Q&A with Jurica Pavičić

  

 

 

Jurica Pavičić is the author of the novel Mother of Sorrows, now available in an English-language translation by Matt Robinson. Pavičić's other books include Red Water. Also a journalist and a screenwriter, he lives in Split, Croatia. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Mother of Sorrows?

 

A: In 2012 a young Mexican tourist was found dead, slaughtered in a recreational park forest in Split, the city where I live.

 

A couple of days later the police published a photo of an AC Milan soccer T-shirt which they believed - and it turned out to be true  - belonged to the murderer.

 

I was watching a photo of a soccer shirt published in a newspaper, and my sudden thought was: what if I recognized the T-shirt, and knew it belonged to my son? That was the beginning.

 

Of course, I didn't want a documentary novel. Instead of a tourist, I opted for a local girl, the daughter of an influential elite, instead of a mother I wrote about two women (a mother and sister). Even the AC Milan shirt became an FC Barcelona jacket.

 

But my initial core - someone seeing an object in the news and recognizing it - is still there as a scene in the novel.

 

Q: How did you create your characters Zvone, Ines, and Katja?

 

A: I started Mother of Sorrows as a novel about the mother. I soon realized that it didn’t work, it would be too dry and one-dimensional.

 

So, I introduced a mother and sister/daughter which are opposites. The mother is working class, not very clever, and religious. The daughter is more broad-minded, modern, a middle-class professional.

 

But the most important division in the novel is ideological. It's the ideological choice between loyalty to a family, blood, and tribe, and loyalty to principles and law.

 

Everywhere - and especially in the Balkans - that divide is a clue. It may be only a relevant ideological divide, far more relevant then classic left and right. It's also a crucial topic of many great crime novels I know, for instance, Dennis Lehane's Mystic River or Small Mercies.  

 

Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the novel says, “Pavičić is far more concerned with the story's emotional stakes, which he renders convincingly enough to move even the hardest hearts.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Well, I love it. But I hope the reader won't misunderstand it. Mother of Sorrows is still a thriller. I wanted it to be a page-turner. I want people to rush toward the end, wondering what's going to happen next. That old-fashioned genre pleasure has got to be there, merged with psychology and emotional drama.

 

Q: Can you say more about what you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: Like I said, I want my books to be thrilling, to give genre pleasure. At the same time, I try to drive my readers into a hostage situation, I want them to identify with characters which would take them somewhere where they might not want to be, to support them while they do things which would otherwise condemn.

 

Also, I want foreign readers to get the idea about my society and culture, which is Mediterranean, a southern society in a tourist-driven, post-industrial, post-Yugoslav war, late capitalism.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I finished a book last week; it will be out in November. The title is Atentator (translated Assassin). It starts with a murder of a murky mid-level politician who is killed by an assassin on an electric bike.

 

I follow several characters: murderer, police inspector in charge, daughter of the politician, and an older lady from the secluded island who realized that a guest in her apartment house could be a murderer.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: There is a lot of food in my novels because I like to cook. I also write short stories which are - at least I think so - quite good. Some of my favorite writers are short story writers: Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, J.D. Salinger, and Borges.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jurica Pavičić.

Q&A with Ryan Pote

  

 

 

Ryan Pote is the author of the new novel The Ghost City, a sequel to his novel Blood and Treasure. He is a 12-year veteran Navy helicopter pilot, and he works for the Department of Defense. He lives in New England. 

 

Q: The Ghost City is your second novel featuring your character Ethan Cain—did you know when you wrote Blood and Treasure that you'd be returning to his story?

 

A: Yes, I did. Ethan Cain came to life in a couple of earlier, unpublished manuscripts before Blood and Treasure. When I wrote that first book, the character and the broader world felt big enough for more adventures right from the start.

 

Turning the title into a theme of "blood and treasure" that could drive the whole series helped lock that in. I knew I wanted to keep following him. I always knew I'd write more.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of The Ghost City?

 

A: I love when some things about history still elude us today. Where was Genghis Khan buried? How do we not understand how Roman Concrete was made? What would happen if the Western Antarctic Ice sheet fell into the ocean? What's under the ice? How is Antarctica depicted on ancient maps BEFORE it was discovered, and drawn as it is without ice?

