Verna Loves Books: ~Author Spotlight~ Terry Maggert

Born in 1968, Terry discovered fishing shortly after walking, a boon
considering He lived in South Florida. He had the good fortune to
attend high school in idyllic Upstate New York, where he learned the
meaning of winter-- and how to seize the whole of summer.
After two or three failed attempts at college, he bought a pub. That
was fun, because he loved beer. However, he eventually met someone
smarter than him (a common event), but in this case, she married
him and convinced him to go back to school -- which he did, with great
enthusiasm. Terry holds a Master’s Degree in History, and lives near
Nashville, Tennessee with the aforementioned wife, son, and a herd
of various critters. When he's not writing, he teaches history, grows wildly
enthusiastic tomato plants, and restores his 1967 Mustang.

1. What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author? What has been the best compliment?
The toughest is easy. It was the first reader who said they thought I didn’t know my characters. I thought to myself, “Know them? I created them.” Then I had pie, and everything was better. The best compliment is easy as well, because it came from an author I respect who said one thing: they wished they had written my book. It was the first visceral thrill I’d gotten from anything book related, and I’ll never forget it.
And one other thing that just happened-- I got the BEST compliment I've ever had. A review stated that "I had to look Terry up online to see if he was a female, he writes strong female characters that are very real."

2. Is anything in your book based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?
Very much so. The inclusion of beer, fishing, eating, and gorgeous women is, as you might suspect, both personal and aspirational on my part. The immortals are a synthesis of legend and what I hope is a very human side. The bank manager Annalise Wimple, who is Ring’s nemesis, is an amalgam of every horrible customer service experience from my entire life, rolled into one unattractive, angry package (that wears ugly shoes).

3. Can you tell us about your upcoming releases? If you have any.
Love to! The Fearless series rolls on, but there’s a lot more happening right now. Book four in The Fearless will be released on September 1 this year. Book five is currently being written; I LOVE the villains and cannot wait to see their fates. I’ve started a passion project that just feels right, and it combines several of the things that made me love reading when I was a kid—dragons, a world gone crazy, and heroes. I am a third complete with the first book of this new series, and it seems like there will be a minimum of three books in that world. I’m incredibly curious to see how the dragons and humans work together to fight what is essentially the hounds of hell.

4. What do you like to do when you’re not writing? I run. I play basketball. I eat and read. I’ve got a great family and a lot of pets, so in between all that entails, I bake pie and find excuses to eat it at three in the morning. I have an old mustang that my wife calls “the other woman”, and I pretend to fix it while thinking about books, sports, or fishing.

5. You have multiple personalities, describe some of them
One is a baker. That much we know is true. One is a frustrated professional athlete of some sort who is stymied by two things: age and a lack of talent. The third personality is a last beach rat who would lay about in the Florida Keys and achieve almost nothing for the next four decades. It’s a goal.

6. What made you decide to write your first book? I’ve written for years. Let me clarify; I’ve written truly horrible things for years, but I got serious two years ago because I slowed down, thought about my characters, and decided to finish a novel. I have never been more satisfied with something in my entire life, so I must be doing something right.

7. Do you have any strange writing habits? I like to write from 1-3AM. It’s the sweet spot for me.

8. If you could cast your characters in a Hollywood adaptation of your book, who would play what characters? I'm going to let the readers decide who they would cast-- I like their imaginations.

9. Who are the authors that inspire you? Anne McCaffrey made me love science fiction and fantasy. Clive Cussler made me love adventure. And like so many other humans, if I could borrow a life, it would be Ernest Hemingway’s. He lived as he wrote: beautifully.

