Our next guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is Avanti Centrae who’s provided a guest post and a book giveaway, plus a non-book item to go with it. A multi-purpose tactical pen! So totally awesome! And so appropriate given her action-packed novels.
The giveaway details are below. So, without further delay, here’s Avanti Centrae’s guest post and awesome book+pen giveaway. 🙂
Since Debbi and I both love to travel, let’s talk about how the joy of travel colors my fiction. I’m Avanti Centrae, author of the multi-award-winning and bestselling VanOps international thriller series. Like many writers, I was that child who carried the stack of books home from the silver bookmobile every week and dreamed of being an author someday. I was also the kid who studied the multi-colored world globe at family gatherings. My grandparents had one of those globes-on-a-stand, and I’d get bored during the small talk and pull the stand to an out-of-the-way spot in the corner to fantasize about visiting countries around the world. All that reading had sparked my imagination and I wondered: What would it be like to be imprisoned in a castle like the count of Monte Cristo? Were there still pirates in the Caribbean?
Like many writers, I was that child who carried the stack of books home from the silver bookmobile every week and dreamed of being an author someday. I was also the kid who studied the multi-colored world globe at family gatherings.
I did well in school so that I could write my own ticket, and as soon as I’d been out in the workforce for a few years, got the travel bug. A friend and I saved up, put backpacks on our shoulders and headed to Europe. I recall sitting on a white-sand beach in Greece with time on my hands to write, but having no idea what I wanted to write about. I figured I needed to live first. Live, I did. We explored churches, museums, mountains, and beaches across the old continent. We got to see East Berlin before the wall came crashing down, the verdant fjords of Norway, the dark streets of lawless Christiania in the Netherlands, hidden religious grottos in Greece, dolphins playing with tourists in the south of Spain, goats barbequed on spits in the streets of Yugoslavia, and explored cultures quite different from the meat-and-potatoes Midwest. The sense of adventure and freedom was exhilarating. With a Eurail pass, and all our possessions on our backs, we could move about as we wished, and could even be who we pleased. For a time, we introduced ourselves as Canadian because of the American scandal du jour.
The sense of adventure and freedom was exhilarating. With a Eurail pass, and all our possessions on our backs, we could move about as we wished, and could even be who we pleased.
Later, I had the opportunity to visit New Zealand for a wedding, and travel alone through Central America. On my desk still, I keep a small painting done by an artist whose studio I had the opportunity to visit, and I recently stumbled across panoramic photographs taken atop a pyramid in Chichén Itza.
Back to the fiction…when I finally started to follow the dream of writing, it’s no surprise that I decided to pen international thrillers. Since I live in Northern California, I began my debut, VanOps: The Lost Power, with a homicide on a foggy morning in Napa Valley. My primary protagonist, Maddy Marshall, and her twin brother Will flee to Lake Tahoe before heading overseas to figure out why their father was murdered by a sniper. At the family castle in Spain, based on some of those castles I visited during my adventures, they learn the killer wants Alexander the Great’s mysterious Egyptian weapon, which contains a terrifying and mysterious power. Before a hostile state seizes the weapon and cripples the United States, the twins must pass trials and tribulations in a warren underneath the streets of Jerusalem, are stalked in Lithuania, and uncover clues in Myanmar. No place is safe, a wrong move means death, and even a simple phone call is off limits. Because now, the sniper has his sights set on them.
Since I live in Northern California, I began my debut, VanOps: The Lost Power, with a homicide on a foggy morning in Napa Valley. My primary protagonist, Maddy Marshall, and her twin brother Will flee to Lake Tahoe before heading overseas to figure out why their father was murdered by a sniper
The second novel in the VanOps series also takes the twins on an international hunt, although this time I got to research archeoastronomy, a subject that has fascinated me for decades. Solstice Shadows involves the quest to solve an ancient starchart in order to keep Russian extremists from igniting a global war. Upon learning those same extremists kidnapped her foster boy once before, Maddy’s stomach drops. The heart-pounding race to solve the puzzle starts at one of my old travel stops, Chichén Itza, before the twins head to the Temple of Artemis in Turkey. They must escape the dangerous souks of Morocco on their way to unearthing clues in Egypt’s perilous Valley of the Kings, while fighting to stay even a half-step ahead of sinister assassins. Worse, the place Maddy sent the boy for refuge becomes the enemy’s testing ground, where hungry gangs roam darkened streets. With millions of lives on the line, Maddy and Will are desperate to rescue the boy and crack the chart’s secret code.
I’ve found that my experience travelling helps me quickly zero in on unique aspects of a location, even when I can’t visit that place in person. … My goal is to give book lovers that same sense of exhilarating adventure I’ve often had the pleasure of experiencing.
I’ve found that my experience travelling helps me quickly zero in on unique aspects of a location, even when I can’t visit that place in person. Many readers have commented about the realistic settings in my novels, and how reading allows them to travel from the comfort of their plush armchair. My goal is to give book lovers that same sense of exhilarating adventure I’ve often had the pleasure of experiencing.
Giveaway: listeners have a chance to win an audiobook of Solstice Shadows, along with a multi-purpose tactical pen. Everyone who enters will also get the first six chapters of The Lost Power free. Enter here: https://kingsumo.com/g/rydvgs/solstice-shadows-enter-to-win-an-audiobook-and-tactical-pen
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Avanti Centrae is the author of the international multi-award-winning and #1 bestselling VanOps thriller series. An instant Barnes and Noble Nook bestseller, The Lost Power took home a genre grand prize ribbon at the Chanticleer International Book Awards, a bronze medal at the Wishing Shelf Awards, and an Honorable Mention at the Hollywood Book Festival. Solstice Shadows also released as a Barnes and Noble bestseller, and quickly became a #1 Amazon bestseller, before winning a bronze medal at the Readers’ Favorite book awards and nabbing the Chanticleer Global Thrillers Genre Grand Prize. Her father served as a U.S. marine corporal in Okinawa, gathering military intelligence during the first decade after the Korean War. Her work has been compared to that of James Rollins, Steve Berry, Dan Brown, and Clive Cussler. When not travelling the world or hiking in the Sierra mountains, she resides in Northern California with her family and German shepherds.
