Interview & Giveaway - Love on the Run by Dean C. Moore

 

Love on the Run

by Dean C. Moore 

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BLURB: 

Husband and wife thieves are on a mission. Just not the same one. He’s out to pay for her cancer therapy–at any costs. She’s out to humanize him, and make him less of a self-absorbed jerk. 

The fast-talking, fast-acting, adrenaline seeking duo pick up a few on-again off-again sidekicks along their way, despite staunch protests from Zinio. But with all they’re up against–not the least of which being one smart, hound-dog of a lady detective–the question is: Can love conquer all?

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“The story is smart and funny.”  R. D. Hale, Sky City: The Rise of an Orphan

“For the booklover that doesn’t like having his or her time wasted.”  Jack Heath, Remote Control

“This would make a brilliant movie or TV series.” Demelza Carlton, Ocean’s Gift

“Reminded me of The Thomas Crown Affair, down to the whip-cracking humor, the snazzy plot turns, and the character dynamics between the leads and the hotshot female detective on their tales.” Rhys Jones, The Whispering Void

“Only if you want an action packed read with fully developed and interesting characters.”  Victor Longshanks, One Big Problem

 

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EXCERPT:

Zinio pointed to the underwater sewer line emptying into the ocean.  Delaney nodded and swam up it ahead of him.  

Each time she saw a vertical shaft leading up to street level, Zinio shook his head no, and pointed to further down the tunnel, or left here, right there.  

They were nearly out of air when Zinio grabbed her and pointed upward. 

Changing into street clothes that didn’t really look anything like their style—down to the funky hats to frustrate overhead surveillance cameras—they emerged out of the manhole.  

Sauntering down the street a ways, he walked them inside a motorcycle shop, and bought them a pair of racing bikes.    

Outside the shop, the street racers were zooming by them on their motorcycles.  Zinio handed her a number, printed out in the store.  

“How did…?” 

“I didn’t really.  But when I told you to lose the tail, I had to account for the fact that it might take a while.  This race is West coast to East coast.  Perfect camouflage.  Beats the hell out of any other form of travel they’re likely to be tracking.” 

“And if we’d landed in San Francisco?” 

“There’s a cruise ship that gets us back to New York.” 

“How could…?” 

“You watch QVC late at night to clear your mind.”  

“They have great deals on diamonds!  Okay, not as good as your after hour specials, but…” 

“I watch Johnny Mnemonic.  The memory guy?” 

“Unbelievable.” 

“What?” 

“That you’d pass up the shopping channel for that.”

 

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Let's learn a little about author Dean C. Moore!

What is your writing environment? 

My laptop is situated before a window overlooking an enchanted forest replete with scarlet cardinals scarfing down figs, gold finches plying their trade at the bird feeders, and squirrels playing hide-and-seek with the fly-by hawks.  Humming birds buzz me by the hour courtesy of a lot of deliberate red dangling about the patio windows in the form of nectar dispensers.  There’s even a bad guy in this forest—what enchanted forest would be without one?—a jackal that parades through at all times of day or night, looking for the stray neighbor’s chicken that jumped the coop’s fence.  And as with all enchanted forests, the real dangers come out at night.  Those would be the cocks a crowing at 5 AM (the neighbor has three of them dispersed nicely along a spectrum from tenor to mezzo and high soprano.  For at least one of the roosters, it’s 5 AM all day long.  He might be a little senile.  She has a retirement home for chickens when they get too old to be in with the general population.  If I can get her to take care of me like that in my old age, I’m set. 

Who is your perfect hero and why? 

My two favorite heroes from all of my stories would most likely be Zinio from Love on the Run and Heldor from The Warlock’s Friend, and for entirely different reasons.  I’d love to be the mastermind Zinio is for plotting how to achieve the impossible (even if I wouldn’t necessarily rob banks as he does.  Even if you could convince me it was for a great cause, I think I’m a little too cowardly, and law abiding in real life for that.)  But to have such a strategic sense for how to swim around life’s many obstacles in record time, as he does, yeah, I wouldn’t mind some more of that.   

