Today, I've got a thrilling multi-book spotlight and a guest post from Award-winning and Best-Selling author Marianne Scott, sponsored by iRead Book Tours. Find Marianne's guest post "Why I write thrillers." below and enter the $50 PayPal gift card giveaway!
Why I Write Thrillers
The first time I was asked why I write thrillers I had one of those ‘duh’ moments. I never thought about my reasons for choosing thrillers over any other genre. My lame answer was, “Well, it’s what I write.” Sorry people. I agree that was a poor answer offering little satisfaction not only to my readers but also to myself. In truth, writers have reasons why their stories lean toward a certain category. It deserves a thoughtful answer because it’s an honest question that comes from a place of curiosity about the author they are reading. I believe readers want to know what makes their favorite author tick. An author always has certain proclivities from which their stories evolve.
I’m a news junkie. I tune into reports several times a day. News stations don’t go out of their way to report “good news” stories. It’s the bad stuff that is reported. We live in a chaotic world with numerous health and environmental hazards, not to mention political leaders who like to drop bombs. I internalize these stories and analyze how these unfortunate events affect people. That’s where the real stories are. Behind the wars and political discontent, there is suffering and pain, and of course, bad people responsible for those misfortunes that befall innocent bystanders.
My debut novel, Finding Ruby Draker, was driven by a memory of my father’s reaction to the day the Berlin Wall came down. It conjured up a tale of the Cold War and spies and what happened to all those operatives’ years after that era ended. News events have long-lasting effects that carry forward for generations. Old grievances don’t always melt into history. They go into hiding and fester. Imagine if a revenge-focused Government agent harbored feelings of resentment toward his own team of spies who no longer remained in the Force because the war ended. There is a story in that concept.
My second novel was a sequel because I felt the story wasn’t finished. Stepping back into old news reports when I started writing Shadows in the Aftermath, I realized a resurgence of nuclear weapons testing in North Korea put the world back into danger of a second Cold War. It was also a time when nuclear weapons were proliferating in the Middle East. It stirred a “what-if” premise that involved the acquisition of nuclear material to make a bomb. Also, I had deliberately left a loose end in Finding Ruby Draker so I could bring back a character believed to have been killed at the hands of a notorious and revengeful boss in charge of a Cold War secret missions’ operations.
My third novel, Reinhardt, is a prequel. In this novel, I tell the story of why there is sadness in a young operative’s eyes. He wasn’t always the man we came to know in the previous novels. He was a man with several aliases. The story is set around 1991 at the time when the Soviet Union fell. There was a story before Ruby came onto the character scene. It steps back to a time when the Cold War ended and the reason my antagonist is bent on revenge. As always, world events at that time spurred the theme of spies as the political event changed the course of history.
My fourth novel, Underneath the Fireflies, takes place in more recent times. I was strongly influenced by Canada’s murdered and Indigenous women. Also, as unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered the truth of a terrible history came to light. I introduce how a white woman rights the wrong of an old murder. It takes place on a Canadian West Coast Island where an empathic white woman has a vision of a murdered Indigenous woman. It offered an opportunity to blend a story of culture and spiritualism and intertwine the story into a paranormal thriller.
So, I have a more thoughtful answer to the question. I write thrillers because there are personal stories that come out of what happened back in history. How often have we said, “When I was growing up.” A story can be triggered by a current event that revives either a repressed memory or resurfaces an old wound where the ghosts of the past come calling.
Witnessing the tear-stained face of my father as he watched the news on November 9, 1989, the day the Berlin Wall fell, made me realize that everyone is affected by the world around them. It wasn’t only one event but all the atrocities that led to that day. There are so many stories that lay dormant until a current news story awakens our memory. And, there are so many stories to tell.
--Marianne Scott, Author
Thank you Marianne for this lovely post and answer to why you write thrillers. I too remember watching the news when the Berlin Wall fell and how my parents reacted. If you love a good thriller, like me, be sure to check out one or all of Marianne's books below.
Book Title: Finding Ruby Draker by Marianne Scott
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 388 pages
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Publisher: Crowe Creations
Release date: May 29, 2023
Tour dates: Nov 20 to Dec 8, 2023
Content Rating: PG-13. Occasional colloquial language is used in dialog. Nothing that would offend the most discerning reader/s.
Book Description:
"It all ended with the fire that took away my parents, my little brother, and everything I was or ever knew. That part of me is gone.”
On a day that was supposed to end in celebration, Kathleen Jones finds that her home has been torched and her family killed. In the chaos and terror of the moment, two men grab and drug her unconscious. As she awakes in a clinic with her face in bandages, more men with guns storm in and try to kill her but her abductors save her life, whisking her away on a private jet to France.
Now that everyone is calling her Ruby—Ruby Draker, she knows that her life will never be the same.
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Book Title: Shadows in the Aftermath by Marianne Scott
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 346 pages
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Publisher: Crowe Creations
Release date: June 2023
Tour dates: Nov 20 to Dec 8, 2023
Content Rating: PG-13. Occasional colloquial language is used in dialog. Nothing that would offend the most discerning reader/s.
Book Description:
He’s alive!
At the safehouse in Southern France, Ruby Draker is stunned as she monitors the security system, when a photograph appears on the screen. Presumed dead, the photograph shows Robert Draker in a wheel chair at the Portland, Maine physio clinic. The Draker family immediately jump into action and fly to the US to save Robert. But they no sooner land when they realize that not only is Robert harder to find than they anticipated, there is a much larger situation of concern. Now they have to chose between saving their beloved family member or defending national security.
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Book Title: Reinhardt (a thriller) by Marianne Scott
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 224 pages
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Publisher: Crowe Creations
Release date: October 2022
Tour dates: Nov 20 to Dec 8, 2023
Content Rating: PG-13. Occasional colloquial language is used in dialog. Nothing that would offend the most discerning reader/s.
Book Description:
He's a Cold War spy hiding from one of his own. His real identity is tied to a treacherous past associated with American intelligence operations closed down after the end of the Cold War, and his enemy is relentless. All he has to do is change his name. Right? Wrong. Very wrong. Felix has eyes and ears everywhere.
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Book Title: Underneath the Fireflies by Marianne Scott
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 496 pages
Genre: Murder Mystery / Thriller
Publisher: Crowe Creations
Release date: January 2023
Tour dates: Nov 20 to Dec 8, 2023
Content Rating: PG-13. Occasional colloquial language is used in dialog. Nothing that would offend the most discerning reader/s.
Book Description:
No matter where Grace Walker goes, her extra sensory power goes with her. She's an empath and she sees things -- terrible things. After a tragic accident at the place where she works, she decides to take a mental-health break on a remote West Coast island. But she no sooner gets to Galliano Island when a vision of the murder of an Indigenous woman draws her into a disturbing and threatening dilemma.
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About Marianne Scott:
Marianne Scott is the Canadian author of four mystery thrillers and is currently working on her fifth novel, a sci-fi/thriller. She is a graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University. She studied creative writing through Conestoga and Humber College. She has been the president of the Cambridge Writer’s Collective. She constantly works to improve her craft by engaging with other writing organizations and is a standing member of One Lit Place, a writers’ hub by creator/editor Jenna Kalinsky. She has an author’s website and blog. She is a full-time writer who lives in Hespeler Ontario.
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