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What can you tell us about your new release, Nest?
It’s the story of Kate Bishop, who thinks of herself an ordinary woman but who finds herself in urgent need of answers to a lot of very out of the ordinary questions, such as why her brother had a man chained in his basement.Why are people she knows being murdered? Could she really be the target of some of the most dangerous killers ever born? Who is the mysterious Jack Raines, and is he trying to find her to help her stay alive, or to slaughter her? Nest is set against the backdrop of our world where murder and violence are coming closer to home every day and terrorists now stalk all of us. All of these things are linked to the answers Kate must find if she is to stay alive. Her search for those connections takes her down into the hidden world of the darknet and into the basement kill rooms of predators. Nest is a thriller unlike anything you’ve read before. You will hope that it's just fiction, but much of it is all too real.

What or who inspired you to become an author?
I was born an author. I was an author before I even knew what an author was. My earliest memories are of making up stories in my mind as I went to sleep, imagining characters in danger and trying to figure out how they might be able to survive. I carried stories around in my head, sometimes for months, as I built them ever bigger and more complex. I daydreamed all the time, worrying about my characters and the danger they were in. Sometimes I made up stories and had friends act them out as I directed the highly emotional (to a kid) action. The back porch was my stage. Since I have dyslexia and had a lot of trouble reading, I didn’t read books. I was entirely self-motivated, self-inspired, without any exterior inspiration or influence. To this day I rarely read books because I don’t want anyone else’s work to influence mine.

What fictional literary world would you most like to visit?
I like our own world better than any fictional world, thank you very much. That’s why I wanted Nest to accurately reflect our world, not only the good individuals in our world just trying to live their lives, but also those drawn toward evil. Rather than wanting to visit another world, I wanted to infuse our world into Nest, so while it’s fiction I did a lot of research to make sure that those parts that aren’t fiction are accurate. For example, the specific things that take place in the darknet may be fiction, but that hidden, dark world is all too real. The book also reflects the background anxiety most of us feel about the way law, order, and decency are crumbling as evil gradually grows ever stronger, letting our world slip more and more out of control. That sense of a dark, savage future is not merely in the world of Nest. It is in our world as well.

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?
Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and Dean Koontz. What a great dinner party! But I think the chances of Dean Koontz showing up at my house for dinner are about as good as the chances of the other two making an appearance.

If you had an extra hour each day, how would you spend it?
Playing with my dog, letting my cat curl up in my lap for a nap, being with my soul mate, maybe spending some time on track in my race car, but most of all I would want to have more time to write. Telling stories has been what I have always wanted to do ever since I started creating them in my head when I was little. Say, as long as you’re giving away an extra hour each day, could I have two? If you have some left over, I could use three. I have so many books I want to write and so little time.

Which books would we be surprised to find on your shelves?
“How to Make a Million Dollars in the Stock Market.” When you open the book, it’s completely blank. Hardly the worst read in my library!

What scene in NEST was your favorite to write?
That first moment where Kate discovers her ability to recognize killers, and that they can recognize her. It’s creepy. I love writing creepy scenes.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
I have a sign on my computer that says “Be Relentless.” I try to live up to that in everything I do. I especially try to do that when I write. I love writing scenes that twist the emotions of readers. I think reading should be a fun experience, so I am relentless in trying to make my books an exciting read. Giving people a great time reading my stories is my biggest thrill. That makes all the hard work worth it.

Terry Goodkind is the author of the new book Nest. 

Connect with Terry:
Author Website
 Twitter

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What can you tell us about your new release, White Lead?
White Lead is a thriller set on the edges of the New York art world. I wanted to work with a character who has specific skills: an art conservator who knows about chemistry and poisons because that’s her stock in trade. Like Walter White in Breaking Bad, Stella DaSilvera can use what she knows to solve problems. The auction house where she works sells some of the most valuable art in the world, and when the book opens Velazquez’s Las Meninas has just arrived in her lab.
Working late at night, she hears screams coming from her boss’ office. She goes to investigate, but hearing screams from his office is not unusual, so she changes her mind, and returns to her lab. In the space of just a few minutes, it becomes apparent someone else is the room. There’s a body in front of the painting. It’s not just any body. The man is dressed as if he’d just stepped out of the painting of seventeenth-century Spanish royalty. Stella becomes both a prime suspect and on the hit list of the actual criminals. Within less than an hour, she’s on her own in a city where the rats aren’t just in the subways.

Who’s your favorite character from literature?
I don’t have a particular favorite, but I chose a character I thought about quite a bit when I first encountered her: Harriet from Harriet the Spy. Apart from her snobbery, which is not very attractive, she’s ingenious, and she learns from her mistakes. The idea of having a notebook is a great structure, giving the reader a frame story, a story within a story. (I used a series of translated notebooks in my first novel, L.C.) Harriet’s a flawed character but wonderfully observant. There’s a sharp conflict between what she tells herself and the face she presents to the rest of the world. As a writer, there was a lot to be learned from the contradictions generated by that conflict.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?
Was by Geoff Ryman, a novel about The Wizard of Oz. Each chapter is told from a different point of view: Dorothy as a child, an orderly who encounters the aged Dorothy years later, Judy Garland’s make up artist, to name just a few. The novel looks at an iconographic story from a variety of angles, and so reinvents it in the process, and neither the Francis Baum books nor the movie can ever be the same again. Primo Levi’s Periodic Table of the Elements which combines chemistry and biography and imaginative storytelling. Each element is a catalyst for memories of childhood, his experience Italy during the war, in the camps and after. Some of the chapters, such as the meditation on iron, lead to a fantastic story. Jean Shepherds’ In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, for comedy at three in the morning.

Say you’re the host of a literary talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you ask?
Philip Kerr. I’d want to know why none of the Bernie Gunther thrillers have been made into movies or television series? In Kerr’s novels, the reader feels completely transported to the world of Isaac Newton, an intelligent high rise in Los Angeles, Berlin in the thirties, the near future in London in which serial killers are named after philosophers. It’s more than just research, and I’d ask how he goes about creating these worlds, each one so different from the other.

BAM. You’re a superhero. What’s your superpower?
To be able to survive on little or no sleep. Stella is an insomniac, but it takes its toll, that I’ll-sleep-when-I’m-dead attitude. As superhero who doesn’t need to sleep, there is no downside.

What makes your world go round? Why does it bring you joy?
Conversations with my son, seeing him when he’s back from school. In fact, I would give him the gift of picking any superpower if I could.

What scene in White Lead was your favorite to write?
I don’t want to have to issue a spoiler alert, so I’d say the task of weaponizing objects whose purposes are usually peaceful: a pot of cherry syrup, a crane, one of Jeff Koons’ paintings of a balloon dog.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy?
“And in this shifting, inhospitable atmosphere, a chance encounter changed my life.” Patti Smith

Susan Daitch is the author of the new book White Lead. 

Connect with Susan:
Author Website
 Twitter

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