SYNOPSIS:
Four years ago, Tyler Karras’ quest to avenge his wife's
death led to all out war with San Francisco's Russian Mafia. With the Bratva’s collapse and its king, Dmitri
Chernov, long dead, all Ty wants now is to put it behind him and enjoy a second
chance at life with his new bride, Hannah, and the child they're expecting any
day. But Chernov's heir, Grigory Dmitriev, has returned, bitter and determined.
He wants his kingdom back, and he's more than willing to leverage Ty's new
family to get it.
First he targets Conner, Ty’s brooding nineteen-year-old
stepson, manipulating the boy into a vortex of sex, drugs, alcohol, and
gambling. Then he turns his sights on Hannah. At eight months pregnant, she’s
the ultimate bargaining chip. With both their lives in jeopardy, as well as his
unborn child, Ty has little choice but to do as Grigory commands—even if that
means assassinating the new leadership resurrecting within the Bratva.
But
With his new family on the line, Ty will cross further into the dark side than he ever has before, challenging everything he believes about himself, and forcing him to face the ghosts of his past. Only then will Ty discover if he has the strength to do the unspeakable, to sacrifice his last chance at redemption and save the lives of those he loves most.
EXCERPT:
I stood there, motionless, unsure, and let my eyes flutter shut. God, how
many times had I imagined this? I never allowed my mind to go much further,
because I knew she could never be mine, and I never wanted to harbor any resentment
toward my best friend for possessing something I coveted. But Leo was gone now,
and here she was, offering herself up to me. I realized it was just the grief
and loneliness, but I felt it, too. I wanted something, someone to take that
pain away, so I let my body take over.
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AUTHOR BIO:Interview:
Tell us your latest news?
I’ve just released my second novel, Leverage, book 2 in The Mistaken Series. Like The Mistaken, it’s a dark romantic thriller with a love story at its core.
When and why did you begin writing?
Back in 2010, I was listening to a new song, “Hurricane” by Thirty Seconds To Mars, and was struck by the lyrics, “Tell me, would you kill to save a life...would you kill to prove you’re right?” It made me wonder, what could cause a good and decent man to commit a violent crime, and could he ever return to the man he used to be? From that point on, the voice in my head wouldn’t shut up, so I just wrote down everything it told me, and The Mistaken was born. I never intended to publish it, but I felt I had something truly unique, so I went for it.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I don’t think I considered myself a true writer until I had finished the book, then, not too much later, was offered a publishing contract. I felt that gave me some sort of legitimacy. But in fact, if one writes, one is a writer.
What inspired you to write your first book?
It was that one song I mentioned above. It truly was my muse, the spark that set the fire within ablaze. Since then, I’ve found inspiration a lot of the music I typically listen to.
Do you have a specific writing style?
It’s pretty straight forward, almost stream-of-consciousness. I prefer first-person narrative, written in the past tense, and I tend to be dialogue-heavy, allowing the characters’ spoken words to invoke emotion and show the current conflict while weaving in their back stories. It helps to keep the reader in the moment and inside the characters’ heads. More than anything, it’s about the story, not how pretty the words are when strung together. I’m not trying to impress anyone with flowery prose, but rather entertain them with the emotional rollercoaster ride of their lives.
How did you come up with the title?
The Mistaken seemed apropos since the main character, Tyler Karras, mistakes the wrong woman as the target of his vengeance, taking her away from her home and family, an act he comes to great regret and works hard to atone for. As for Leverage, well the very definition is the ability to manipulate and influence people or events. That’s the entire premise of Leverage. The antagonist uses Tyler’s family against him, as leverage, to make Ty do what he wants him to do, return his stolen legacy. Ty’s wife, Hannah, their baby, Nicole, and Hannah’s son, Conner, are all sucked into a vortex of frightening events over which they have no control, and in order to save them, Ty must comply with his enemy, even at the expense of his hard-fought redemption.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
The Mistaken has a clear theme—forgiveness and accepting people for who and what they are, not what we want them to be. Leverage is a bit tougher. It’s really about putting those you love above yourself, a willingness to risk your own redemption to ensure the safety of loved ones. It’s a how-far-would-you-go story.
How much of the book is realistic?
Both books are entirely fiction, of course, but there are events that come straight from my own life experience, and the antagonists, the Russian Bratva or Mafia, are modeled after someone I had a rather scary run-in with twenty years ago back in San Francisco. I definitely believe in that writers’ mantra of “write what you know,” steeping my stories in emotional turmoil I myself have experienced. The Bratva and their nefarious activities are all real, and I write about real, everyday characters that readers can relate to, rather than alpha billionaires, rock stars, or bad-boy motorcycle club types. I focus on the extraordinary circumstances these characters find themselves in instead of some larger-than-life or far-fetched personal history. I’d rather my readers feel the characters are people they could actually meet on the street, get to know, and become friends with. That way, they feel truly vested in their plight.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
The pivotal scene about a third into The Mistaken is based on something I went through personally, which is why I found writing it so cathartic. It helped chase away the demons that had been muddling around my head for the last thirty years. As for the rest, and Leverage as a whole, no, it’s all made up, and I’m glad, because I put my poor characters through absolute hell. But each character has a lot of me or people I know in them, which lends a certain amount of realism to their thought processes and how they react when threatened, which is pretty much all the time in my stories.
What books have most influenced your life most?
I didn’t even start really reading until I was about fourteen. I discovered The Outsiders by SE Hinton, and I found I loved the emotional bond I had to her characters’ story. It was that emotional pull that hooked me straight away. I found romance novels—especially historical romance, as they were so popular way back then—were particularly effective at drawing me into the characters’ hearts and predicaments. I felt truly vested in their outcome. Rosemary Rogers and her Sweet Savage Love series was a favorite of mine back then. That gave way pretty quickly to contemporary suspense after I read John Grisham’s debut, A Time to Kill. That’s when I found my true love, the thriller, though I do still read romance from time to time, but only contemporary. One of my all-time favorite suspense novels is Finding Claire Fletcher by Lisa Regan, about a fifteen-year-old girl who is kidnapped and held captive for ten years. It’s a story of our time before anyone even knew there were women like that.
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