 

I love to take these questions and then link them together to get the answer. The ambiguity is all the fun. Then I say, okay, how can I turn this into an action-thriller that someone won't be able to put down? And I have fun figuring that part out.

 

Q: How has your Navy experience informed your novels?

 

A: All of my experience really. I was originally trained as a helicopter sub hunter-killer, and really tracked and engaged submarines. My 12 years as a Navy helicopter pilot, including time as a mission commander in a joint interagency special operations task force deployed throughout Central and South America, gave me a foundation for authenticity. My time as a scuba instructor.

 

I've drawn on all those experiences—counter-drug ops, search and rescue, the feel of high-stakes missions—to shape Ethan Cain as a former special ops pilot turned treasure hunter. It helps with the tactical details, the pace of the action, and making sure the character feels grounded even in the wildest situations.

 

I've backpacked through Vietnam for weeks on end and was even held up by banditos for all my money. I write what I know.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: Research is a big part of what makes these stories fun for me. I do surface research--headlines only--to form the plot and the outline.

 

Once the story works, I focus my research efforts on what I need to tell the story I want. It's far more efficient that way, like having a hypothesis I'm trying to prove rather than endlessly reading until I come up with a plot.

 

Instead, I pull from nuggets of history—like Marco Polo's travels—and real locations, blending them with modern threats and technology. My background in history and hands-on experiences as a federal investigator help a lot.

 

There are always surprises along the way—details about ancient sites or emerging tech that shift how a scene lands—but the biggest ones often come from layering real-world possibilities into the fiction.

 

I love to find things that have overlap. Then knitting them together with tiny threads of fiction is the fun part. Especially doing it in a way that goes unnoticed by the reader. That's the challenge; that's the fun.

 

I love when the theme emerges from my outline. Like, okay, this is really what this book is about. The Ghost City has many deep layering of themes.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm continuing the Ethan Cain series while also working on the Clive Cussler Sam and Remi Fargo book, The Serpent's Eye, which is in-house at Putnam. There's more in the pipeline for the Blood and Treasure world too—I'm excited to keep building it out.

 

I have a ton of exciting things on the horizon; stay tuned and follow me on IG @ryanpotebooks or my website ryanpote.com.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This book (like my previous) has an augmented reality cover experience that can be scanned and viewed through your phone, bringing the book cover to life in augmented reality. The link is on my socials or my website.

 

But this one is interactive with the novel itself and involves a pretty amazing giveaway contest. Starting pub day 6.30.2026, ending 8.30.2026, you will have the chance to join the hunt and win the ultimate Ethan Cain adventure prize pack: Garmin Fenix 7 solar smart watch, Slidebelts survival belt 2.0, NGC certified ancient Mongol silver coin, Ancient Mongol iron quad fin arrowhead, Encapsulated Ash from Mt Vesuvius eruption that covered Pompeii. One winner.

 

How to enter? Read The Ghost City when it comes out and find the codes buried in the text. They unlock a puzzle in the augmented reality cover experience for the book. Once unlocked it translates a password that is required to open a locked file Que Sera Sera on Ethan Cain’s laptop.

 

Where is Ethan’s laptop? You’re late to the game if you’re asking. It’s a hidden passage link on my website Ryanpote.com. To open his laptop you will need his computer password too, which is found in Blood and Treasure. Find the codes, solve the augmented reality puzzle, unlock the file, enter to win.

 

Everyone who enters will also receive a FREE full length Blood and Treasure prequel ebook that was teased in Blood and Treasure. Who is Vela? What was Project Balboa? How did Ethan get his scars? Find out by entering the contest and downloading the first ever Ethan Cain adventure, Burning Water!! JOIN THE HUNT and check out my website for more information ryanpote.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Robin Merle

  

 

 

 

 

Robin Merle is the author of the novel A Dangerous Friendship. She also has written the book Involuntary Exit. A nonprofit professional and executive coach, she lives in Maine.

 

Q: What inspired you to write A Dangerous Friendship, and how did you create your characters Tina and Spike?

 

A: I've always been interested in the complexity of women's friendships.  I wanted to explore the idea of the dangerous friend who comes into our lives when we're most vulnerable, say, in times of loss. 

