Interview with Author Colin Falconer, Author of Anastasia
It's time to meet Colin Falconer, a hybrid British author who has 20 novels under his belt and about two dozen foreign translations! With a successful publishing journey, we get to better know the author and a look into his book, a romantic thriller, Anastasia.
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Getting to Know The Author:
Thank you for agreeing to this interview Mr.Falconer.
Q. What do you consider to be your best accomplishment?
To be honest, I have two: one’s called Lauren, the other one’s Jessica - my daughters. I think anything I do out in the world pales into insignificance besides my pride in my girls.
Q. What authors do you like to read? What book or books and or authors have a strong influence on your writing and choices to write within certain genres?
For story and genre - probably Ken Follett, Wilbur Smith, big epic stories with a lot of history behind them. That’s what attracts me to stories like CLEOPATRA and ANASTASIA - they’re big stories set against the sweep of history. ANASTASIA is set in China and Berlin in the early 20’s, then to the flappers in England and the speakeasies of New York. I love to read and write that big canvas stuff. Not many writers attempt it.
Q. When did you realize you wanted to be author?
When I realized I would never play for Manchester United. I was about 16. I then sat down and wrote the worst book ever written. Oh my God. I honestly thought someone might publish it.
Q. What is your favorite part and least favorite part of the publishing/writing process?
I love writing, I don’t much love copy editing. I don’t think anyone does, do they? Publishing - it takes a long time to publish a book and it’s usually an anticlimax, unless you’re Ken Follett and the publisher mortgages their house to make sure it gets a marketing budget.
Q. Is there a Subject you would never write about as a author? If yes, what is it? If No, why?
I can’t think of any subject I would not write about. It’s all about the story and if I found a good story, the context does not worry me. I recently had a woman write me and told me she could not read my book because one of the characters took ‘the Lord’s name in vain.’ So really, worrying about offending people is futile. Write anything and you will offend someone - that’s guaranteed. So I just try to write as honestly as I can.
Q. Do you read your reviews? How do you deal with good and bad reviews? What's your advice to other authors and upcoming writers with dealing with bad reviews?
My advice is to think of your favourite ever book, then go on Amazon and see how many one-star ratings it has, and read them. If you can get a good ratio of good:bad reviews, that’s good. Some writers get 10 great reviews and get their panties in a bunch over one bad one. And never ever respond to a review! If you don’t want people to have an opinion about your work, leave it in a drawer.
Q. How long does it take you to write a book?
Depends how long the book is. I write shorter novels for online exclusives than for print. But I write very fast. But I gestate for a long time, like an elephant.
Q. When did you write your first book and around what age were you?
Yeah, I was eighteen. It was a Joseph Heller rip-off. It was shapeless, pointless and derivative. I still have it somewhere. I take it out and read bits whenever I feel depressed. It is so pretentious it makes me laugh.
Q. When did you first get published? What was your first novel, essay, or short story to get published?
A men’s magazine published a short story. Unfortunately my mother found out about it and bought the magazine. I think it was the first time she ever saw a woman’s pubic hair that wasn’t her own. Hell, it was a start. And they even paid me.
Q. What do you think makes a good story?
To make anything come alive you need a body and a soul. A body has a recognizable shape. Every reader has certain subliminal expectations about a story, and what goes where. But the soul! This is the undefinable something that makes a body come alive. A good story is like that.
Q. When did your first, without any hesitation call yourself a writer?
When I was earning a living from writing alone. You don’t call yourself an architect unless people pay you to design buildings, and I think it’s the same for writing.
Q.what is your least favorite part about the writing process?
I don’t really have one. I don’t much like the exhaustive research, the time with my nose in books. I like going to places and doing things though - I had a ball researching my Madeleine Fox detective stories for instance. I was only disappointed the cops wouldn’t take me on a raid.
Q. Describe your writing style in 10 words or less?
I try and play a movie in the reader’s head.
A look at Anastasia:
Q. What were your goals for Anastasia? How well do you feel you achieved them?
Three goals. It was a love story. It was to evoke a particular time and place in history, like you were living there. And to ask the question: what is left of us if someone takes our memories away
Q. What genre is Anastasia?
It’s called romantic suspense, I think. It’s not just about their romance - there is also the question of whether she was or was not Anastasia and why certain very influential people were trying to stop her finding out the truth.
Last But Not Least
Q. What are you working on right now? Anything? If so what is it called? What is it about? When can readers look forward or reading it?
I have just finished the second book in THE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DETECTIVE AGENCY series. I just love these books.
A Look At COLIN FALCONER
COLIN FALCONER
Colin Falconer was born in North London, and spent most of his formative years at school playing football or looking out of the window wishing he was somewhere else.
After failing to make the grade as a professional football player, he spent much of his early years traveling, hitch-hiking around Europe and North Africa and then heading to Asia.
His experiences in Bangkok and India later inspired his thriller VENOM, and his adventures in the jungles of the Golden Triangle of Burma and Laos were also filed away for later, the basis of his OPIUM series about the underworld drug trade.
