Tena StetlerAuthor of Paranormal Romance/Suspense & Cozy Mysteries With Magic Spark!

Jul 24th Interview Stephen B. King Author of Thirty-Three Days

Give a warm welcome to Stephen King, (No not that Stephen King, Stephen B. King) author of Thirty-Three Days!

Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Stephen B. King and his Thirty-Three Days!

Lets start off with what defines you as an author? As a person? Are they one in the same?

I think both. Thirty-Three Days allowed me to show my belief that the important things in life are love, family and friendship. If you’re very lucky you are granted other things, but those are the best you can ask for. In all of my books, no matter how dark the subject matter is – and a couple of mine are very dark – there is always a love theme. I genuinely pity anyone that has never had that feeling of love, where the other person takes your breath away with just a glance across a room full of other people.

What inspired this particular story? I’m almost embarrassed to admit it came to me in a dream – a multi layered one about the end of the world, extinction of mankind due to genetic food modification, and seven (think: Magnificent Seven) dedicated people having to play leapfrog through time to place a lonely woman at the right time and place in history to stop it. She falls in love, but cannot stay in the past. I love developing ‘the impossible love story’ and asking the question – but is it impossible? Is there hope? There is also the ‘thriller element’ where the desperate wise men in future, cannot afford failure, so they send another seven people back, to murder the man responsible.

Why should we read this book/series and what sets you apart from the rest and makes your book/series unique? I genuinely believe Thirty Three Days is a unique story that asks many questions yet at the same time entertains. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read the story, through re-writes and editing etc, and there are three places that choke me up every single time – and I know what’s happening next. I just hope I’ve been able to tell the story well enough, to do it justice.

Tell us something about yourself and allow us to get to know you. I was asked to leave school at an early age in an era when rock music meant everything to me. I got involved in the band scene as a long haired guitarist, and lived the cliché sex, drugs, and rock and roll. When I finally grew up, I married and had children (all of whom I adore) many years passed with me threatening to ‘write a book’. My poor wife listened to imagined plot lines I dreamt up and never raised her eyes at me, yet I never started writing. And then, one day, a song by Leonard Cohen, called Nevermind, inspired me. One line spoke to me in a way I’d never experienced before: I live among you, well disguised. I wrote a 30 verse poem just about that one line, and my daughter, after reading it, asked me what came next in the story. She cajoled me, and my wife bought me a laptop, and Forever Night poured from me. A UK publisher picked it up, and the rest is history.

Who is your favorite character of all of the books you’ve written and Why? Easy choice: Jenny from Thirty Three Days. She is a shy, lonely, introverted, sixty eight year old university lecturer with almost no self esteem who has to take a giant leap of faith in a man who says he is from the future and that she is the only one that can save the planet. It takes enormous courage for her to inject herself with a drug, that will send her consciousness back in time thirty three years on a mission. By taking that leap of faith, she is given a second chance to learn that life is not about career, money, or position, it is friendship, love, and family that matters. She is the most courageous heroine, with ,more problems to face than anyone should ever have to, and I am so proud of creating her. I hope she inspires others.

Speed Round (one word only answer): Yep, I know torture for a writer!<evil laugh>

Favorite movie: Inception.
Favorite book: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Last book read: Why319?
Favorite color: Like Jenny: Yellow
Stilettos or flipflops: Hmmm, I’m a man, so for me to wear? Flip flops, but on women, stilettos
Coffee or tea: Its humorous for me to relate that a hard ‘rocker’ now drinks green tea (LOL)
Ebook or audiobook or paperback: You can’t beat holding a book, and wanting to read one more chapter at 4am, when you know you have to get up at six
Pencil or pen: Pen

Favorite song: Can I pick 2? Roundabout by Yes, but the ringtone on my phone is Black Sabbath, God is Dead? Just love the question mark at the end

Streak or not: Oh definitely yes

Favorite dessert: Baked cheesecake

Favorite junk food: Very English: Fish and Chips

Favorite thing to do to relax: For many years, play guitar, but more recently: write. I’m making up for lost time

Champagne or gin: Gin

Paranormal or Historical: Neither?

Wonder Woman or Top Model: Wonder Woman – the 70’s version

Favorite TV show: True Detective (1)

Hot or cold: Weather or women? LOL. Hot – I’m Australian

POV: I have lots of them

I’d die if I don’t have: My laptop

Review or Not: Always

As you can see, it is impossible for a writer to answer in ONE word. LOL

Tell us a little more about Thirty-Three Days.

Jenny is a lonely university lecturer who’s consciousness has traveled back in time to her younger body to try to save the future of the world. A young microbiologist is going to release a genetically modified wheat that will mutate and ultimately destroy all plant life, leaving nothing but barren windswept dust bowls.
In the past, Jenny finds a love that has been missing from her life; the kind that comes just once in a lifetime. But Jenny can only stay in that time period for thirty-three days.
Meanwhile, in the future, fearful Jenny will fail, plans are made to send another back in time–an assassin. How can she choose between saving the man she loves or saving the future?

How about a sneak peek between the pages of Thirty-Three Days?

August 2nd 2049, Perth, Western Australia

After three weeks of research, Jenny O’Brien thought she was ready. The feeling of nervous expectation had followed her acceptance of what had started out being fanciful, then traversed through unbelievable, right on up to the doorstep of: You must be mad!

Well, I am as ready as I will ever be for my journey, I suppose.

But her fears and insecurities nibbled at her like a pack of baying dogs chasing a rabbit through the scrub. She was going to take the drug soon and go to sleep; the injector lay on her bedside cabinet. Then she would wake up back in time thirty-three years, in her younger body.

Yes, folks, it’s mad, isn’t it?

The sound of her nervous giggle echoed around the barren walls of her lonely apartment and returned to haunt her. She still had trouble believing she had been chosen by a “Committee” some two hundred and thirty years in the future.

Oh, my God, why did I agree to this insanity?

She had initially refused point blank to help, vigorously shaking her head. “I can’t, Simon, I just can’t. I’m not the person you think I am. You want someone strong and courageous. Someone who isn’t afraid to fail. I am the complete antithesis of that.”

He smiled in the crooked way he had, which she quite liked, if she was honest. He then spent the next four days convincing her she was all those things and more.

Once he had gone, returned to his farm in the future, she spent long hours, working at her desk in her one-bedroom apartment on the eighty-third floor of the glass and chromium steel building, The Monument Towers. She studied all the available history for the period she would be re-visiting and committed to memory all the necessary facts she believed she would need. Fortunately, a lifetime of study and lecturing students had given her near perfect recall.

The knowledge she was taking back in time was history but would be seen as fortune telling to others. Being able to recite events to come was a must if she was to have any success of convincing Iain, and more importantly, his son, Bradley, that she wasn’t a complete lunatic.

Her trip was to be the last link in the chain, the final “leap of faith” Simon called it, and hence they called themselves “Leapers.” Simon was the sixth, she was to be the seventh, and to her it seemed appropriate. Seven was her lucky number; she chose it for everything she could.

With a snap and twist of the alloy top, she opened a bottle of Margaret River wine, and poured a large measure into her crystal glass. She intended to finish the bottle before taking her ASX101 and going to bed, to wake up…in her own past. She still struggled to get her mind around the concept. At times, she wondered if it was not all part of some elaborate hoax.

It was wonderful having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Thirty-Three Days.

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