 

We know the archetypes of the popular girls and the mean girls—but what about the dangerous ones—the women who promise to give us power? Who tell us stories that we want to believe are true because our own lives seem so stale or we're unsure of what we want next.

 

I created Tina and Spike through their voices. From the start, I wanted a dynamic between a vulnerable acolyte and a magnetic leader. As I wrote, the co-dependence between them became stronger and more complex, and I trusted that development. I definitely heard them as I was creating them. 

 

I also created them as storytellers.  Tina starts off telling the story of her journeys, and Spike's stories mesmerize Tina. Spike’s voice is very clear to me—in fact, I wrote a piece where, as the author, I interviewed Spike and Tina, and they came out exactly on point, exactly as in the novel.

 

I also wanted to write about New York City and the small towns outside of the city in the Catskills. I loved describing both areas, particularly the mountain town and the local characters.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The original title was Landscaping for Wildlife. That was my literary attempt to signify that we could create environments that attract wild people and adventures. (It's actually a gardening term.) No one was crazy about that title. 

 

My husband suggested A Dangerous Friendship. I liked it. It was straightforward, more marketable. Publishers change titles all the time, as you know. They didn't change this one.

 

Q: Publisher's Weekly’s BookLife said of the novel, “Merle explores the psychic fallout of love: the identity crisis that follows abandonment, the seductive pull of pain, and the drive to chase people who promise danger but deliver disillusionment.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it captures the psychological tension in the novel -- from Tina’s divorce leaving her untethered to her desire to change her life and follow a Scheherazade-like character—a story-spinning seductress—to her realization that it’s time to leave and follow her own, new path.

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I researched the women's movement at the time, and the books that were being written about women and their roles in society.

 

The power of women (vs. men) is a theme in the book. (Power itself is a theme I'm drawn to.) It's something Spike talks about frequently, albeit hardly in academic terms, and it underlies Tina's search for a new identity at a time when there's ongoing debate about women's roles.

 

I was surprised by the provincial and self-defeating writings by women; for example, citing women's friendships as a reason women were unmarried. This is from a book written in 1970, not the turn of the century. I was also surprised, and reminded, that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on another novel, The Enlightenment of Henry Pike. It's about an aging philanthropist with dementia who has a world-changing secret (which he sometimes forgets) and the nefarious people around him who are trying to undermine him and steal his wealth. It's a tragicomedy. 

 

I've worked in philanthropy for nearly 40 years. My head is full of stories.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: As tense as A Dangerous Friendship can be, it's also darkly humorous, like my next book about Henry Pike.

 

Finally, I hope the book encourages readers to reflect on the friendships that have shaped them, especially the ones that taught them things about themselves that they didn’t know or didn’t want to know. 

 

I also want them to appreciate that we each have the power to stand up for ourselves. The person who has our best interests at heart is ourselves.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with M. Soledad Caballero

  

 

 

 

 

M. Soledad Caballero is the author of the poetry collection Flight Plan. Her other work includes the poetry collection I Was a Bell. She is a professor at Allegheny College.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the poems in your new collection?

 

A: I started writing these poems in embryonic form in April of 2020, really at the beginning of the beginning of the pandemic time. From there, I spent about two years writing most of the poems and then revising them.

 

I often write in a flurry of activity and then sit with individual pieces for a long time. Some pieces come almost finished and there’s not much to do, but then there are those poems that are hard make stable! Words keep changing, lineation, and often for me, it’s form that keeps me working and revising.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: I knew, on some level, the title of this book even as I was writing my first book, which actually has a poem called Flight Plan.

 

The title suggests a kind of paradox to me, the idea that there’s a plan for something that to me seems mercurial, like flying is a way to bring up the tension between what can and cannot really be controlled.

 

Flights have plans and often they follow them, birds have ways of flying and often they have built in blood knowledge that lets them do thousands of miles of travel and migration.

 

And, and there’s so often that “and”! And, plans are often not what ends up happening, what ends up being how the journey works out. For me that’s what I was trying to think about and think through with the title.

 

Q: The poet Jasminne Mendez called the book “a meditation on the body: the immigrant body, aging body, female body, and bodies of land and water.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Jasminne is a brilliant poet and writer and such an incisive reader, so able to link multiple modes and ways of knowing and being. I think she captures a large thematic of this book – that bodies are connected and not just those we wear or are but those we are carried by and in.

