Please share a little about yourself, your genres,
any other pen names you use.
I like to write books that will inspire boys to read,
although I want girls to like the books, too. Most of my books and many of my
manuscripts that aren’t published have male protagonists and plenty of action.
Tell us a little about your latest or upcoming
release.
Dagger & Brimstone: Town from Hell is a young
adult, supernatural/horror. The main character is 17-year-old Racer Roane.
Trouble and Racer always went hand in hand until Arloe came into his life. As
hard as he tries to keep to the straight and narrow for her, Arloe’s parents
still don’t approve of their relationship. Racer’s plan for the two of them to
spend their summer away from their parents goes horribly wrong when they arrive
at the town from hell.
Are you a mom?
I have two teenagers, Marisa and Tommy, and several
of the furry variety.
If yes do you find it hard to juggle writing and
parenting?
It’s extremely hard to squeeze in time to write. I
was a stay-at-home mom for a long time, but I didn’t get free time to write
during the day. The children were always in different schools with different
start times, so I would be picking up, dropping off, and driving them to
activities a lot of the time. The four hours they were both at school, I used
toward the house and furry kids or volunteering at the kids’ schools. Ten p.m.
to midnight were (and still are) prime writing times. I’m still driving one of
them to school and practices and working part-time.
Have you ever based your book or characters on
actual events or people from your own life?
I’ve based characters on actual people but not really
events. In fact, Tommy from the Pirates Off series is modeled after my son,
Tommy, and his brothers in the book are his close friends (and actually
brothers) Connor and Dillon. The characters and town in Town from Hell are
completely fictional.
What would your readers be surprised to learn about
you?
I didn’t go to college for writing or English. I
majored in computer programming and marketing (advertising). I was a computer
programmer for 15 years, and I’ve worked in marketing, too.
When you’re not writing what do you do? Do you have
any hobbies or guilty pleasures?
I love painting and drawing, tennis, yoga, planting
in my vegetable garden, hiking, walking the dogs, listening to music, and going
to the gym. I could never be bored. I’d love to travel and play golf better,
too.
Which romance book or series (or other genre, if you
don’t write romance) do you wish you had written?
Harry Potter
Is there a genre(s) that you’d like to write that
you haven’t tackled yet?
I’d like to write a mystery without zombies in
it. The Troubled Souls of Goldie Rich
series is a mystery/adventure.
Of all the characters you’ve ever written, who is
your favorite and why?
I’d have to go with Tommy from the Pirates Off
series and Goldie from the Troubled Souls of Goldie Rich series. Both characters
have a lot of my children’s personalities in them. I also like Rita from the
Goldie Rich series. She’s a bubbly, free spirit and nature lover.
If this book is part of a series…what is the next
book? Any details you can share?
Town from Hell is book one of the Dagger &
Brimstone series. Call from Hell is the second book. At the end of Town from
Hell, you’ll know who the call is from.
What is next for you? Do you have any scheduled
upcoming releases or works in progress?
I’m working on a few projects, but nothing that will
be released soon.
What book are you reading now?
I’m reading Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter.
Town from Hell
Dagger and Brimstone
Book One
T.W. Kirchner
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal/Horror
Publisher: Short on Time Books
Date of Publication: April 19, 2015
ISBN: 1508982635
ASIN: B00V0R61H8
Number of pages: 274
Word Count: 76,636
Cover Artist: Tony Bryson
Book Description:
Seventeen-year-old Racer and his girlfriend Arloe want to be together despite resistance from her parents. In defiance of an upcoming separation, they run away for the summer, going totally off the grid to a remote town in the Nevada desert.
The teens think no one knows where they are—but they couldn’t be more wrong. Racer’s well-orchestrated plan for freedom turns into a nightmare from hell.
Lies, deception and betrayal blur his lines of reality, and he discovers everyone in town is hiding a terrifying secret, including Arloe.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/CNz_rxt2ztM
Available at Amazon
Excerpt:
The town
appeared as a dot over the hill. Five
miles max. Anticipation overtook my
shaky nerves. We passed several road
signs that promoted ‘going green’ and ‘recycling.’ Another sign boasted Winthrop’s claim to
fame: Home of the World Famous Green Links Heath Food line.
