INTERVIEW
Thank you for being here and taking time out to tell us a little more about you and your work. First off, Tell us about your current release.Savage Winds (Children of the Elements, A Secret City Science Fiction Adventure, Book 1) is a YA Science Fiction Adventure with horror elements.A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...
In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements.
A mighty wind…
Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.
Out of control...
Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.
Tell us about your next release.My next series features psychically gifted children on a ghost busting TV reality show and their haunting adventures. (The first book in the series is scheduled for release Spring 2015.)If you were to write a series of novels, what would it be about?Savage Winds is the first book in the Children of the Elements Series. A Word-o-gram for the series would include descriptions such as Psychic Powers, Telekinesis, Apocalypse, Electro-Magnetic Pulse, Zombies, Mutants.Five full novels, one huge story.When nature refuses to be controlled, can mankind endure?Brainwaves altered by a covert government project based out of the Secret City of Oak Ridge, the Children of the Elements are brought together and tested as weapons of mass destruction. Their struggle to free themselves and survive in the hostile East Tennessee Mountains creates massive chaos and threatens to bring about an apocalypse. Savage Winds (Book 1)
Dire Rumblings (Book 2)
Raging Inferno (Book 3)
Unrelenting Tide (Book 4)Merciless Void (Book 5)
Do you have any suggestions for beginning writers? If so, what are they? Don’t wait for or try to create huge chunks of time set aside to write. Claim every possible 15 minutes and write. Every 15 minute session adds up so that if you wrote 15 minutes a day you could write a book in a year. More 15 minutes blocks of time per day… Math becomes your best friend.Is there a writer you idolize? If so who?Stephen King because he’s prolific and his writing grabs the reader by the throat, pulls them into the story, and doesn’t let go, even beyond the last page.Describe what it’s like to be an author in three words.Challenging, Evolving, FulfillingWhat one word best describes you?Persistent. (Not to be confused with “Stubborn.”)Use no more than two sentences. Why should we read your book?If you like stories about psychic powers and the chaos caused when things go terribly wrong and threaten to cause an apocalypse, you’ll enjoy Savage Winds and the Children of the Elements series. Savage Windsby R.J. Merle
BLURB:
A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...
In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements.
A mighty wind…
Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.
Out of control...
Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.
Buy Links:
NOTE: Savage Winds is FREE!
Amazon BN Smashwords
EXCERPT
If only Stedford could spend his Saturday afternoon working on projects. Nowhere near as lucrative or fun, keeping track of Cantrell was a honking full-time job.
Up ahead, a left-to-right movement shifted among the towering tree trunks.
He choked out a loud whisper, “Cantrell?”A coyote howled. Behind him. Too close.A rush jolted through Stedford’s veins. He shoved the phone into his back jeans pocket and dashed into the brush.Branches slashed and snapped.Briars grabbed, snagged, and snatched free.The pounding smash of his high-tops bulled through the scrub. Grayness reduced the reach of his eyesight. As dusk fell toward nightfall, he wouldn’t be able to see squat.Zero night vision.Zilch.After pulling up to a halt, like a tree among many, he stood stark still.What had he been thinking coming out here like this?That maybe he might keep Cantrell from getting into trouble, all the while protecting his own chances to contract for a special project. Nothing wrong with looking out for both their futures.If Uncle Merv’s contacts worked out, the brothers would be set money-wise for life.Not a bad deal for a geeky eighteen-year-old.Except Stedford would soon be wandering the dark.He retrieved his phone and gauged the average power usage. Three and a quarter hours of battery life. Tops. Way before midnight, his flashlight app would die with the phone, and he would flounder in total darkness.Ominous shivers goosed his chill bumps.A stick snapped atop the hill.-- from Savage Winds
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Author R.J. Merle stepped out of the realm of Top-Secret documents (shh, don’t tell…) to write sci-fi and paranormal fiction.
R.J. survived and escaped both the entertainment field and the government-contracting environment, craves the Walking Dead, and entertains what-if tidbits about “supposed” technological and biological advances.
No stranger to the goings on in the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, R.J. Merle blends a down-home flavor with a former in-the-know—hypothetically, of course—technical background to craft the twists and intrigue of Secret City Adventures.
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/R.J.-Merle/e/B00P8E0X5A
BN Author Page: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/r.j.-merle
Website: http://www.rjmerle.com/COTE.htmlFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/RJ-Merle-Author/1409155235976147
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10944948.R_J_Merle
Blog: http://rjmerle.blogspot.com/
Buy Links:
NOTE: Savage Winds is FREE!
Amazon BN Smashwords
FOLLOW THE TOUR!
GIVEAWAY
The author will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
