How long have you been writing? Probably as a pre-teen. I always love to tell stories and invent adventures. My various English teachers always seemed to pick my essays to read to the class.
When and why did you begin writing (novels)? In 1990, when I was able to “semi-retire” at a pretty young age, my wife said, “You need something to keep busy, and you don’t want to play golf every day. You always loved to write. Why don’t you write a novel?”
Who designed the cover? The graphic artist used by TAG. Dee said they felt it was the best cover they’d ever done, and I agree. One minor negative is that some people, seeing the cover, feel the book may be scary. TRAPPED is only scary at the thought of being mentally alert, stuck inside a motionless shell. While Jackee goes through many trials and suffers frequent dangers, it’s not scary in vein of a horror novel.
Can we expect more books from you in the future? As I’ve said, I’ve already written four novels. My next to publish will be A Third Time to Die, A story of passion, brutal death (twice!), rebirth (twice), and surviving finally, in the 21st Century. I’m working on getting it ready to go, but right now my efforts are on getting TRAPPED the recognition is seems to deserve. I will also begin publishing my Al Warner detective series over the next year or so.
How important do you think villains are in a story? Pretty hard to have suspense without a villain, isn’t it? I guess villains don’t have to always be people, though. It can be weather, as in “A Perfect Storm,” or a short story (unpublished) I wrote, “A Lucky Coincidence.” Or it can be location, like the story of the climber who had to cut off his arm to escape a boulder, pinning him down. But you NEED a villain.
Can you tell us about your main character? Jackee is a beautiful, vibrant mother who survives a terrifying auto accident. During reconstructive plastic surgery, stemming from that accident, she suffers an anesthetic accident, ending up in “Locked-in Syndrome,” a comatose-like condition, but her mind is still active, and her eyes work. In doing recent research on this, I discovered a woman in England, in exactly the same situation I imagined for Jackee. Jackee’s physical therapist, Kevin, teaches her to communicate by blinking her eyes, in a type of Morse Code. Eventually she discovers she can sense others thoughts. Then she’s stunned to learn that both the auto and surgical “accidents” were NOT accidents. It becomes her psychic obsession to learn who tried to kill her…twice…and to extract retribution.
How much of the book is realistic? Telepathy and psychic abilities are subjects of doubt and many vigorous discussions. Locked-in Syndrome, however, is a real condition…although I didn’t know that when I originally conceived the plot 23 years ago. I did a lot of research before the final rewrite of TRAPPED, and have received several compliments from neuro-surgeons on the accuracy of my research. You can find anything on Google!
The scary thing about this syndrome is how many sentient, sharp-minded people in the past may have been disconnected from life support because they were in a “coma,” with no chance for recovery. My Google search turned up just such a man, who lay there listening to family and doctors talking about disconnecting him. Luckily, he was barely able to move a finger, and they realized he was “there” in his head. I’ve read about a case where tears alerted doctors that their patient was awake but paralyzed.
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Genre – Mainstream / Suspense
Rating – PG13
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Blog http://georgeabernstein.wordpress.com/
Website http://suspenseguy.com/
1 comments:
Thanks for hosting my novel and the Author Interview post. You've got a very nice site, and we authors appreciate all the work that goes into what you do. I'm looking forward to your review of TRAPPED, and hope you and your followers enjoy it as much as everyone seem to have done.
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