Good morning everyone and happy bank holiday weekend! I’m on the blog tour for Deepest Wounds by Gordon Brown today and I have a great guest post from the author to share with you.
Deepest Wounds us available in paperback now and you can purchase your copy here.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and Gordon for providing me with this guest post.
Before I share my guest post with you here is a little bit about the book.
Book Synopsis:
Book 3 in the series that begins with Darkest Thoughts, one of The Reading Agency’s BOOKS OF THE YEAR, 2017. Conspiracy thriller. Book 3 in the mind-bending Craig McIntyre series. Book 1: Darkest Thoughts. Book 2: Furthest Reaches. The past is a dangerous place. Craig McIntyre s mere presence removes people s inhibitions and turns their darkest thoughts into actions. As Craig McIntyre tries to escape bounty hunters from the Dark Web, he discovers that his details are linked to a clandestine government project. Might it hold answers to his past as well as dangers for the present? Back on the run in North America, McIntyre hooks up with some unlikely allies. But can he trust them any more than those who want to use him to shape the future…and to further their personal ambitions? Have those behind Factor really given up on their pursuit of him? Or is McIntyre being reeled in with some politically toxic bait? McIntyre is the key to an explosive secret that could change mankind forever.
Guest Post: The Birth of Craig McIntyre
If there’s one question that you can guarantee to be asked as an author, it’s that age old chestnut ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ My favourite response is ‘The local corner shop. They sell ideas between 2.00pm and 4.00pm on a Thursday.’ (I admit I nicked that from another author.)
When it came to my Craig McIntyre series the core idea was born in a Glasgow pub, one Friday night. Craig McIntyre is, shall we say, a little unusual. He has the ability to bring out the worst in people. He can turn people’s darkest thoughts into action. He can’t control what he does. His life is one of constant chaos and he’s always on the run from a clandestine U.S. agency, who see him as the ultimate assassin.
Turn back to that wet Friday night on the southside of Glasgow. A friend and myself were propping up the bar at around nine o’clock. The pub was quiet. A grand total of five people made up the clientele. Two brothers stood in one corner, both drunk as a skunk. A young man sat at a table, head down in a paperback while my friend and I, backs to the bar, chewed the cud. The brothers were arguing. One lost the plot and threw a punch. Being drunk, the punch went wide and the puncher tumbled onto a table. His brother, clearly unhappy at the attempted assault, launched himself on top of his sibling and the table collapsed. What ensued was ten minutes of pandemonium as the two inebriated individuals tried, but failed, to inflict damage on each other. Unable to co-ordinate their attacks due to the excess of alcohol in their systems, they stumbled around the pub, laying waste to the furniture. My friend and I were perfectly placed to watch the chaos unfold. Meanwhile, the young man reading the novel kept his head down, clearly thinking that it was safer to look at the book than risk eye contact with the duelling brothers.
The police were eventually summoned and the brothers lead away. The bartender began to clean up and we helped right some of the chairs and tables. Only then did I notice that the young man was still engrossed in his book.
My friend and I finished up our drinks and headed for another pub.
Later that night, while walking home, I thought about the young man reading his book and asked that classic author question ‘What if?’. What if that young man wasn’t scared? What if he had ignored the brawl and was reading his book because that sort of thing, the fight, happened around him all the time? What if fights broke out with monotonous regularity? What if that was just the soundtrack to his life? I played with a few more ‘What ifs?’ and landed on a cracker. What if he was the reason the fight broke out in the first place? That somehow, he, not the drink, had brought out the worst in the two brothers? That he was the catalyst that set off the violence. And so the idea for Craig McIntyre was born.
In my first attempt to turn it into a novel, Craig was a young lad, just like the man in the pub, living in Glasgow, facing a life where all hell breaks out around him because of his affliction. When I’d finished the initial draft of the book, provisionally entitled Once, I employed an editor and, on their advice (and painful advice it was), I was told the story needed to be much bigger. So, I took a deep breath and began the rework. A completely new novel was born – set in America and now Craig is no longer a young lad from Glasgow but an ex U.S. military soldier.
I’m now three books into the Craig McIntyre series, with Deepest Wounds, the latest instalment, out now published by Strident, and a fourth under way – but there is a small coda to this story. The original draft, Once, the one sitting in my computer, is waiting on that day when the publisher calls and says ‘Gordon, would you have anything to hand that we might be able to release at quick notice?’
Watch this space.
About The Author:
Want to know more – go to http://www.gordonjbrown.com
(Author picture and bio taken from Amazon)
Over The Rainbow Blog 
Huge thanks for the Blog Tour support Jo x
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