BOOK PROMOTIONS INTERNATIONAL AUTHOR FEATURE
(PART 2)
(PART 2)
BRIAN O'HARE
Today on the L.O.V.E. blog we're hosting author Brian O'Hare for part 2 of his exclusive interview with us. Let's see what he had to share with us this time!
Q: Thank you for speaking with us again Brian. You're a published author with Crimson Cloak Publishing. Can you tell our readers a little about what it was like to be published for the first time?
A: My first book, A Spiritual Odyssey, a non-fiction memoir, was published by Columba Press, Dublin, Ireland. I thought, “Great, I have found a publisher for my future writing.” Unfortunately, for financial reasons, the publisher became very cagey about the type of books he was prepared to publish, and fiction was completely out. I had just ventured into fiction at the time with Fallen Men, (a contemporary fiction novel) and had also completed the first book of The Inspector Sheehan Mysteries Series, The Doom Murders.
I was having trouble finding another publisher at that point, so I self-published both books on Amazon. Both won Indie Book of the Day Awards, so I decided to try again to find a publisher. I submitted The Doom Murders to Crimson Cloak but a few days later, I received a rejection slip from the Submissions Editor. You can get really sick of the sight of those things, so I deleted it immediately.
Imagine my surprise, my excitement, and my relief, when two days later I got an urgent email from Carly McCracken, Owner and President of Crimson Cloak Publishing, asking me not to send The Doom Murders to anyone else. She had read the first few chapters herself and loved it, and invited me to resubmit. She accepted the book, and Fallen Men as well, and thus began, for me, a very encouraging partnership. CCP has since accepted and published The Miracle Ship,(a biography), The 11.05 Murders (Vol 2 of The Inspector Sheehan Mysteries) and The Coven Murders (Vol. 3 of the Sheehan Mysteries) and three short Sheehan stories. A further book, The Dark Web Murders is currently being edited and prepared for publication. I can say that Carly and I have now become friends and she is very supportive of everything I write.
Q: That's amazing. Congratulations on all of your success! You mentioned A Spiritual Odyssey, your first book. Can you tell our readers a little bit about it?
A: That particular memoir was prompted by the experiences I had while waiting for a liver transplant. I had a disease from childhood which had a wasting effect on my liver that I learned about only in my middle forties. I got very ill during a golfing holiday in Portugal (I was 65 at the time) and had to be flown home. Tests showed that my liver was on its last legs and I was given an estimated one year to live.
I was immediately put on a transplant waiting list. You can imagine the tension as I waited week after week, month after month, jumping at the phone every time it rang, hoping that this was the news I was waiting for. Regarding the medical treatment you ask about, there was none (apart from some pills to help with anxiety and panic attacks, common at such times). There was no medical help for the liver. It just kept dying. Indeed, I, too, was literally dying.
Ten months into this ‘year’, I still had no word about a new liver. I was wasting away, very yellow in colour and skeletal in frame. I think I was just over 7 stones in weight at that time (compared with my current 12 and a half stones.) During these anxious months, I would have occasional contact with the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh (where the transplant was to take place). They would tell me that my blood type was rare, and there was a also a problem with a tissue match. So a very specific liver would be required. Not very encouraging news.
By the eleventh month I had given up hope, found a spiritual peace, and accepted that I was going to die. And then the phone call came one evening. Mad excitement at my house. Children rushing from their own homes to say goodbye and good luck. A designated driver took myself and my wife to a corner of the Belfast airport where there was a small plane waiting to take us immediately to Scotland. It had two seats for pilots and two for passengers immediately behind them. It was a dark and stormy night (as the old English novels used to say) and the rickety little plane was buffeted all over the skies. My wife was in a total panic, but the odd thing was that I sat there in a kind of surreal calmness, wondering if I really wanted the liver now, or just go ahead and meet my Maker. As it turned, the transplant was hugely successful. Sixteen years later. I play golf three days a week (four hour rounds without a buggy), am fit and healthy, and I write books in whatever spare time I have.
I was immediately put on a transplant waiting list. You can imagine the tension as I waited week after week, month after month, jumping at the phone every time it rang, hoping that this was the news I was waiting for. Regarding the medical treatment you ask about, there was none (apart from some pills to help with anxiety and panic attacks, common at such times). There was no medical help for the liver. It just kept dying. Indeed, I, too, was literally dying.
Ten months into this ‘year’, I still had no word about a new liver. I was wasting away, very yellow in colour and skeletal in frame. I think I was just over 7 stones in weight at that time (compared with my current 12 and a half stones.) During these anxious months, I would have occasional contact with the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh (where the transplant was to take place). They would tell me that my blood type was rare, and there was a also a problem with a tissue match. So a very specific liver would be required. Not very encouraging news.
By the eleventh month I had given up hope, found a spiritual peace, and accepted that I was going to die. And then the phone call came one evening. Mad excitement at my house. Children rushing from their own homes to say goodbye and good luck. A designated driver took myself and my wife to a corner of the Belfast airport where there was a small plane waiting to take us immediately to Scotland. It had two seats for pilots and two for passengers immediately behind them. It was a dark and stormy night (as the old English novels used to say) and the rickety little plane was buffeted all over the skies. My wife was in a total panic, but the odd thing was that I sat there in a kind of surreal calmness, wondering if I really wanted the liver now, or just go ahead and meet my Maker. As it turned, the transplant was hugely successful. Sixteen years later. I play golf three days a week (four hour rounds without a buggy), am fit and healthy, and I write books in whatever spare time I have.
Q: What a truly miraculous experience. We are so happy that you are doing well now. The Coven Murders, another book mentioned above, is a very popular book of yours. What would you like our readers to know about it?
A: The Coven Murders is the third book in the Sheehan series. It is very different from the previous two and, indeed, I probably took a substantial risk in drifting somewhat off track from what I had done before. Readers of the first two books in the series will a couple of serial killers, psychologically disturbed, of course, but just fairly ordinary human beings. This third book is still a mystery, and one I hope the reader won’t easily solve, but it contains also a significant element of the supernatural - covens, a terrifying Satanist, black Mass, a group exorcism, and a horrific climax in an underground crypt where Sheehan and his team have to do battle not only with human enemies but a powerful demon as well. In terms of genre, I suppose it could be described as a paranormal mystery.
To be honest, I was a great fan of a writer in the ’60s called Denis Wheatley. He wrote fantastic paranormal thrillers. A couple of them were made into movies - The Devil Rides Out is one I remember, starring Christopher Lee. I always wanted to write something like that. The Coven Murders is a kind of tribute to Denis Wheatley.
Q: Thank you for that information. We'll have to check out the movie. Finally, we love that you mention your family on your website, including your grandchildren. Are any of them interested in writing?
A: No sign of that in any of them so far. I have ten grandchildren, ages ranging from 30 to 12. There might still be time for the spark to ignite in one of them. Some of them read my books, so who knows? They might think, ' ...if Granda can do this, so can I.'
Email: brianohare26@hotmail.co.uk
Website: http://brianohareauthor.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brian.ohare.96
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brianohare26?lang=en
Inspector Sheehan’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspectorsheehan/
THANK YOU READERS for being here with us! Your shares and comments are welcome. Happy reading!
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