Featured Author

Hi

I'm excited. 

I've just been notified that Sleep then my Princess is a featured book on Book Hippo. Thanks Book Hippo for this. It's $0.99 for a short time only.

http://bookhippo.uk/?asin=B016G5T7AG

New review for Sleep then my Princess

Hi All
Just wanted to share my newest review for Sleep then.

http://bookviral.com/sleep-then-my-princess/4591414960


Sleep then My Princess is an emotional thriller set in Arizona. While mourning the death of her husband, Senior Tissue Engineer, Stephani Robbins, is plagued by recurring visions of a child being locked up in a chicken coop. Meanwhile, someone is sending her creepy love poems, roses, and photos that have been taken without Stephani's knowledge.

As more photos appear, the police suspect that Stephani has hired someone to take these photos. Before she can convince the police to take her seriously, she is kidnapped. While imprisoned she discovers why she has been having these visions and it is more chilling than she ever imagined. Can she make it out alive?

Our Review......
A dark edgy thriller, author O N Stefan takes us on an electrifying journey in new release Sleep Then My Princess. A gratifying and often graphic page turner Stefan demonstrates a fine eye for nuance and there’s no doubt the thinking part of her narrative works well to deliver a real sense of authenticity. In the main this comes from Stefan’s acerbic rendering of Stephani Robbins. There's a well-worn familiarity to her character’s vulnerabilities and yet she remains unburdened by the usual genre tropes. The plot is intelligent, thoughtful and piercing with an emotional clarity that makes it hard to dismiss and yet it’s a long way off the trite excesses of far too many thrillers where shock value is favoured over the mechanics of good writing. Stephan knows how to strike a nerve and handles gradations of momentum well as readers are swept towards a cracking denouement.

A thriller deserving of your undivided attention, Sleep Then My Princess certainly bodes well for future release from O N Stefan and is strongly recommended.

LINK TO THIS BOOK ON: Amazon.com. Sleep then my Princess
Amazon UK Sleep then my Princess

Death and cremation

The Australian Writer's Festival is on and I went to an author talk today. Caitlin Doughty spoke about her career as a Mortician.

She's an entertaining speaker and I learned much about cremation, how the body is burned and that the family can attend the burning if they wish but no one ever tells them this. Wow!



I didn't know that the hardest part to burn is the chest area which needs to be face up. The the body is turned to burn more evenly. Old people burn quickly say from 45 minutes to an hour and overweight people can take up to two hours.

Also, the bones don't all burn and they are put into a grinding machine to ground to a powder that the family will receive in a box.

One question I didn't get to ask is what happens to the box. The funeral industry pushes the family to buy the most expensive box. Does it get recycled back to the funeral company when it is actually owned by the family that paid for it?

Caitlin is opening her own funeral home in July. I wish her all the best as she's come across as a caring person and I can't think of anyone who would look after your dearly departed better.

Her book, a New York Times bestseller, is about her career and her experiences in the industry of death.
I purchased 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & other lessons from the Crematory' and hope to read it shortly. I can't wait after hearing snippets of her experiences.

http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Gets-Your-Eyes-Crematory/dp/0393240231

I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with looking at a dead body but at least now I can shake of that conditioning of speaking about death.

Author interview

Tell me a little bit about yourself, O. Stefan. What do you do for a living? What part of the world do you live in? How long have you been writing? That sort of thing.

I live in Sydney, Australia and I've been writing on and off for the past 10 years. 

Tell me a little about The Deadly Caress.

The Deadly Caress is a fast-paced story set in California. Suspenseful and thrilling, it is holds a mystery that Amanda Blake, a freelance photographer, must unravel.

Amanda tracks down her birth mother, the multi millionaire Jean Campbell. Hours after her arrival, Jean is murdered.

Amanda sets out to discover her mother’s killer. Her quest takes to Australia to find the man she thinks holds the answer to the killer’s identity. While visiting this man, she has to run for her life under a hail of bullets. Someone will stop at nothing until she is dead. If she thought things were bad enough, they are about to get much worse. 

What was the genesis of that work?

It's what captured my attention at one time from a newspaper article and it started me thinking...what if a person was to discover that the woman she thought was her mother wasn't. How would she feel? What if this mother was murdered? What would this person do?

Then there's a scary scene with Amanda driving down a mountainside and that comes from my memory banks. I grew up across the road from a very bad intersection and every weekend there would be at least one horrific accident. Some of these were youths speeding and chasing each other. Drunks and careless or not drivers who had miscalculated the sharp turn and careened into an oncoming car or the nearby light post. My dad would run over to see if an ambulance was needed, as we were the only family in the street to have a phone. He'd take blankets over if the person/people was badly injured and I would help him. My sister and my mother would be too upset to be of help and didn't go.

I find my characters everywhere and nowhere. 

I was intrigued by how you go from the female protagonist's viewpoint to the creeper's viewpoint. Can you tell us something about the process you follow to accomplish that?

I did get upset when I had to put Amanda in difficult situations, as I’d grown fond of her. I find writing about the evil people easier than writing about someone who’s good because it’s harder to make the honest person shine but it does make you grow as a writer.

Did this project take a lot of research?

The Deadly Caress took a fair amount of research into police procedures and the prison system. I emailed a detective in Monterey who was very helpful. And for what it was like inside the prison system in the US, I did all my research online by reading blogs from prisoners, to online diagrams of layouts inside and articles posted online from newspapers.

What are your plans for the book in the near future?

I self published “The Deadly Caress” early this year. Currently, I’m working on polishing my next thriller “Lurking in the Shadows” which is scheduled for release in the latter part of this year.

Your art work is striking. Who did the cover for you?

I found a graphic designer on fiverr.com to design the cover for me. I’d researched the covers I liked so that made it easier for the designer.

Link: The Deadly Caress

Web site: http://onstefan.weebly.com