Mystery
Publisher: Tekrighter, LLC
Date Published: 1 March, 2020
A spooky mansion in the Georgia mountains with an outrageous cast of characters. Spiders, snakes, meth-heads and serial killers, oh my! Venom! ain’t your average gothic mystery, folks.
But who would expect it to be when Natalie McMasters is involved? She’s fallen madly in love with two people—her wife, Lupe, and Danny, her partner at the 3M Detective Agency. Rather than choose one of them as her life partner, she’s decided to have them both, and roped them into a relationship retreat in rural Georgia to learn how to live as a polyamorous family.
But Nattie finds more than she bargained for in the sleepy town of Greypeak. A methamphetamine operation. A snake-handling preacher. A retired FBI agent hunting a serial killer. And a charismatic psychologist who just might have his own agenda for his clients.
Nattie ultimately finds herself in the most dangerous situation she’s ever faced, which may well solve her relationship problems by costing her life. Is this really the last book in the Natalie McMasters series?
Interview
What is the hardest part of writing
your books?
I don’t
outline – I make up the story as I go along. The Natalie McMasters Mysteries
are famous for their multiple, intertwining plot lines, so I have to be sure
each subplot is given sufficient space and is properly resolved. That means
there are a lot of balls in the air all the time. I usually have a beginning,
an end and a couple of key scenes in mind when I begin, and other things occur
to me during the writing process. I have to continually go back and forth to ensure
everything is consistent.
What songs are most played on your
Ipod?
I can’t write
to music – too distracting. I sometimes play nature sounds on the PC, or an English
change ringing CD.
Do you have critique partners or beta
readers?
Yes. I have a
monthly critique group that reviews my WIP as it’s being written to keep me on
track. After revising according to that group, I submit to another two readers.
I will even make changes at the ARC stage if my ARC readers have valid
concerns.
What book are you reading now?
Angels
Flight, by Michael Connelly. His Harry Bosch books integrate the daily events
in Harry’s life with the current mystery, and that is the model that I use for
Natalie McMasters.
How did you start your writing career?
As a kid, I
watched many adventure TV shows. Some favorites were The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and
Jonny Quest. I also read a lot – the Hardy Boys, Rick Brant, and Ken Holt, Tarzan,
John Carter and I was a huge Doc Savage fan. I used to write stories about my
fave characters in marble copybooks and actually completed several novellas
that I never did anything with. I was educated as a scientist, but I soon found
out that writing was my calling, so I worked as a technical and science writer
for many years. I always wanted to write fiction, but I just couldn’t come home
from a hard day at the office and sit down for several hours to write some more.
When I was laid off from my last gig as a toxicologist at 62, I decided that
the time to launch my bucket list mystery series has come. So Natalie McMasters
was born. I wrote a short story called Stakeout!, which you can read for free
on my website, but it was too violent and sexy to sell to the magazines. The
second story was Stripper!, which I didn’t realize was actually a novel at that
time. When I did, I banged it out in six months, wasted a year hunting an
agent, then decided to publish the series independently through my tech writing
company. I’m so glad I did!
The fifth
book in the Natalie McMasters Mysteries is Sniper! It tells the story of the
early days of the throuple of Nattie, Lupe, Danny and their son Eduardo against
the backdrop of a series of terrifying sniper attacks throughout the city. It’s
shaping up to be the longest, most complex book. Nattie’s life will undergo
major changes, some good, some tragic. It will be a political book highlighting
the gun control debate, with all sides represented. I expect to have it out in
autumn of 2020, hopefully before election day.
About the Author
Thomas A. Burns, Jr. is the author of the Natalie McMasters Mysteries. He was born and grew up in New Jersey, attended Xavier High School in Manhattan, earned B.S degrees in Zoology and Microbiology at Michigan State University and a M.S. in Microbiology at North Carolina State University. He currently resides in Wendell, North Carolina. As a kid, Tom started reading mysteries with the Hardy Boys, Ken Holt and Rick Brant, and graduated to the classic stories by authors such as A. Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, John Dickson Carr, Erle Stanley Gardner and Rex Stout, to name a few. Tom has written fiction as a hobby all of his life, starting with Man from U.N.C.L.E. stories in marble-backed copybooks in grade school. He built a career as technical, science and medical writer and editor for nearly thirty years in industry and government. Now that he's truly on his own as a novelist, he's excited to publish his own mystery series, as well as to contribute stories about his second most favorite detective to the MX anthology of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.
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ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing a book description and giveaway also. Sounds great!
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