Guest Author Interview - Stephen R Hulse

Today we welcome Stephen R Hulse to the guest author interview, read what he has to say below:

Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
Hello, good whatever time of day it is you're reading this, and welcome. I’m Stephen R. Hulse, and I write. I’m also the publisher at Blue Hour Publishing, a small – but growing –Indy publishing house dedicated to quality across all literary genres. I’m English, amiable, and when not slaving away over a hot keyboard the vast majority of my time is spent being the personal Major Domo, and personal body slave to my cat, Mao.

In common with suave, handsome, multi-billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne, I’m currently single and unattached. However, unlike suave, handsome, multi-billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne, I don’t feel the compulsion to spend my nights dressed as a giant Bat, beating the living daylights out of the criminal element of my city. Sadly, I also don’t currently happen to be a multi-billionaire. (Although I do like to entertain the notion that I still err towards being both suave and handsome. Although my playboy days are behind me.)

What first inspired you to start writing?
I think I can honestly state that no single thing per se, inspired me to start writing. Unlike other boys, I never harboured ambitions to be an astronaut, train driver, or even a suave, handsome, multi-billionaire nemesis of evil-doers everywhere. I quite simply always have written. I was telling stories even before I picked up my first pen and scribbled my first meaningfully coherent sentence; I knew I was a writer. I suspect writing’s hard-wired into my neural pathways, and encoded into my DNA at the sub-molecular level.

What is your favourite book?
Thorny question. The Internet itself isn’t big enough to hold the entire list of my favourite books – in fact my favourite tends to change at a veritable whim and alteration in wind direction. So instead of answering, I’ll neatly side-step by instead providing you with a list of my favourite authors. This list is plucked at random off the top of my head and in no particular order of preference fiction-wise, I’ll go with Tolstoy, Jane Austin, Raymond Chandler, Dickens, Ian Fleming, Mickey Spillane, Robert B. Parker, F. Scott Fizgerald, Matthew Reilly, Simon Scarrow, Robert Graves, Rober E. Howard, Alexandre Dumas, H.G. Wells, Jules Vern, Neil Gaiman…and…can I stop now?

Oh, wait! A special mention to the rather wonderful Lindsey Davis, who writes the equally rather wonderful Falco series of historical detective novels.

If you could work with any author, who would it be?
Oh, a nice easy one to answer – goody. Charles Dickens. Or if Charles was unavailable, Raymond Chandler.

What do you find most satisfying about writing?
Typing the legend The End on whatever project I’m currently working on.

And the most difficult?
Typing the legend The End on whatever project I’m currently working on. Because that means I’m saying goodbye to characters I’ve come to care for. But on the upside, it also means I’m about to meet brand new characters I’ll eventually come to care for equally as much.

What advice would you give new and aspiring authors?
This one’s drop dead easy. Write. Then write some more. The write even more. Then continue writing. Writing is like exercise: the more you do it, the more you benefit from it. Believe in yourself. Believe in your talent and ability. Accept the setbacks and above all – learn from them. Writing, like life, is an on-going process of growth and learning. Realise that, embrace that, and even if you never succeed in selling a single copy of anything – you’ll still have done something worthwhile and profoundly satisfying.

What are you working on at the moment?
Writing-wise, I’m currently working on the sequel to my hard-boiled, modern day Noir thriller with a slight supernatural undertone, The Blue Hour (The Churchill and Wade Mysteries. (Available at Amazon for the Kindle, people). The sequel is titled The Insignificant Other, and I’m having an absolute ball rummaging around once more in the lives and minds of my two central characters, Alex Churchill and Gideon Wade.

I’m also currently working on the sequel to my supernatural, Urban Horror adventure series Shadowchaser (The Shadowchaser Chronicles). (Also a Kindle exclusive, folks). And as if that wasn’t enough, I’m in the process of drafting two further thrillers for release hopefully sometime in the middle of next year.

So, that’s the writing side of things accounted for. And all of the above doesn’t even account for the projects I’m working on for my other authors while wearing my publisher’s hat…

Tell us about your latest work and how we can find out more.
My latest released novel, I so modestly mentioned above is the modern day noir thriller The Blue Hour, which is the first outing for my mis-matched, perpetually verbally sparring detective duo of Churchill and Wade. I’m notoriously lazy, so instead of actually telling you about it; instead I’m simply going to cut and past the Amazon product description for the book and the links to it.

Product Description
"The French call this time l'heure bleu – The Blue Hour. The time between dawn and sunrise when the sun is below the horizon, and the world is awash with a hazy blue shadowed hue that suspends us between the accepted divisions of light and dark. It should have been beautiful. For me, it was now only beautifully deadly..."

Take one decidedly anti-social alcoholic female British ex-cop with an attitude - Alex Churchill...

Add a tough, no-nonsense enigmatic American Private Eye who isn't quite all he appears - Gideon Wade...

Enmesh them in a dark and deadly web of international intrigue engineered by a shadowy criminal organisation for whom human life is just another commodity to be cynically traded for power and profit...

Then dive for cover as fists fly, blood spills and all hell breaks loose!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Blue-Hour-ebook/dp/B007AIPLH2/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Blue-Hour-ebook/dp/B007AIPLH2/

In closing, I’d just like to thank both your and your readers for allowing me this opportunity to present myself and my work to you. It’s very much appreciated.

Oh yes, and for those of you brave and courageous enough to actually venture forth following the reading of this, and actually buy one or more of my books: sincerely hope you enjoy the reading experience.

As always, thanks to Stephen for sharing his time and thoughts with us, on Friday we welcome J L Manning to the hot seat.