Today, we have a special guest post by author Heath Daniels. He talks about the inspirations behind his book Three Kisses. Make sure to check it out on Amazon, and add it to your GoodReads reading list. Most of all, keep reading and find out how you can win a copy! Take it away Heath!
In undergraduate days — more years ago than I want to admit — our honors freshman English class had creative writing assignments. It was fun to write a couple of short stories and other creative pieces. You might identify with the notion that I was in a university to learn a real career, not become a writer. This was a fun course, but no more than that. Writing wasn’t a real career.
Then some thirty years later I watched a television show in which the Soviet Union used cosmetic surgery to create an exact duplicate of a U.S. military officer and infiltrated him into the U.S. for some nefarious purpose. At the time, I mused that this would make a good plot for a book. I was too busy with a career and a family so it didn’t occur to me that I should write the story myself. The idea never left me, though. It stuck in the back of my mind and would not go away.
The actual beginning
It was New Year 2005 to 2006 – I can’t remember whether it was December 31 or January 1 – inspirations to write based on that television show came back. They were so strong I wouldn’t have peace until I started writing. I was still employed full time outside the U.S. so the process to write and revise the story took a while.
The Soviet Union was gone, but Russia was still trying to harass the U.S. The perpetrators would be al Qaeda with Russia helping in the background. A Russian cosmetic surgeon in Syria had created many doppelgängers before. Because Syria had been essentially a Soviet satellite, this was a natural place to develop the story.
Still I needed a place in the U.S. from which to begin the story. The first of many coincidences occurred. The International Herald Tribune had a feature article about the Lackawanna Six. They were members of a Yemini immigrant community in Lackawanna in far western New York State. Later I learned that strange synchronicities would become regular phenomena.
Inspirations continued to flow about Yemeni-Americans who were engaged unwittingly in support of al Qaeda. Action moves through the eastern U.S., foreign countries, and one clandestine location. Read to see for yourselves how the inspirations flowed.
While living and writing in a foreign country many miles away, I described a fictional down-market apartment complex in Fairborn, Ohio, near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that catered to short-term rentals. While back in the U.S. for a visit before the book went to publication a short drive through Fairborn revealed the apartment complex actually existed just as I described. Look at some of the other pictures in Three Kisses to see some of the other coincidences I discovered.
An even more uncanny coincidence was my fictional account of an arrest of Islamic terrorists in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. On the same day I finished writing such an arrest actually occurred in the same location described in the book. Read and you will see why I was amazed at the news.
Does the title make you think of romance? Coming up with a title frustrated me until right at the very end. Then a sudden inspiration came as I wrote the final scenes. Read the book and let me know what you think of the title. Maybe it would help to have a title and subtitle of “Three Kisses: Soldiers, Statesmen, Just Friends.”
Yet another inspiration occurred: use the book to bring life and color to otherwise obscure locations. In Three Kisses it would be the less-than-charming small city of Lackawanna, New York. It had been a prosperous steel mill city but now had fallen on hard time with the closure of the mill. Read to find out more about the city with the orange city hall and beautiful basilica.
Now for your GIVEAWAY and SPECIAL OFFER
The first two persons to reply to this post with a BRIEF description of why you want to read Three Kisses will receive your choice of either paperback or ebook. Outside the U.S., only ebooks.
Ask me about a special offer on a bundle of all four books. You will receive them at a reduced price reflecting a giveaway of one of them. Again, outside the U.S. an ebook bundle.
All four books are current events fiction with legal drama. All have underlying messages of respect, acceptance, and appreciation for all persons, whatever their religion, orientation, or other characteristics.
About Heath Daniels
Heath Daniels is mostly retired from a successful academic career as a professor and researcher in international business issues. He has written and edited books and many articles on the subject. He is often invited to present papers at research conferences in the U.S. and other countries.
He has lived in and traveled to many countries world-wide. These experiences exposed him to many cultures and situations. He developed appreciation, respect, and empathy for all persons everywhere, their cultures and traditions.
During the New Year transition going from 2005 to 2006, inspirations came into his mind to write a book. They would not stop until he sat at the computer and started writing.
This was the start of a parallel career as an academic living and working in various locations and an author of international novels of action and intrigue under a pseudonym.
Now that he has mostly retired from academia, he has continued writing. He has written and published four novels with a fifth still developing in his head.
He grew up and went to a university in a small city in the heartland of the U.S. During his academic career in the U.S., he lived in mostly semi-rural areas in the Eastern part of the country. His international career took him to big cities, small towns, and locations in between.
Upon semi-retirement, he moved back to his original home town which is now a larger, urban, cosmopolitan city that still has heartland roots. He continues to travel whenever possible, most recently returning from a four-week visit to southeast Asia.
Almost all locations in his books are places where he has lived or visited for a long enough time to be able to bring them to life through the books. The vast majority of characters are fictionalized depictions of actual people with whom he has interacted, not always under pleasant circumstances. There are no stereotypes.99
His novels feature current events, adventure, and intrigue that are designed to entertain, as well as inform and foster acceptance, tolerance, and respect for all people.
Visit his website at HeathDanielsBooks.com
Intriguing!
Love this author. Heath Daniels has a voice that can’t be beaten and an author who creates wonderful characters who live with you. Have read practically all his books. They are intelligent reads with dynamic plots. Dale E. Manolakas, Legal Thriller Author
It looks like an interesting read.
I hope win prize.