Heldor, on the other hand, is your prototypical alpha male; the ladies go crazy for him.  My female readers are always sending me emails to the tune of: when are we going to see more of this guy?  You think you could include a few more steamy scenes in the sequel?  What I like about Heldor is this: as a huntsman he chases after hell beasts in a way that would put Van Helsing to shame; he’s fearless, resourceful, and cunning, but he got that way from embracing the beast in himself.  He’s simultaneously attracted to the women who can humanize him and put him in touch with that part of himself he most needs to keep alive and is most endangered of perishing under the demands of his trade.  It’s that inner conflict between doing what’s necessary to thrive in the world and finding a way to nurture our soul at the same time that interests me in a hero.  All my novels work with that dichotomy, but with Heldor the dynamic is the most primal, the least complicated by other factors.

 

What authors have caught your interest lately and why?

I’ll give one of the writers in my critique circle a shout out.  His pen name is Alex Grove.  He writes sci-fi thrillers (which are very much my focus for 2015), so I was delighted to have him swap editing with me.  His book False Idols is set in the near future, again as with my sci-fi thrillers coming out in 2015.  I think he’s beating me at my own game for inserting meaningful debates about key social issues that will be impacting us in the near future in response to emerging technologies.  Often because my stories take on a life of their own, they end up as great stories, with one or more deep and meaningful themes undergirding them, but I continue to want to insert more banter about topics I feel should be making the news but aren’t.  Thinks like growing joblessness because of gradual replacement of humans with robotics, software, automation, self-help IVRs.   

The global economy has crashed for a reason; humans have given rise to a world in which they are increasingly irrelevant.  And I want to scream this from the highest mountain top.  Hey, it’s time we shared the technological largess handed down to us from prior generations of inventors and scientists and tech-geeks with everyone, not just with the top one percent.  This is a gift to humanity, not to a handful of carpet-baggers clever enough to steal from the public trust.  We need to expand the list of human rights accordingly.  I think one mathematician worked it out that if we didn’t invent another labor-killing device, each person on the planet today could be given a subsistence wage of $520.00 a month.  With each new invention that comes on line that technological gift to current and subsequent generations increases accordingly.  But we need more than guaranteed income for people, we need broadband access to the internet for everyone, no matter where they’re located on the globe; yes, that means for people living in trees in the amazon too.  We need free access to PhD level education on any topic and to whatever knowledge needy individuals require to pull themselves out of poverty.  

Martin Ford wrote a nonfiction book entitled Lights in the Tunnel that delves into the subject of technological obsolescence more in depth, and it’s a wonderful starting point in this ongoing discussion.  So needless to say I admire him highly for that.  But I want to do a better job getting the word out myself, whether in fiction or nonfiction.  But the entertainer and storyteller in me hasn’t entirely mastered how to sneak this stuff in without preaching or making the story unduly ponderous.  That’s why I admire Alex’s writing so much, and I expect he’ll be a good influence on me.  Until then, I’m afraid you’ll just have to settle for being entertained by my writing, as opposed to enlightened!

 

What type of book have you always wanted to write? 

I think I covered that a bit in the prior question.  But for the sake of providing fresh material here, I’d say period fiction.  I’d like to go back in time and tell either a steampunk tale or write a paranormal fantasy set in Victorian England.  But I first have to bone up on my history.  Writing about the past is a lot harder for me than writing about the future.  There’s no more research involved, but my mind doesn’t tend to hold on to those kinds of facts as well as it holds on to the hi-tech and paranormal stuff.  I’ll give another shout out to a wonderful writer in his own right, Rhys Jones, who’s currently penning The Whispering Void.  For now at least it’s only available in rough draft form on wattpad.  But it’s a Victorian era paranormal fantasy that I feel is worthy of studying for its excellence even in this early draft state.  If you don’t mind a little extra work of swimming up against those typos and awkward sentences and all the other things that go along with a rough draft, I’d say definitely check it out.  

