyed it and revealed he had been looking for a partner to help bring his ideas to life. We combined our talents and are now working on our first novel.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

Mandi & Matt Hart: In the bedroom side by side.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We hand write everything first before transcribing and editing on a computer.

Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Keeping the pace of the story while still providing descriptions and information while also keeping the excitement going.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

Mandi & Matt Hart: This novel we are working on right now.

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

Mandi & Matt Hart: The Ashes Series by William Johnstone, It by Stephen King, and House of Leaves. Hunter H. Thompson, Douglas Adams, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and William Johnstone.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

Mandi & Matt Hart: A plot that draws you in and keeps your attention and relatable characters.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

Mandi & Matt Hart: If we can create a character that makes the reader feel as if they are going through the trials and story with them then that is a character that we love. We create real and relatable characters.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Matt is most like Dillon in our novel.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We are turned off by a bad cover and plan to be 100% involved in creating our own book covers.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We have learned team work and how to describe details of characters and places more thoroughly.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

Mandi & Matt Hart: The first informational scene. It was a difficult balance to not lose the momentum of the story while still providing background information at the start.

Meghan: What makes your book different from others out there in this genre?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We hope to take a realistic unbiased viewpoint on the situation at hand and showing the reality of situations, backed up by research, and not having political opinions inserted in.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

Mandi & Matt Hart: The book title is extremely important and is one of the most difficult things to choose. Matt came up with our book title after a conversation with a friend about the novel.

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Writing a novel makes us feel more fulfilled. We feel to best engage readers and bring them into our stories world that we need a novel concept instead of a short story concept.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your book, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.

Mandi & Matt Hart: We are writing a book about survival in a country that has been occupied by enemy forces and the importance of relying on those around us. Our target audience is people who are preppers, survivalists, and those who love military or over coming all obstacles stories. When faced with an undefeatable enemy and staggering odds against you, you still go all in head first and never give is what we would like readers to take away from our stories.

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We first started our story at the end and tried to accomplish a story after the events unfolded but the story did not want to be told that way. We gave the story the power to tell itself and ended up starting from the beginning and allowing our readers to live through it through our character’s eyes.

Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Yes we do. We have a horror story that we have started and still work on when the muse decides to strike.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We are also currently working on an action adventure story that takes place during the Vietnam War.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Mandi & Matt Hart: Facebook ** Email

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

Mandi & Matt Hart: We look forward to getting our book out into the public’s hands soon and truly hope that you enjoy. Drop us a line any time. We look forward to getting to know our fans and creating adventures together!

Halloween Extravaganza: Brian Kaufman: Night of the Living Dead

megHan

Author Brian Kaufman joins us today with an article of one of his favorite movies: Night of the Living Dead.

As a horror fan (and a genre writer), I enjoy a scary movie. I’ve seen literally hundreds of them. One stood above the others as a truly frightening experience. Because the film was revolutionary (and because I was young), Night of the Living Dead had a lasting effect, both on my writing and my life.

My first encounter with the movie came through a negative newspaper review, which noted that the film departed from the traditional horror film (as typified by the Universal Studio monsters). NOTLD had no comedic elements. No schlocky reminders that the film was, after all, just a movie. And the hero dies. A drawing accompanying the review showed movie-goers, ostensibly children, fleeing the theater in tears.

The following summer, I took a date to the drive-in. She wore a sweater over her blouse, but it was late August, and that sweater was coming off for sure. Then the movie started. I’d recognized the name from the review I’d read, and thought, good, this could be fun. Maybe she’ll get scared!

Let’s start by saying that the title sequence scared me. Black and white film. A car driving a deserted road. Plain title lettering. No reason to feel dread, except, I did. As soon as Bill Hinzman, the graveyard zombie, killed poor Barbara’s brother, my date buttoned up that sweater. I was unseasonably cold myself, and settled in to endure the overwhelming sense of impending doom.

Film over, we drove home in silence. That night, I had my first zombie nightmare.

The dreams are all the same. It’s late afternoon or early evening. The sun will be down soon, and I have a limited amount of time to secure my surroundings and find weapons. Only the setting changes. In one dream, I was in the storage room of a museum. In another, the attic of a fast food restaurant.

In one particularly bad dream, I was on the top floor of an office building. The zombies were shambling down the hall, and coworkers barred the door. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Then, the pounding started. Someone on the other side of the door begged us to let him in. One coworker asked, “Is that Bob?” I tried to remove the bar, but coworkers pulled me way. The man outside shrieked, “They’re eating me!” I woke up screaming. My poor wife, half asleep, began screaming, too.

