29 April, 2017

#SpecialFeature :: #Interview with Geoffrey Wells, #Author of Atone For The Ivory Cloud



About the Author:
Impressions on a South African farm, boarding school, a father who read from the classics to his children, and a storytelling mother, sparked Geoffrey Wells with a writer’s imagination. Though the piano and drum kits and Mozambique led to his first thriller, A Fado for the River, his career as Art Director in advertising led him to the American Film Institute, and an awe of digital technology propelled him to VP/CIO at Disney, ABC-TV stations and Fox. Wells wrote an award-winning animated film, has visited elephant reserves, and climbed to the tip of Kilimanjaro. He lives on Long Island where he swims the open water and runs a video and design company. He writes thrillers about imperfect characters who, always with a diverse band of allies, fight villains that devastate our natural and virtual ecosystems.

Atone for the Ivory Cloud is a compelling, fast-paced thriller with an exotic international flavor. Geoffrey Wells takes the reader on an enthralling ride, skillfully entwining cybercrime, music, and the fate of African elephants in a breathtaking tale of danger and romance.”
Pamela Burford, best-selling author of Undertaking Irene.

Contact the Author:
Website * Facebook * Twitter

Author Interview:

When do you first realize that you wanted to be a writer/storyteller?
My eighth birthday present was a bicycle. It became my imaginary Spitfire, shooting down enemy planes. After a while I got bored of this and made up new episodes, each one a development of the previous. I had started telling stories.

What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on Book Three of The Trilogy for Freedom. In this book subplots from Book One and Book Two are resolved.

Please share three interesting facts about the characters in your book.
Allison, my main character’s mission in life is music composition, which is a solitary activity. Her attitude is that if people can’t accept that, and accuse her of being anti-social and remote, that’s their problem, not hers. In the story, there are times when she is lost in the process of composing and will appear to be totally disconnected. However, she is aware of her role and sees the subtext of her situation. She just doesn’t openly emote, but the reader will admire her bravery and clear moral compass, regardless of how grumpy she might appear to be.

Sipho, Allison’s love interest, is a Tanzanian who works as a street vendor in New York City. However, he is a smart entrepreneur, educated, ambitious and creative in business. His goal is to be a success in the United States—the land of opportunity.

Rex, the villain in my story is quite honorable—he’s a patriot, a solid citizen and responsible, but he has a fatal flaw. This flaw—I won’t say what it is because it could be a spoiler—clouds his judgement. 

If you could pick any famous writer to review your book, who would you pick and why?
I would pick Jonathan Franzen. I have felt that he and I see things in the same way. This is particularly true in Purity, his novel that explores privacy.

What is the best piece of advice you have received, as a writer, till date?
Always show the moment of decision.

Name three things that you believe are important to character development.
Character arc: Show the reader the transformation from the start to the end.
Give the reader the opportunity to understand the motivations and inner conflicts of the character. The reader must take the emotional journey with the character.
Let the reader in on who the whole emotional landscape, so they can see how she reacts in her relationships as driven by her inner conflict and dilemma. 

Do you know the ending on the book before you finish it?
Yes, I usually know how the story will end, but I never know the specifics of the end scene—that is determined by the previous chapter.

Anything else that you would like to share with your readers?
I want to thank b00k r3vi3ws for the opportunity to talk about my book and give potential readers a glimpse into who I am as a writer and as a person. I welcome everyone to my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/cu9qc5 where I look forward to a dialog with my readers. Thank you!


About the Book:
A brilliant composer and coder goes undercover to trap a cybercrime syndicate that has hijacked her website—to traffic blood ivory. She must survive impossible physical, virtual and cultural obstacles and choose between the opposing forces of privacy and responsibility.

Allison is stunned when the CIA leaves her no option but to go undercover to surreptitiously modify the code she wrote to protect her symphony. She is deployed from New York with a savvy street vendor to Tanzania, where he is from—and where the cybercrime trail goes dead. Their guarded love affair is sidelined when they are abducted by a trafficker who poaches elephants on a massive scale. To avoid betraying each other they abandon their CIA handlers and return to New York City. Allison must find a way to bring down the syndicate knowing that she might have to sacrifice her symphony, her loved ones and her privacy—for a greater good.

Goodreads * Amazon




Giveaway
3 eBooks of Atone for the Ivory Clouds
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1 comment:

  1. I enjoyed learning when this author realized he wanted to be a writer! Great interview!

    ReplyDelete