He later moved to Australia and worked in advertising, before moving to Sydney where he freelanced for most of Australia’s leading newspapers and magazines, as well as working in radio and television.
He started publishing in 1984, mostly humor and young adult fiction, but with the publication of VENOM in 1990, he became a full time novelist.
He has published over 40 books in print. HAREM was an enormous bestseller in Germany and THE NAKED HUSBAND was ranked #9 in Australia on its release. AZTEC stayed on the bestseller lists in Mexico for four months. He is a bestseller in Europe and his work has sold into translation in 23 countries: Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech republic, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Indonesia, Korea, Macedonia, Montenegro, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey.
He lived for many years in the beautiful Margaret River region in WA, and helped raise two beautiful daughters with his late wife, Helen. While writing, he also worked in the volunteer ambulance service for over 13 years.
He travels regularly to research his novels and his quest for authenticity has led him to run with the bulls in Pamplona, pursue tornadoes across Oklahoma and black witches across Mexico, go cage shark diving in South Africa and get tear gassed in a riot in La Paz. He also completed a nine hundred kilometre walk of the camino in Spain.
He did not write for over five years but returned to publishing in 2010 with the release of SILK ROAD, and then STIGMATA the following year. ISABELLA is due to be published in 2015.
His likens his fiction most closely to Wilbur Smith and Ken Follett - books with romance and high adventure, drawn from many periods of history.
Bibliography:
VENOM (Hodder & Stoughton UK, 1989, Coronet 1990.)
DEATHWATCH (Hodder & Stoughton UK 1991, Coronet 1992.
HAREM (Hodder & Stoughton UK 1992, Coronet 1993. As The Sultan's Harem by Crown, New York, 2004. Released online as HAREM 2012)
“A page-turner . . . This peek behind the walls of the seraglio will seduce lovers of large-scale historical fiction.” - Booklist
FURY (Hodder & Stoughton UK 1993, Coronet 1994. Re-released as the JERUSALEM series 2012)
OPIUM (Hodder Headline UK 1994, Coronet 1995. Released as part of the OPIUM series, 2013)
TRIAD (Hodder Headline UK 1995, Coronet 1996. Released as part of the OPIUM series, 2013)
DANGEROUS (Hodder Headline UK 1996, Coronet 1997. Re-released as WARBABY 2013)
DISAPPEARED (Hodder Headline UK 1997, Coronet 1998.)
ROUGH JUSTICE (Hodder Headline UK 1999, Coronet 1999)
THE CERTAINTY OF DOING EVIL (Hodder Headline UK 2000, Coronet 2001)
WHEN WE WERE GODS (Crown, New York & Random House Australia 2000, Bantam Australia 2002 Re-released as CLEOPATRA 2013)
“This is the riveting story of Egypt’s last and greatest queen … creating a vivid portrait of an unforgettable woman who thrived and triumphed in a world ruled by men.” - Publishers Weekly
AZTEC (Random House Australia, 2001, Bantam 2002, published as FEATHERED SERPENT in the US by Crown New York, 2002, Bantam New York 2003 Released asAZTEC online 2013)
‘His work takes the reader through a never-ending labyrinth of twists and turns. Get this book. It is a magnificent piece of work!’– History and Women
ANASTASIA (Bantam Australia, 2003 Released online 2013)
‘Falconer’s grasp of period and places is almost flawless … He’s my kind of writer.’ – Peter Corris, The Australian
MY BEAUTIFUL SPY (Bantam Australia 2005, Re-released as ISTANBUL 2013)
PEARLS (Bantam Australia 2006, Released online 2013)
‘ … a rollicking historical tale of love and revenge rendered in rich detail by a master of the genre.’ - Booklover
STAIRWAY TO THE MOON (Bantam Australia 2007)
SILK ROAD (Atlantic London 2011)
“A magisterial tale.” – UK Daily Mail
That’s what I loved most about this book – plenty of the odd and unusual to keep me fascinated throughout.It is the richness of the prose itself that truly made this historical era come alive.” -Historical Novel Review
STIGMATA (Atlantic, London 2012,)
Loved, loved, loved this novel. Riveting!
- Historical Novel Review
“This is phenomenal historical fiction that is highly recommended. Once you read Colin Falconer, you’ll want to read everything he has ever written as well as what he will craft in the future!”
– Crystal Book Reviews
THE BLACK WITCH OF MEXICO (CoolGus, Feb 2014)
COLOSSUS (St Martin’s Press, New York, January 2015)
ROUGH JUSTICE (Book 1 in the Madeleine Fox crime series - CoolGus, September 2014)
THE CERTAINTY OF DOING EVIL (Book 2 in the Madeleine Fox crime series - CoolGus, October 2014)
THE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DETECTIVE AGENCY (Book 1 - CoolGus, October 2014)
NAKED IN HAVANA (Book1 - CoolGus May 2014)
NAKED IN LA (Book 2 - CoolGus May, 2014)
NAKED IN SAIGON (Book 3 - CoolGus, May 2014.)
EAST INDIA (CoolGus, August 2014)
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Published 30th, October 2014 by Oh My Bookness©
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