Virtual Book Tour Cafe' Interview with Michael Meyer - Covert Dreams

Allow me to introduce you to author, Michael Meyer. Michael is currently on tour with his novel, Covert Dreams at the Virtual Book Tour Cafe'. I've had the pleasure of chatting with Mr. Meyer and I hope you enjoy the interview.

Welcome Michael.

MM:  Many authors relate their characters to people they know.  Is this the case with your characters and do you see yourself in any of them? 

Yes, I know that bits and pieces of myself have found a home in my characters. My sisters tell me that they can see me at times as they read my work. For instance, the caring that B.J. demonstrates to his distraught wife, who is afraid of losing her husband, reminds me of me. Stan’s tenacity at not giving up in his search for his missing wife, no matter how difficult the circumstance, reminds me of me.

   

MM:  Who is your favorite character in your book and why? 

Stan Halsey, newly arrived in Saudi Arabia, is on a life or death mission. His wife has disappeared. She is out there somewhere in the burning sands of Arabia, frightened to death, in a new country for the first time, and in a country where she knows that a segment of the population targets Americans, infidels one and all.  And she’s been out there for over twenty-four hours now, missing under mysterious conditions, but nobody believes him. In fact, nobody, not the American authorities nor the Saudi government officials think that she is real. There is simply no evidence of her very existence anywhere. But Stan Halsey is a determined man, a guy who simply cannot be derailed from his valiant efforts to locate his wife, to discover what is going on. He is tenacious, like a pit bull, allowing no one and no thing to get in his way. He simply is a man who will not be stopped until he locates his wife. No obstacle is too much for him to overcome. He will do whatever it takes to find her and to solve the mystery of why her very existence is being questioned by everyone around him.

MM:  Who is your most favorite character from any book of all time?

I have been such an avid reader my entire life, and I have such eclectic tastes in reading, that this is an extremely difficult question for me to answer. If pinned down, though, I would say that Rosie, one of the main characters in my Caribbean murder mystery, DEADLY EYES, would surely be there right at the top of my list. Why? Because I simply fell in love with her. She is feisty, sexy, quick-witted, and very independent.

MM:  If you could dive into the pages of any book, which book would it be and what character would you be?

I would love to be Doc in John Steinbeck’s CANNERY ROW. He was such an interesting character, genial, caring, and always curious about the world around him.

MM:  If your book was to become a movie, which actors/actresses do you see playing the parts of your characters?

I feel that Kevin Costner would make a great B.J., Harrison Ford would be fantastic as Stan Halsey, and Julia Roberts would be the perfect Dabbie Hodson. I only wish I had the power to make all of this come true.

MM:  What can we expect from Michael Meyer in the future? Any new projects? 

I hope to write until I die. I love to create plots and characters. I love language, stringing words together to create different moods. I am currently working on something quite different from anything that I have ever written before. It is a memoir of my journey from grieving widower to the once-again happily married man I am today. It is entitled THE THREE KITTIES THAT SAVED MY LIFE, dedicated to my rescued stay cat, my inspirational three-legged cat, and my wonderful new wife, Kitty.

  

MM:  Where can readers connect with you?

COVERT DREAMS trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9drU4-um_U

COVERT DREAMS PURCHASE LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Covert-Dreams-ebook/dp/B005WO860K/ref=la_B005E7M8CW_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1338306991&sr=1-2

Amazon author’s site: http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Meyer/e/B005E7M8CW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Goodreads author’s site: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/674626.Mike_Meyer

Facebook writers’s site: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMeyersWritingLife/app_191387770912394

Pinterest writing site: http://pinterest.com/temmike/#

  

Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today. It's been a wonderful pleasure.

Author bio:

I have resided in and have visited many places in the world, all of which have contributed in some way to my own published writing. I have literally traveled throughout the world, on numerous occasions. I have lived in Finland, Germany, Thailand, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Saudi Arabia, where COVERT DREAMS is set. I gained the wanderlust to see the world, to experience other cultures, at an early age, and this desire has never left me. If anything, it has only gained in intensity as I have aged. I try to travel internationally at least once a year. In the interim, I spend lots of time traveling around both my home state of California and other nearby states.

            I spent my early years in the small town of Lone Pine, California, the home of almost every western movie, in addition to a wide variety of other genres, made in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. In fact, Hollywood still films parts of big-time movies there today. My dad, the town’s lifeguard at the time, personally knew John Wayne, Lloyd Bridges, and Lee Marvin, all of whom came to the town’s pool, the Memorial Plunge, at times to cool off after a hectic day of working in the sun. I was even an extra in a movie filmed there in 1957, MONOLITH MONSTERS, a B-cult favorite even today. I was ten years old at the time. Even though I resided in a small town hours from the big city, I was exposed to the excitement of action and heroes at a formative age, and, thus, my interest in writing novels of suspense such as COVERT DREAMS was born.

            As a recent retiree from a forty-year career as a professor of writing, I now live in Southern California wine country with my wife, Kitty, and our two other cats. 

  

Author Links:

Amazon | Goodreads | Facebook | Pinterest

Genre: Suspense/thriller/mystery

Imagine waking up remembering intimate details about a country in which you have never traveled and fluently speaking a language that you have never spoken. B.J. is living the ideal life. He has a great wife, a wonderful job. And yet he is experiencing life-like vivid dreams of Munich, a city he has never visited.

Stan Halsey is a professor in Saudi Arabia, who sends for his wife to join him. She arrives, and, in the blink of an eye, she vanishes, leaving no trace of ever being alive in either the United States or in Saudi Arabia.

COVERT DREAMS is a fast-paced international suspense thriller that moves from Munich to the burning sands of Saudi Arabia. What is real, and who is responsible for the terrifying nightmare?

Excerpt:

The Munich all around her was bustling with activity. She could hear it from all directions. Munich was a wonderful city, a fun-loving place, the live and let live ebullience of the city emanating from its every nook and cranny. She had had a lovely stay here. All of it had been so adventurous, so new, so unlike life back home in Arizona. She could vividly recall the first time she had ventured into a Munich beer garden, where the liter mugs had been so huge that she had had to lift hers with both hands, and the giggles, from him, until he too had had to use both hands.

The fumbling noises he had been making came to an abrupt halt. He began stroking her cheek again. Gus looked so happy, so young, so full of life. It was so hard to imagine that he could be so heavily involved in all this horror.

Gus smiled at her once more. His eyes were soft, so gentle, so caring, so loving.

Maybe this was some kind of huge mistake. Maybe he wasn't going to kill her after all. Maybe everything would turn out happily ever after. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

But then suddenly she saw it clearly. It was no fairy tale. There would be no maybe. This was real, as real as the mixture of sadness and fear that now flooded her brain.

And then she died, with her eyes wide open, challenging, piercing his to the end.

COVERT DREAMS trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9drU4-um_U

BOOK PURCHASE LINK: Amazon