10. Is there anything you would like to say to your readers
Thanks for giving an indie a chance. It’s a whole new world for readers, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

The Forest Bull: Excerpt

Florida

“You may kiss me now,” she stated in a voice devoid of music. The mirthless bow of her full lips betrayed her intent to me, but I knew the invitation, like my costume, was a lie. She was pretending to be human. I adopted the persona of just another lonely, awkward snowbird, my own illusion that had brought me to this intimate second with her, inviting me closer with a flicker of her brow. I bought in, leaning towards her in the alcove of a cheesy hotel that advertised in French and English. The boardwalk nearby was a haven for the Quebecois who fled the rigors of winter for the sun and crowding of Hollywood, Florida, squeezed between the fashion of Miami and the canals of Fort Lauderdale.

We were a mismatched pair because she saw what I wished: a slouching, white-bread tourist being rewarded by the gods of fate with the company of a pale, elegant woman whose body filled her sundress flawlessly. Other couples and groups passed us in a late night rush between the bars and gathering places of the beach. It was cool for November. Bursts of drunken laughter mixed with the quiet spaces surrounding lovers who walked, faces turned to the shushing metronome of the surf. A single set of footfalls clattered nearby, interrupting our moment of impending passion. It was a woman dropping her keys and swearing in lightly-accented French. With a metallic tinkling, she picked them up and moved off into the night, leaving us alone again.

Reaching out, I took the woman’s thin hand tentatively as she leaned into me with beautiful but shopworn looks, tired under her makeup. A halo of dark curls was pushed back from her oval face with hair combs that were deeply burnished red, gleaming like rubbed bone. They looked regal in the careless way that beautiful women wear trinkets with quiet entitlement.

She had approached me in a bar an hour earlier as I sat alone nursing a comical umbrella drink and reading a paperback. I dress with purpose when I become someone else, leaving a riot of clues about my weaknesses and desires scattered on me. I hunch. I become meek. I mute my ego and become subservient to an affectation of absolute mediocrity. A cheap, tacky sweatshirt and garishly new deck shoes completed my identity as a visitor, unsure of my surroundings and far from home. I added moping loneliness and an aura of desperation purely for effect. With my shoulders rolled in and my body language long on failure, women ignored me. I, in turn, avoided anyone who made eye contact until she sat down, sliding into the space next to me and settling quickly. She was very still except for her eyes. They were alive, but brittle and hooded.

“Senya,” she introduced herself when she calmly sat in my booth without invitation.

There was no uncertainty in her motions as she drank one glass of wine while asking a mechanical litany of questions. Where was I from? Did I have family with me? Was I staying nearby? She delivered these in a throaty accent that was purely Eastern Europe, all while flirting with me in a listless way. I played the role of the flattered rube, and, when she asked me to leave with her my eyes, went wide, the shock of my good fortune lighting my face. I fumbled awkwardly to the door with her.

And, now, here we were, in a shadowed place with the wind and water muted. Alone, or as much as you could be in public. She pulled me to her and I inhaled her scents of red wine, foreign tobacco, and the lingering grit of the ocean. She opened her mouth and circled me with her arms, warming to the moment as we kissed. I felt her body begin to flower from our contact and winced with regret as my hand whispered upwards, burying the slim knife I had silently palmed deep into her ribs. She buckled and tried to pull back, but my arms locked on her like heavy stones resting in earth. Her eyes never opened as the poisonous blade wrecked her spirit, the silvered steel shooting through her without mercy, cutting the bond to her body forever.

Immortals are always surprised when they die. She was no different, judging by her open-mouthed, hiccupping sigh as I lowered her spasmodic body, eyes fluttering, to the concrete of the hotel patio. In seconds, she began to sublime, her ashes fleeing upward with tiny blue points of moonlight that left her dress an empty outline. I stepped back, looking at the dust of Senya, and began to turn away. In that instant, two obscenely fat moths fluttered down and began to delicately scatter her remains with their feet.

I have learned that killing immortals causes changes in my body. Maybe another executioner could learn how to fly, read minds, or bend a metal rod with their hands. I tend to think that each immortal death makes us better at what we know. For me, I grow faster, more confident. I know I am something more after fourteen years of killing their kind.

I still can’t fly, but one thing is certain. I’m very good with knives.