Author James Hankins being interviewed in September 2015 about his thriller story The Prettiest One for Kindle Most Wanted, Amazon’s community for fans, mysteries and suspense novels. (Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
This blog post is the second of a two–part interview with author James Hankins. Following the format I used last week in writing about James and his storytelling, I am just going to go right back into the interview with him without any further comment.
(Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
Brothers and Bones
Kindle Edition, 365 pages
Published October 24, 2012 by Amazon Digital Services
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC A legal thriller.
” . . . I wrote Brothers and Bones, and though I’m not rating or reviewing the book, I thought I’d write about what made me come up with the idea for the story. It was a single moment several years ago. I was working as a lawyer in Boston and every day after work, as I walked to the subway station, I would pass the same man. He was likely homeless. He dressed in rags. Long hair, long beard. He never asked for money. Most strikingly, he was usually talking to himself — or seemingly to a mailbox or a parking meter. Sometimes these dialogues were heated. One day, I imagined walking past him and having suddenly look up and say, very clearly and lucidly, “Hi, James,” before returning to his animated self-dialogue. I found the thought to be creepy and I wondered what could be behind such a moment. And Brothers and Bones was born.” — James Hankins
(Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
ebook, 342 pages
Published October 25, 2012 by Smashwords
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
A paranormal thriller.
* Reached #31 in the Kindle Top 100
* Reached #1 in Ghost Fiction
” . . . I wrote Drawn and thought it might be interesting to talk about how I came up with the premise for it. The first kernel of an idea came when I was looking at old family photographs in an album. It was a picture from one of our family vacations. We were at an amusement park. I was probably 8 years old. Though I’d seen the picture many times before, I noticed for the first time a man in the background, seemingly looking at our camera — someone not with us — and I imagined how chilling it would be if I saw the same man in a picture in the background of a different picture, from a different vacation the following summer, and again, he was staring right at the camera. And what if I turned a few more pages and saw that same guy, again staring right at me, from another place and time. What if this same guy was there all that time, in the backgrounds of all those photos and more, looking right at the camera, and we never noticed him?
Thinking about a possible story for me, I changed photographs to paintings, then I changed the man to a boy because, well, kids can be creepy. Remember “Children of the Corn?” Anyway, I added other characters and a lot more story, but that’s how Drawn began.” — James Hankins
(Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
Kindle Edition, 296 pages
Published October 25, 2012 by Amazon Digital Services
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
A cop police procedural and suspense crime psycho-thriller.
” . . . I thought readers might be interested to know how I came up with the idea for the book. It came to me in the middle of the night, when I woke up from a deep sleep. Lying in the dark, this bizarre thought came to me: “What if when I open my eyes, someone is standing beside my bed with a knife? Someone famous. No, not merely famous but, in fact, someone loved my millions.” The idea of such a strange, creepy occurrence kept me up all night — not in fear of famous boogeymen appearing in my room, but with interest in the possibilities of a story there for me. Soon I was writing Jack of Spades.” — James Hankins
(Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
Kindle Edition, 402 pages
Published October 1, 2015 by Thomas & Mercer
Crime thriller / psychological suspense
“How did you decide to write the story?” — Ognian Georgiev
– “I was doing general psychological research and stumbled on an article about a rare but—to me, at least—fascinating form of amnesia called a dissociative fugue (the name changes now and then in the various editions of the DSM). A dissociative fugue is a very specific kind of amnesia in which a person loses memory of herself and will actually travel to a different place and often create an entirely new identity there. And when her memories of her former life return (after hours, days, months, or even years), she typically remembers none of the time spent in the fugue state. She remembers her former life but totally forgets the newer one. To me, the story possibilities seemed nearly endless.” — James Hankins
What is it about writing that gives you strength, perhaps a verification of joy in what you are doing?
I’ve always wanted to tell stories. For a long time, I wrote them without knowing whether they would ever be heard by anyone outside of my immediate family. Now, there are people I’ve never met reading my books. There’s a lot of joy for me in that.
(Photo permission and courtesy of James Hankins.)
Kindle Edition, 334 pages
Published February 24th 2015 by Thomas & Mercer
Top 50 Books of 2015 Best Ex-Con Kidnapper in a Mystery Crime Thriller.
It was an absolute delight to talk with James. His responses revealed to me just how much he is dedicated to his writing.
I venture to say that while storytellers are solely in the process and struggle of creating stories, their solitary venturing can be made less lonely by those around them. This backing is vitally important because this support lends strength to the power and expression of these artists’ creativity. The effect of such backing and advocacy provides invaluable reinforcement to writers. This endorsement and patronage of the heart provides writers with wings to do their storytelling . . .
Related Links:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6644088.James_Hankins
https://www.facebook.com/JamesHankinsAuthorPage
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6644088.James_Hankins
https://twitter.com/james_hankins_
http://patch.com/massachusetts/swampscott/james-hankin-local-author-with-three-amazon-best-sellers
http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_home_page.html
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16667.Isaac_Asimov
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/isaac-asimov-2014_n_4530785.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products or services that I have mentioned here. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
2 comments. Leave new
Amazing Blog for Author James Hankins! You captured that!! Awesome! All readers out there, look for the in the very near future, the first novella of “THE PENITINT” PART ONE, of a Triolgy, “Immortity Wars” It will be amazing!
Thank you, Carolyn. Your support for my writing is deeply appreciated.