An ancient gray truck with Nevada plates
lumbered up the road. We passed it on
the left side like it was standing still.
The old dude driving the clunker stared at me through the open window, a
cigarette clenched in his yellowed teeth.
Just as much smoke billowed from the cab as sputtered from the
exhaust. I wondered how the truck made
it that far from town…or the old dude for that matter. Neither he nor his truck modeled ‘going
green’ with all the pollution they created.
Any other time, I’d have ignored his
stare, but it made me uneasy, more so after the gut-wrenching incident moments
before. I reassured myself it didn’t
mean anything—no different than all the other stares I’d received though my
seventeen years.
I pulled off the highway into a run-down
gas station on the edge of town, a half mile past the faded wooden ‘Welcome to
Winthrop’ sign that likely would topple over in the next stiff breeze. It didn’t surprise me when Arloe hopped off
my bike and flew around the side of the mini-mart toward the ladies’ room. She didn’t even wait to take off her
helmet. Her urgency made me laugh
because I’d always kidded she had the bladder of an ant. What amazed me was that she hadn’t asked to
stop at all in three hours on the road.
For her sake, I hoped the bathroom didn’t require a key.
The midday sun blazed hot, yet the intense
heat didn’t seem to affect the flies swarming around the overflowing garbage
can placed between the two retro pumps.
As I stood up, my butt peeled in layers from the leather seat. My jeans and boxers fused to my legs from
sweat. I’d never traveled that long a
distance on my bike before without stopping, and my aching legs paid the
price.
Even after I took off my sweltering black
helmet and hung it on the handlebar of my once black, now gray-looking bike,
the slight breeze didn’t give me any relief.
In fact, it was worse. The breeze
simulated a blow drier set on hot, pointed at my face.
A few stray flies abandoned the trash and
went on the attack, buzzing around my sweaty head and biting my arms. I hoped the attraction didn’t indicate I
smelled worse than the trash. One black
fly landed on my right bicep inside of my new dagger tattoo. My hand nicked the annoying pest, but it had
already bitten me and buzzed away. The
skin around the tattoo immediately tingled and itched. Damn.
I ran my hand across my hair. It
was sticky and wet because I sweated faster than the air could dry it.
As I staggered toward the door to pay for
a fill-up, I tried to stretch the stiffness out of my legs while I pulled areas
of my soaked jeans away from my skin.
Halfway across the parking lot, the heat from the asphalt felt like it
had eaten through the soles of my boots.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if they melted like crayons into a waxy
puddle.
The desert excursion proved interesting at
best, so far. My dark blue jeans had
lightened by two shades of dust, my white T-shirt had darkened by two shades of
dust, and sandy grit crunched between my teeth even though the helmet’s face
shield had been down the whole time.
When I pulled open the glass door of the
mini-mart, a rusted cowbell clanked across it.
The metal made an ear-splitting slap, and I expected the murky glass to
shatter or at least crack, but it didn’t.
I slinked through the door thinking I’d attracted unwanted attention,
but the place was almost empty. The top
of the attendant’s head showed behind the counter, but my presence went unacknowledged. What did I expect in a town of fifty
residents that boasted a twenty-foot rattlesnake fashioned from beer bottles as
the main attraction? I ducked into the
first aisle. The half-stocked shelves
carried very few of the usual mini-mart snacks but a lot of the Green Links
Health Food products. A half-filled
refrigerated section stretched across the back wall.
I walked up the second aisle before
approaching the faded, red counter, covered almost entirely by paper ads and
signs. The middle-aged attendant relaxed
on a wooden barstool with her feet resting on a two-foot stack of magazines
piled on the floor. She slumped over to
browse through a magazine spread out on her lap. The tabletop, portable fan behind the counter
blew her frizzy hair all around. It made
an annoying click each time its blades completed a rotation.
The attendant ran her knobby pointer
finger along the page while she read.
She must have reached the end of the article because she looked up and
pushed her wire-framed, granny glasses down on the bridge of her pointy
nose. “Kin I helps ya?”
This time, I stared. Her dental work looked like she’d tried to
stop a bowling ball with her face. She
lacked every other tooth, and the remaining few resembled gray and yellowish
nubs. She only needed a wart on her chin
and a long black dress. The broom
already leaned up against the wall behind her.