 

Top 3 things on your bucket list? 

A world cruise during which murders take place, and strange, corporeal beings are encountered owing to the Bermuda triangle effect.  Needless to say the actual cruise would have to be fairly placid so I could write the book during the yearlong voyage.  And I’d definitely like to take my parents along as a reward for never having given up on me.  Of course, that would mean putting up with me for the cruise; they might not agree it’s such a reward.  But I hear there’s plenty of room on those ships where they could shake me. 

I’d like to do an around-the-world tour on land where the focus was food and chocolate. 

And I’d like to spend a few weeks in each of the great national parks of the world, preferably with a tour guide in tow. 

Hmm, all three on the list are about travel.  Note, Dean:  You might need to cut loose before long, and in more than just your imagination.

 

How did you get the idea for this particular novel?

A lot of my favorite films are heist films.  Things like Bandits (with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton), Ocean’s Eleven, After the Sunset and The Thomas Crown Affair (both with Pierce Brosnan), Fun with Dick and Jane.  Of all these (and many more), by far my favorite was The Thomas Crown Affair, which is coincidentally the one film people keep citing who read Love on the Run.  There are definitely plenty of parallels, but there are some key differences too, not the least of which are the particular lessons our hero and heroine have to learn to make their relationship work.  You might ask why I cite only film references.  Well, initially Love on the Run was written as a screenplay.  But my quirky ensemble cast of characters needed more room to spread their wings than they could get in a 110 page screenplay with mostly white pages.  Hence, Love on the Run, the novel, was born.  I’ve never looked back and never regretted the decision.  Transitioning from screenwriting to novel writing was fairly seamless for me, again, because there’s so much room to take things to the next level, the world-building, the character development, and so on.  

 

What is your favorite scene in your new release?

I tend to release several titles at once because I work on several novels in parallel; it delays the launch of each one, but when the harvest comes due it’s a matter of picking the low hanging fruit, the ones ripe enough now to go out the door.  Thus Love on the Run appeared around the same time as a few other things.  But with Love on the Run, my favorite scene is the first one I ever wrote for the book.  In an earlier draft it was chapter one.  It has since moved to chapter two, because I felt I needed to introduce the hotshot FBI detective that would be on the hero’s and heroine’s trail throughout the book early on as part of developing her street cred.  That initial scene I wrote, by the way, is Zinio’s and Delaney’s first bank robbery, during which they find the time to have this huge marital spat.  It’s absolutely hilarious, and if you’re not certain if you’re reading a comedy drama or not, by the time you’re finished with this scene, the matter is pretty much settled. 

 

What are you working on now and when can we expect it to be available?

I write mostly sci-fi and paranormal fantasy or a merger of the two.  You can check my Goodreads page where you can see the impressive itinerary of 12 titles and counting.  2015 will likely see a merger of the two genres again, this time with a paranoid conspiracy theory angle thrown into the mix.  You can see the book covers and the concepts by checking out my website and clicking on the hi-tech thrillers button under the “my books” tab.  But what I’d love to be working on is a sequel to Love on the Run.  I have this idea of the two working their hijinks in the Caribbean, which would take me back to my roots (I was born in Trinidad.)  Having lived in that part of the world for many years I feel the travel lit angle would provide a fresh dimension for fans of the franchise.  But to justify doing the next installment, people have to first know about Love on the Run, read it, and send me a market signal that conveys, Yes!  Keep writing this series.  We love it!  Hence the book tour to whip up some fervor for the series.  At least that’s what I hope to accomplish.  I realize I’m a new writer and you’ve probably never heard of me before, but give me a shot!  The renaissance can’t continue if we all don’t give at least a small amount of our reading time to discovering new writers.  I take this obligation seriously myself.  As proof, witness my Indie Book Review blog on my website where I pay it forward every chance I get.

 

What do you like to do when you are not writing? 