 

I wanted to make explicit the sense of geographical, spiritual, and physical bodies as part of the stories in these poems and she describes and offers such a generous and expansive way of reading this book.

 

Q: How did you decide on the order in which the poems would appear in the collection?

 

A: Organizing a collection is one of the things that takes me such a long time to think through, especially because I did not have sections for this book, as I did in my first collection.

 

I wanted the arc and possible arcs of this collection to be fluid and, at the same time, I wanted to have connective images and thematic elements that could carry a reader through the whole of it.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Isn’t this the question always? There are several projects I’m working on and they are various stages. I think I have a third collection drafted, though I thought that a year ago and it turns out I’ve been writing new poems and taking out other poems from it even just this month, so who knows!

 

That collection does seem to have some cohesion now and my revision for a couple of months now has been at the level of the line, which often tells me I’m in some final version of revision.

 

I also work in a collaborative team with a scientist and we are working on a project but that is in its very beginning stages.

 

And I’ve also been fortunate enough to have some poems commissioned to be part of the Ballet Collective. I have worked for several months with a composer and choreographer and our work will premiere in New York City in November. I’m incredibly excited about this project.

 

Working collaboratively and in interdisciplinary partnerships has been a real gift for my writing.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If you’re in NYC on November 3, 4, or 5, come to Ballet Collective and watch the premiere of three incredible performances. Here’s a link for more information.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

July 15

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 15, 1919: Iris Murdoch born.

Q&A with Arvind Ethan David

  

Photo by Valerie Cavaness

 

 

Arvind Ethan David is the author of the new novel The Great Game. His other work includes producing the TV show Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. He lives in Southern California.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Great Game?

 

A: A few years ago, I was on a panel at Comicon with my TV show, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and an audience member asked each of us who our Comicon Cos-Play of choice was.

As they worked their way down the line, I realised I had a problem. I would have liked to have answered Sherlock Holmes, or Arthur Dent, or Peter Parker or Philip Marlowe. But those are all white guys, and I'm a brown, Indian-Pakistani, British Asian guy.

Maybe that shouldn't matter, but we live in a world in which it does, and I don't get to just put on a deerstalker hat and become Sherlock, at best that would make me "Brown Sherlock".

 

So, I started to think about the “why” of that. Why don't people of colour feature in classic genre stories? It's not that we weren't about, these stories took place at the height of Empire and Empire is their constant context and subtext. Out of that kernel was the character of Balvinder born, and The Great Game began.

 

Q: As you were writing the novel, what did you see as the right balance between your own characters, the fictional characters of Arthur Conan Doyle and others, and historical figures?

 

A: Something very lucky happened about 10 pages into the writing of this book. Balvinder Singh announced himself. I think if you are lucky, a few times in a writer's life, you meet a character who you know everything about and can write in every circumstance.

 

I’ve met those when adapting other people’s work (Dirk Gently, Philip Marlowe…) but this is my first time meeting someone of my own creation who fits that criteria.

 

So this was, from the beginning, Bal’s story. We go where he goes, meet who he meets and experience London through his eyes. His choices and his agency determine the story. If Bal had wanted to spend the entire novel following Sherlock about, I’d have been happy to. Fortunately for the story, he had other ideas.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: This is a book that hopefully wears any scholarship lightly, but it was important to me to get the texture of 1905 London right and to get it right from the perspective of an Indian immigrant.

 

I owe a debt to many historians and cultural commentators, but probably most of all Sathnam Sanghera (Empireland, Empireworld) and Professor Carlone Elkins (Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire). 

 

Reading their work made me understand in a deeper way than I had before of the evils and power of empire, and made me angry at how poorly we are taught that, in either the imperial West or the colonised East. The dangers of that failure of education is sadly too obvious in our daily headlines.

Oh, also, the ball point pen? Was first invented in 1888 but only perfected in 1938 by the brothers László and György  Bíró. The Brothers Biro. I think that’s my next book.

 

Q: The writer Dave Rudden said of the book, “David breathes new life into familiar characters with this wry, wickedly arch tale about decolonization, integration, and imperial arrogance, not just interrogating the classic caper but elevating it--stealing it out from under the Empire’s nose.” What do you think of that assessment?