I placed a twenty on the counter. “Yeah, I need a fill-up.”
The attendant slid off the barstool and
set the magazine down. The legs on both
her and the stool creaked and wiggled.
She tugged at the bottom of her black, oversized tee and pulled up her
baggy jeans. They hung pathetically off
her emaciated frame and were frayed at the bottom where they dragged the
floor. She picked up the money, sniffled
loudly, and wiped her nose on the back of her vein-popping hand. “Which pump?”
I gazed out the huge, front window. The station only had two pumps, and my bike
was the only vehicle around for at least a mile. I bit my lip and choked back the smartass
comment that popped into my mind. “Pump
two, please.”
Witch Hazel pushed a gold button on the
ancient cash register and the drawer barely slid open. With the swiftness and grace of a baboon
wearing a baseball glove, she placed my twenty in the drawer. I tried to figure out how that register could
possibly be connected to the pump when she enlightened me. “Go on and pump. Lemme know how much it comes to, and I’ll
give ya your change back.” She slammed the
drawer closed. She looked me up and
down. “You ain’t from around here, are
you?”
I wiped my forehead on the sleeve of my
T-shirt, exchanging a layer of sweat for sand.
“No, how’d you guess?”
She pointed from the cubic stud in my
nose, to the gold ring through my eyebrow, and at the three tattoos on my right
arm.
I shrugged.
She smacked her cracking lips and turned
away, only to pick up the magazine and plop back on the creaky barstool.
I’d already forgotten about the cowbell, and
it smashed into the glass again when the door closed behind me. As I headed over to my bike, Arloe came from
around the corner, swinging her helmet back and forth by the chin strap. She smiled like she’d won the lottery.
I pushed the nozzle into the gas tank and
flipped the lever, unable to hold back my grin.
“Feel better?”
Arloe hung the bright purple helmet I’d
given her on the bike’s handle and snuggled up against me. She smelled sweet from the freshly-applied
cherry lip gloss. When she smiled, her
eyes sparkled as much as her pink, shiny lips.
“Lots.” Arloe ran her hands
through my damp hair to spike it up and took a step back to admire her
handiwork. “But now I’m thirsty. Can we get something to drink?”
She had me so totally captivated that
when the pump clicked off, I jerked.
Arloe smirked, but I pretended not to notice and replaced the
nozzle. “Sure. Witch Hazel will hook us up inside.”
She stared at me with her eyebrows lowered
and shoved her hands in the back pockets of her acid-washed, body-hugging
jeans. “Who?”
I shrugged. “Never mind.
Bad joke.”
She gently slapped my hand. “Racer, stop.”
Without realizing I’d done it, my stubby
fingernails had scratched the area around my dagger tat to a bright red. I shoved my hand in my pocket.
While she examined my bicep, she
grimaced. Her smooth fingers glided
along my skin, but her voice had lost its sexy edge. “Racer Roane.
You should’ve gone back to the tattoo shop. It’s been two weeks and you’re still messin’
with it.” She leaned back and stared
into my eyes. “Maybe it’s infected…or
the ink was bad.”
The first two tattoos never bothered me
like that one had, and it did concern me.
I just didn’t want Arloe to know it.
Besides, I couldn’t do anything about it now anyway.
Arloe pulled her silky hair back into a
ponytail and swatted at a fly that attacked her face.
I shooed the fly away and pushed a few
stray strands of hair from her eyes.
“Just think, you could be in Spain taking classes right now, but you
gave up the opportunity for all this.”
She surveyed the empty desert and turned
back to me, holding my calloused hands in her delicate ones. Her eyes showed determination and a spark of
renewed energy. “No, I gave it up for
you. For us. We’ll see Spain one day. Together.”
About the Author:
T.W. Kirchner is the author of the Pirates Off middle grade series and The Troubled Souls of Goldie Rich young adult series. Besides writing, she loves tennis, yoga, painting and gardening. She lives in Las Vegas with her husband, two children, and furry menagerie known as the Kirchner Zoo.
Website: www.twkirchner.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/T.W.Kirchner
Twitter: @TinaInLV
2 comments:
What a great interview!
Thank you, Wenona, for hosting my book!
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