Wow, that’s a long list that pretty much boils down to power vacations.  And most of those usually involve eco-travel, getting back out in nature as a natural countermeasure to the cabin fever that comes with writing.  I’m a naturalist at heart and love lugging a camera around and giving Ansel Adams a run for his money.  Whenever they’ll let me, I try to drag my friends along with me.

 

What would you consider a perfect date?

One that involves a time machine that takes me back so I can master, over time, the art of Casanova.  Not so I can have multiple significant others, but because relationships are such hard work.  If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, it’s not so we can learn to be more enlightened over time—that’s relatively easy—it’s so we can get better at this relationship thing.  They don’t call marriage a sacrament for nothing.  It’s the toughest, though perhaps the most rewarding, of all spiritual journeys.

 

What is one interesting fact about you that readers don’t know? 

If you’ve been following along with my two back to back blog tours, the first for Blood Brothers, which ran for three weeks, and now this one for Love on the Run, which also runs for three weeks, then you probably know more about me than I do, since to keep it fresh and interesting and to keep from repeating myself I’ve had to delve into facets of my personality and history under hypnosis that I’d long since forgotten about.  Yes, I’m a certified hypnotherapist, so this answer is truthful if also admittedly a bit tongue in cheek. 

As to the latest mind-bender:  I kept my hair braided in Egyptian corn rows and grown down to my butt (back when I had hair) in order to blend better with the Rainbow Gatherings I attended for years.  The celebrations themselves were follow ups to the original Woodstock festival for hippies who never wanted the festivities to truly end.  While Woodstock itself was a bit before my time, these jubilees weren’t.  These days it seems I can only be that free in my novels.  There was a time when I could find my way into Eden in the real world simply by going to these gatherings.  Without them, I had to open my own portal into more magical lands.

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

I write sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventures and thrillers, or some combination thereof—usually with a strong vein of dark humor.  Though, my works are dramas first; the humor is there to take the edge off as with the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Transformers, and Jurassic Park franchises.  

I wrote screenplays for a while, and while enjoying them, I found them a bit confining.  After a while you just need the extra page count to flesh out characters better and do additional world building, especially when considering doing anything epic in scope.  I also took a run at future forecasting and trend tracking, being as I always had my head in the future, things like Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.  I also relished this, and can certainly see myself releasing a few titles accordingly in the nonfiction area.  But since delving into novels, short and long, I’ve definitely found my home and my voice.  For the first time I feel the restraints have been taken off of my imagination.  I suppose all mediums have their limits, so I may end up doing a mix of things, but I suspect I will continue to spend most of my time with novels.  Series add an additional dimension, allowing for even more depth and development both in the character and world building departments.  But I remain at heart a divergent thinker, so, no surprise, I seem to have more series going than follow up installments at this point.  That too may change over time; we’ll see.  Until then, it may be best to just think of these books as one-offs if you’re fond of my writing style and some of the themes I work with. 

My current catalog of twelve books represents a little over five years' worth of work.  I'm currently averaging a couple books annually.  Of my existing franchises with multiple installments, The Hundred Year Clone books can be read in any order, while the 5 books of Renaissance 2.0 must be read in sequence as they form part of a singular story arc (much as with A Game of Thrones.)  

I live in the country where I breed bluebirds, which are endangered in these parts, as my small contribution to restoring nature's balance.  When I'm not writing, or researching my next book, I may also be found socializing with friends, or working in my organic garden.
 

Author Links:
 

http://deancmoore.com 

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDeanCMoore 

https://twitter.com/DeanCMoore 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/106904341944230084637/posts 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCegC-5QDQQ7Z9ZChARAhWhA 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7951313.Dean_C_Moore 

http://www.amazon.com/DEAN-C.-MOORE/e/B00IBYUHXC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1407520914&sr=1-2-ent

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Buy Link:   Amazon

 

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Giveaway:

Dean will be awarding a $20 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.  Follow the tour HERE 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway