02 July, 2020

#Interview with @Author_PJParker, #Author of Origin of the Vampyre #HistoricalFiction



About the Book:
Check out the Book on Amazon

Timeless. Beautiful. Dangerous.


1816 — the Year Without a Summer — resulted in two of literature’s most feared and beloved creations.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Doctor Polidori’s Vampyre.

American biographer, Rachel Walton, attained international recognition for her Shelley bio, unearthing the horrific events which jolted Frankenstein and his wretch into existence in the peaceful lakeside village of Montreux, Switzerland. What she hadn’t expected during her study was to fall in love with a man of gigantic structure, of uncommon beauty, of intriguing origin.

The Polidori biography is her latest commission. Traveling to London, England she is hosted by Polidori’s descendent, Aubrey, determined to uncover the reason for the doctor’s spiraling depression and untimely demise after the publication of his tale of horror. Hoping he had found some kind of happiness, perhaps love, before his death.

Personal letters and documents secured in his Soho family home reveal a rapidly evolving terror in the mist-shrouded alleys, grand townhomes and ballrooms of Georgian London as Polidori assists the Bow Street Runners in investigating a series of murders. Leading to the revelation of a creature thought to exist only within the pages of Polidori’s novel.

Despite her own experiences, Rachel was not prepared for the distortion of fiction, reality and time as she exhumes a mystery shrouded and buried beneath the sod for over two-hundred years. Nor could she have foreseen the consequence of an unexpected companionship with her seductive and beautiful host.


Interview with P.J. Parker


When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer/ a storyteller?

I have always loved writing, mostly as an escape from the vagaries of a normal life, but also because I wanted to read a particular story but couldn’t find it in book stores.

What inspires you to write?

Different reasons for different book.
I wrote Roxelana & Suleyman in 2000-2001 as I was intrigued by the Ottoman culture and though I could find many non-fiction books detailing life in Istanbul (the center of the Universe) and within the Sultan’s Harem, I could find no romanticized sagas that utilized all the excitement and passion I had accumulated in my research. The story demanded to be written. Though fictional in its scope the saga of Roxelana & Suleyman is based on extensive research into the intriguing world within the gilded cage. Its publication proved polarizing. Most readers take it for what it is—a dramatic romantic saga spanning decades which celebrates the diversity of the Ottoman culture and the happenings within the famed Topkapi Palace. It has been lauded internationally and is the subject of multiple published academic papers.
Whereas my debut novel was planned down to the exact summer Suleyman was able to grow a moustache, or Roxelana first heard the croaking frogs of Edirne, my follow up novel, Fire on the Water: A Companion to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, was driven purely by imagination, allowing the characters to show me the way, to lead me into horrors and romance I had never expected. I didn’t even know Mary Shelley would be in the novel until the first chapter was completed and she unexpectedly showed herself to my thoughts and “pen” which was scrawling words faster than I was able to conceive them. That world evolved into the Companion Series, expanding on the summer of 1816 and history’s most famous tourists (Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and his “physician” Doctor Polidori) who created two of literature’s most loved creatures of horror. The series finale Origin of the Vampyre: A Companion to Doctor Polidori’s The Vampyre was published in late 2019.
In truth Fire on the Water was also an escape from the insane research I had underway for the historic fiction America Tuwaqachi: The Saga of an American Family. I was intent on researching and following a single-family line from man’s first emergence into the fourth world, Tuwaqachi, eighteen thousand years ago and documenting their adventure, passion, horror and success as they evolved, becoming the great Nations of the mountains, plains, lakes and forests of America. Following them through the merging of the four colors and the impact on them during the creation of the United States of America right up until the cloudless blue sky of September 11, 2001.

How did you come up with the idea for your current story?

I’m throwing myself into the 21st century for my next novel. In the same vein as the Companion Series I’m allowing the story to write itself. It is very bloody and very sexy with a protagonist who in someone else’s work would be the antagonist. The bad guys are always more fun to write, especially when they are coupled with an unexpectedly kick-ass **** (vetted) who doesn’t need the **** (vetted) to dispose of the dead bodied.

Tell us about your writing process.

I edit as I write. It drives me crazy and I wish I wouldn’t do it but I haven’t yet found a way to beat it out of myself. I’m a bit of a control freak and find it hard to move on from any sentence until I know it is right for my “way of thinking” at any given time. Of course, my editor turns it all on its head when she takes over as she is the grammatically prudent one. Perhaps I will learn as this current work evolves.
               

What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?

An impossible request. I love short, tight chapters. Only five scenes have been put down at the moment with each building upon and contradicting the previous. This book could literally go anywhere and I am very excited by that. I am already in love with my characters and they have only just started to reveal their potential. And plans…

Did any of your characters inherit some of your own quirks?

I guess, in a way, each of my characters are a little bit of who I am, or think I am, or would like to be. I have lived or been to many of the same locations as they. I’ve sat on the cool, rough stone floor of the dungeon in Chateau de Chillon contemplating my escape through the barred portal out to the open lake; walked the streets of Mayfair and Soho returning time and again to the front door of 38 Great Pulteney Street; traversed the sunken cisterns of Istanbul to gaze into the eyes of the Medusa; walked the trails above the finger lakes of New York State, honored to know that I followed in the shadow of the brave Haudenosaunee and the Iroquois Confederacy that inspired… “We, the People…”

What is your most interesting writing quirk?

I am not unknown to sit for many, many hours straight, my thoughts completely submerged within the words “appearing” on the screen of my lap-top, any concept of time and the outside world totally foreign to me.

What is the best piece of advice you have received, as a writer, till date?

Somehow, I stumbled upon Joanna Penn and her podcast, The Creative Penn. Many interesting interviews, sage words and giggles from Bath, England. No doubt, famous Bath resident, Mary Shelley would have approved.

What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?

Read. A lot. Don’t listen to someone else’s “Rules of Writing”.

What do you have in store next for your readers?

I am trusting they will fall in love with a passionate, warm-blooded killer. One they can depend on to see them through to an end that will satisfy them both.
             

Is there anything else you’d like to share with your readers?

My novels are available globally in book and e-book form.
More importantly they are available electronically to all libraries internationally.


About the Author:
Author's Amazon Page
P.J. Parker. Australian/American author. With a Bachelor of Science Architecture Degree, P.J. Parker has traveled and lived extensively around the world—intrigued by cultures of historic interest and buildings of architectural significance. An avid reader and researcher, P.J.’s writing is undertaken with a passionate and exacting degree of attention to detail.

P.J.'s debut novel ROXELANA AND SULEYMAN was followed up by the internationally acclaimed FIRE ON THE WATER: A COMPANION TO MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN. 2017 saw the release of AMERICA TUWAQACHI: THE SAGA OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY, a grand saga which follows a single family line through 18,000 years of North American history. ORIGIN OF THE VAMPYRE, the sequel to FIRE ON THE WATER was released in October 2019.

P.J. currently lives and writes in the USA.

Contact the Author:


Giveaway:

1 Amazon Gift Card worth 1000/- INR 
1 Paperback Copy of Monsters of the Midway 1969 by Jeffrey Rasley 
1 eBook of The Loyalist's Wife (The Loyalist Trilogy #1) by Elaine Cougler 
1 eBook of The Raided Heart (Historic Hearts, #1) by Jennifer C. Wilson 

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