A: Dave is both too smart and too nice a man for me to disagree with him.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: There is a conversation going on about a sequel to The Great Game, but before that I have to finish a play about America’s first magician, a TV show about a retired detective and - the thing I’m working on right now even as I answer these questions - is a fantasy novel called Backstory in which a group of 20-somethings try and fix the magical kingdom which their parents destroyed. It’s got nothing to do with real life.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The audiobook of The Great Game is narrated by the extraordinary British actor, comedian and my honorary cousin Sanjeev Bhaskar (star of Unforgotten on PBS) - the four days we spent in the studio making it were thrilling and hilarious and I think folks who choose to experience the book that way will share in that.

 

Oh, also, congrats on your new book! It’s a thrill isn’t it to have something new in the world!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Jessica Khoury

  

 

Photo by Katherine Escobar Photography

 

Jessica Khoury is the author of the new middle grade novel Monster and Apprentice. Her other books include The Mystwick School of Musicraft. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Monster and Apprentice, and how did you create your character Rolan?

 

A: For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write a book centered around the master-and-apprentice dynamic. I always loved these kinds of stories as a kid! And actually, the first thing I came up with was the title—Monster and Apprentice!

 

But it took me a while to find the right characters for this story, and for several years I let it bubble in the back of my mind. Maybe it was adult? Maybe it would be young adult?

 

But it all clicked for me after I read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. In many ways, Rolan is inspired by Demon, even though they are two wildly different stories! But I immediately loved the idea of a smart-mouthed kid who acts tough and independent, when really what he needs is to open himself to trusting the adults who care about him.

 

Q: How did you create the world in which the novel is set?

 

A: Rolan’s world is built around the magic system of secrets and Cryptics. In the story, keeping a secret too long will cause it to “escape” your head, hide in the shadows, and grow into a monstrous, mindless creature called a Cryptic. Luc, Rolan’s master, is a warrior whose job it is to fight these Cryptics.

 

Every aspect of their world is crafted by asking how these creatures’ existence would shape society—from its religion and superstitions to practical day-to-day life.

 

For example, in the cities and towns, the people burn lamps all night long, because Cryptics need shadowy corners in which to grow bigger. So light is revered and sacred, while darkness is greatly feared.

 

Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I am a major plotter, so I usually know how a story will end before it begins! But there are always times in which the characters will surprise me along the way.

 

To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say that one of the characters in this story surprised me in such a way that it ended up inspiring the entire direction of the sequel—which will come out next year!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Rolan and Luc?

 

A: Rolan and Luc’s relationship is the real heart of this story, and goes through several stages. They start out really disliking one another and using each other for their own purposes. There is a lot of mistrust and miscommunication and arguing. Rolan in particular doesn’t trust any adults—with good reason, considering how he grew up!

 

But over time, through hardship and work, they come to respect and understand one another. Each has something to learn from the other, and both of them need to learn how to open themselves up to trust and love after suffering a lot of hurt and betrayal in their pasts.

 

The great question at the center of the story is will they be able to overcome that past pain in order to show up for one another when it really counts?

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Currently, I’m working on illustrations for the sequel for Monster and Apprentice! The second book is mostly finished, and will be out next year!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: In many ways, even though it’s my 17th published story, I feel that Monster and Apprentice is the best book I’ve written! Each of my stories is special to me for different reasons, but Monster is one of those rare “bolt-of-lightning” stories where the entire thing fell into my head all at once, and as a result, it was a very quick writing process.

 

In fact, the morning the story clicked in my mind, I was so excited and inspired, I immediately put my children in the car, dropped them off at their grandparents’ house, and said I’d be back in a few days. I could not NOT write the story at that very moment!

 

I ended up writing almost half the book over the course of that weekend. Such an experience is rare for me as a writer, and I think when that happens, the end result is always something special!

 

Thank you so much for inviting me into your space for this interview! I hope everyone who picks up Monster and Apprentice will walk away with a feeling of connection with the people in their own lives who have taken the time to nurture and guide them, as Luc does with Rolan in this story.

 

It’s been a pleasure to write it, and I hope readers will fall in love with these characters as much as I have!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb