Today’s guest is novelist Kevin R. Doyle to chat with me about his dark fiction audiobook, The Litter.
During his virtual book tour, Kevin will be giving away a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter, there, too!
Bio:
A retired high-school teacher and former college instructor, Kevin R. Doyle is the author of four novels in the Sam Quinton mystery series, all published by Camel Press. He’s also written four crime thrillers, including And the Devil Walks Away and The Anchor, and one horror novel, The Litter, along with numerous short horror stories published in small magazines over the years. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights, was nominated for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. A lifelong Midwesterner, Doyle currently resides in Missouri and has loosely based the city of Providence in the Quinton books on Columbia.
Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews, Kevin. Please tell us about your newest release.
This is an audiobook version of an older release of mine. The Litter was my second novel published back in 2015.
What inspired you to write this book?
This will sound corny and ridiculous, but the idea came to me one night in a really wrenching nightmare. The nightmare involved basically one scene, a snippet of action, that eventually found its way into the middle of this book. So I started with a small scene in the middle of the story and went backwards and forwards from there.
Excerpt from The Litter:
Click here to hear the excerptWhat’s the next writing project?
Private License, the fifth book in my Sam Quinton detective series, is being released this August, and I’ve recently finished the first draft of book number six. Beyond that, for years I’ve had an idea in my head for a long, sprawling novel concerning a particularly tough period of time during the history of my hometown. But I’ve always had it on the backburner because the way I have it envisioned in my head it’s going to be really tough to pull off. Now that I’ve retired from teaching and have plenty of free time, it’s on the front burner. So far, I’ve completed a two-thousand-word outline, about twenty pages of notes, and ten thousand words of a first draft.
What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)
The biggest challenge back when I wrote The Litter was simply that I was new at the novel game. Although I’d written short stories for several decades by that point, I’d only written five novels, with only one of them finding a publisher. Needless to say, I was still working out the actual mechanics of how to put the whole thing together.
If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?
If research is required, I usually do it during the second draft phase. When I’m doing a first draft, if anything comes up that needs to be checked out, clarified, or worked out, I drop a note to myself about it. Then, as I come to that part during second draft, the basic rewrite, I do whatever research is necessary to fill in the information. For example, while second drafting Litter I had to do some basic reading up on odontology. If you don’t know what that is, you’ll be able to figure it out at some point while reading/listening to the book.
What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.
My computer’s set up on a desk in a little niche in my living room, so I can easily watch TV while writing. A couple of years back, I needed a new desk, so I went out and bought one that’s one single piece, carved out of a section of a tree.
What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?
In the mystery genre, hands down it’s Lawrence Block, with an early Robert B. Parker coming in a good second. But Parker’s earlier work, not so much his later.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?
I’ve only recently begun branching out into audiobooks. So far, besides The Litter, all of the books in The Group series are available in audio version. They can be found at booksinmotion.com or most audiobook vendors.
Links:
Website | Facebook | Books in Motion | Audible | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Chirp Books | Storytel | Overdrive | Booktopia | Audiobooks
Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!
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Thank you so much for hosting THE LITTER and featuring the author.
Good morning Lisa. Thanks for pitching in on another tour for me. I’ll be checking in on and off through the day.
What’s the most unexpected place you’ve found inspiration for your writing?
A couple of decades ago I was spending a quiet day driving through the Iowa countryside. I was on a county road, no one and nothing else in sight, when I turned a bend in the road and saw off to the side a single wall still standing from an old barn. From a certain distance, the rotted condition of the wall formed the illusion of an old man’s face. I pulled off to the side of the road and stared at it for a moment, taking in every detail. A day later, when I arrived back home in St. Joseph, Missouri, I sat down at the typewriter (that’s how long ago this was) and began composing a short story called “Visage.”
I enjoyed the interview. The excerpt sounds good.
This looks awesome! Thanks for hosting.