Meanwhile, I kept watching zombie movies. What scares you can also fascinate you. All this, thanks to that first black-and-white film, which clearly altered my DNA.

When I began writing horror, I wasted no time wondering what kind of monster I’d portray. Being eaten would surely be a horrible way to die. The relentless, unstoppable nature of zombies adds to their dread. And zombies are mindless. Evil has always struck me as thoughtless and irrational.

Novel writing is a lonely, arduous task. That’s why I chose a subject I could obsess over. It’s easy to maintain interest in a project that infects you. Dead Beyond the Fence was a moderate success, though the million or so zombie movies and books since then have taken the genre to new places. My second zombie story, for example, Mary King’s Plague, took the undead to 17th century Scotland.

I still have occasional zombie dreams, though time and nostalgia have altered the way they are viewed. I look forward to the setting sun. A good weapon makes me smile. (Sometimes, chaos is fun.) As for Romero’s classic, my older self finds that some of the strings are showing—bad acting, script flaws, lapses in logic. No matter—Night of the Living Dead still affects me, marrow deep. Best horror film ever.

Brian Kaufman is curriculum editor for an online junior college. He has published five novels, two textbooks, and a number of novellas. Kaufman lives with his wife and dog in the Colorado mountains, dividing his time between various passions, including writing, blues guitar, and book-hoarding.

Mary King’s Plague

According to legend, when plague broke out in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1644, city officials walled up a tenement neighborhood to contain the outbreak. When the walls came down months later, soldiers found dismembered corpses. Today, Mary King’s Close is one of the most haunted places in the world.

“Mary King’s Plague” – a novella. Betrayal. Forgiveness. Redemption. Zombies.

Dead Beyond the Fence: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse

The dead have risen, and there’s no safe place. Coworkers Kevin and Angel take refuge in a college town research facility, where a handful of desperate survivors battle the plague and each other while searching for a cure. Meanwhile, Angel has a secret that will affect everyone in the facility. “Dead Beyond the Fence” includes a bonus novella, “Dread Appetites.” Seven months have passed, and the dead still walk. Will the world ever return to normal?

Halloween Extravaganza: INTERVIEW: Brian Kaufman

megHan

Meghan: Hi, Brian. Thanks for stopping by Meghan’s House of Books today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Brian Kaufman: I was a cook by trade. Spent fifty years working in restaurants. Sixty to eighty hours a week doing things like peeling shrimp, which oddly enough, played into my aspirations as a writer. You’d be surprised how much writing you can do in your head while washing dishes or trimming steaks.

Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?

Brian Kaufman:

  • I once made six errors in a single inning in a high school baseball scrimmage.
  • I played in several heavy metal bands in the 1970s. Played in a lot of bars, but never recorded.
  • I’ve done standup comedy. I was not that funny.
  • I rode a rodeo bull once. Lasted four seconds. The single most graceful movement I ever made was climbing (or levitating) over the fence when the bull dumped me.
  • I am afraid of heights… and bungie jumped from a 140-foot tower.

Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?

Brian Kaufman: Scuffy the Tugboat (a Little Golden Book). I still have a copy on my “keeper shelf.”

Meghan: What are you reading now?

Brian Kaufman: I just finished A Dangerous Man by Robert Crais. I don’t normally read mystery/thrillers, but I read all of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike mysteries.

Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?

Brian Kaufman: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf. Quite unlike anything else he wrote. Minimalist.

Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?

Brian Kaufman: I wrote a story about my seventh-grade classmates trapped on an island run by a Russian invasion force. I was twelve-years-old. The English teacher had me read the story to the other students. That’s when I decided that I’d write if my professional baseball career fell through.

Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?

Brian Kaufman: I have an office in my mountain home. The window overlooks a ravine where deer like to congregate. The walls are covered with the work of local artists. And I have bookshelves. Full ones.

Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?

Brian Kaufman: I make project-specific playlists for background music. The songs can’t have English language, though. The words disrupt my writing. (Foreign languages don’t seem to bother me.) For horror, I like to listen to Gregorian Chant.

Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?

Brian Kaufman: Time management and my natural tendency towards sloth.

Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?

Brian Kaufman: Dread Tribunal of Last Resort is a Civil War novel coming out in July from Five Star Publishing. The book took me 20 years to research and write. In the end, it’s a love story, so the book was a stretch for me.

Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?

Brian Kaufman: I try really hard to sound like me, so I’m not much inspired by another writer’s style. But their books? Almost too many inspirations to mention. Jane Austen, Poe, Larry McMurtry, H.P. Lovecraft, Ayn Rand, Hunter Thompson, Willa Cather, Raymond Russell, and that Shakespeare guy.

Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?

Brian Kaufman: Compelling character(s) in conflict who undergo changes in such a way as to reveal something important about human nature. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s not.

Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?

Brian Kaufman: To love a character, I have to want to write about them (faults and all). That love keeps my butt in the chair and writing. I want to spend time with these people. Even the messed-up ones.

Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?

Brian Kaufman: I consciously avoid autobiographical fiction, so my characters have no more than a little, unconscious piece of me. I find other people to be much more interesting.

Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?

Brian Kaufman: After my first two novels, I started a publishing company (Dark Silo Press), so I was in charge of the covers. I found an artist on the Internet who knocked me out. I contacted him and offered him a royalty percentage. Jack Larson spent years in the military (working body detail) and the NYPD (working body detail). When he retired, he became an artist…primarily painting zombies. Match made in heaven.

Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?

Brian Kaufman: From junior high school on, writing was my most cherished hobby. Creating the finished product as both author and publisher helped me glimpse the full spectrum of skills necessary to be successful. For example, marketing isn’t just selling. Marketing begins with aspects like market research and analysis, distribution chains, pricing strategies, and publicity. Being a professional (as opposed to a hobby writer) requires a lot of study. I’m still a work in progress.

Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?

Brian Kaufman: I wrote and rewrote the last two pages of my first novel, The Breach, maybe 150 times (including the final rewrite just moments before handing over the galleys to the publisher). I was afraid to read the pages when the book was released, fearing that I’d see what I should have done. Luckily, that wasn’t so. I’m happy with how the ending came out.

Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?

Brian Kaufman: My horror novels are theme and character driven. I can’t get away from it. In Mary King’s Plague, I attempted to write a comic book—some fluff, written purely for fun. When I was finished, I had a serious exploration of some heavy themes, including betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption. I couldn’t help myself.

Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?

Brian Kaufman: A book’s cover and title are the most important marketing tools a writer has. Choosing an effective title is hard. The one I’m proudest of is The Fat Lady’s Low, Sad Song, which is a play on an old Yogi Berra quote. The novella that was the most difficult to title was The Wretched Walls, a ghost story. Horror Novel Reviews named it a top ten horror read for 2015, but the story didn’t sell. I blame my title, in part.

Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?

Brian Kaufman: I’m a novelist. Bigger challenge, bigger payoff.

Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.

Brian Kaufman: I love Umberto Ecco, who said he wrote for people who wanted to read the kind of stories he wrote. That bit of self-referencing is problematic for me, because I don’t write the same sort of thing with any two projects. I suppose I fear being a one-trick pony. As for takeaways, I hope that readers consider my themes, but remember my characters.

Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?

Brian Kaufman: When editing, I cut gratuitous scenes, excess gore, poetic moments and other self-indulgence. As a person, I’m a little over the top. As a writer, I try to be more conservative. So, I chop away, using the delete button so I won’t be tempted to put anything back. That’s for the best.

Meghan: What is in your “trunk”?

Brian Kaufman: I joke about this one a lot, but I’m secretly serious. I want to write an epic poem. I have a horror-based story in mind. I hope to construct the poem as a string of sonnets. It will be… epic.

Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?

Brian Kaufman: I am finishing a Cthulhu Mythos novella (In His Image) with a wicked hook that will probably be finished next year. The story begins with a minister shooting his wife and children, leaving his sister to discover why.

Meghan: Where can we find you?

Brian Kaufman: Author webpage ** Facebook

Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?

Brian Kaufman: Really, a most thorough interview.

Meghan: Thanks, Brian. Wait until you get invited back for interview number two…

Brian Kaufman is curriculum editor for an online junior college. He has published five novels, two textbooks, and a number of novellas. Kaufman lives with his wife and dog in the Colorado mountains, dividing his time between various passions, including writing, blues guitar, and book-hoarding.

Mary King’s Plague

According to legend, when plague broke out in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1644, city officials walled up a tenement neighborhood to contain the outbreak. When the walls came down months later, soldiers found dismembered corpses. Today, Mary King’s Close is one of the most haunted places in the world.

“Mary King’s Plague” – a novella. Betrayal. Forgiveness. Redemption. Zombies.

Dead Beyond the Fence: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse

The dead have risen, and there’s no safe place. Coworkers Kevin and Angel take refuge in a college town research facility, where a handful of desperate survivors battle the plague and each other while searching for a cure. Meanwhile, Angel has a secret that will affect everyone in the facility. “Dead Beyond the Fence” includes a bonus novella, “Dread Appetites.” Seven months have passed, and the dead still walk. Will the world ever return to normal?