Pierre Dominque Roustan

I'm pretty sure this is VBT's first author interview and it's my pleasure to welcome Pierre Dominque Roustan, author of The Cain Letters. Pierre and I are members of the Facebook group Red River Writers and are participating in their organized tours.

Pierre, I know this is an exciting time for you - you are now published! Please tell us about you and your book.

Wow, this is a nice place you got here, Karen. It’s not every day I get to step out of my pad at the Writing and Reading Universe and explore. Allow me to introduce myself then! Pierre Dominique Roustan. Yes, you readers out there can say it: it’s a cool name. And that’s because I’m cool. I’m a 2nd generation Hispanic, born in Chicago, Illinois, son to a fiery Puerto Rican woman and a tough-as-nails Nicaraguan man. And, yet, you ask why I have such a French name…. Because my dad’s half-French. Yes. It’s true.

I’ve been writing ever since I remembered being able to walk. It was one of those things you just couldn’t get away from, you know? My parents had me tested for giftedness, and the results came back showing I was gifted. What gift(s) I had? Wasn’t sure. Didn’t care. So much so that I sometimes omit the pronouns when I write. However, my parents cared, teachers cared, others cared; and they saw something in me. It didn’t take me long to realize that I loved to write—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, anything. I just had this need to fill the white space on a piece of paper with some sort of manifestation of my imagination (that’s a mouthful there), so much so that I followed my heart and earned a B.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As I stand now before you, I’m a published author. My debut will be released in December. The number of people I could thank outnumber my fingers and toes and the fingers and toes of my family. I’m not exaggerating. I think it’s fair that I give you some insight into my journey of publication, though….

I write urban fantasy and thrillers (and sometimes those two genres go together for me). My debut is a fast-paced thriller known as THE CAIN LETTERS. Look for it. However, it wasn’t my first finished manuscript, nor my first project.

I actually wrote my first ‘story’ at the tender age of 10, I believe. It was about 20 pages long. The next ‘story’ I wrote landed me a 200-pager. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was a freshman in high school. I then wrote another story that stretched to 300 pages long. Here’s the real kicker, though; the next project I took on actually pulled in about 540 pages…. 154,000 words, and the best part about that was I, initially, thought that was too short!

Go figure. I guess I was long-winded.

And then came THE CAIN LETTERS. At 74,000 words, it moved fast. I had learned a lot about storytelling, about pacing, about plot, about character. THE CAIN LETTERS is a culmination of all that I’ve learned.

For those aspiring writers out there, let me tell you: following a dream kills. The good thing, though, is your passion for writing makes you reborn every single time. Through every rejection, every bout with writer’s block, every setback, anything getting in your way, that desire to write brings you back up. Every single time. Let me tell you how dreaming kills: I received over 100 rejections for THE CAIN LETTERS, about 97% of them from literary agents. And those 100 rejections were spread over one year, almost to the day. The middle of March, 2008, was when I finished the manuscript. I just signed my contract with Eirelander Publishing about four days ago—without a literary agent. Funny how time flies.

You never know what’ll happen. I just learned to keep trying. It paid off.

Those who’ve followed my blog might know a bit here and there about the book and the characters, but let me paint a picture for you real quick:


Enter: Alexandra Glade.

An auburn-haired, gray-eyed beauty of a woman, black trench coat, turtleneck and tight pants, armed to the teeth with all kinds of weaponry. Think “The Matrix”, “Underworld”, “Blade” with a little bit of sex appeal, and there’s Alexandra for you. There are days I regret a little bit creating her in my head, because I worry that she might beat the living hell out of me. Because she can. She’s essentially a trained killer.

Only she kills vampires. For a living.

With her team, an organization known as the Berith Lochem, Hebrew for ‘Divine Covenant’, she hunted rogue vampires and other abominations for the sake of God alongside her comrade Kyan Tanaka, a Japanese man bred into the world of a mercenary until he found God. With remarkable resources, the Berith Lochem served the Vatican and other clients looking for a cleansing of some kind. They were like bounty hunters.

It was easy, you know? Hunting vampires. The life was so linear. And simple. Until a strange book surfaced that seemed to be of some interest to many of the damned—most notably two master vampires of cunning strength and power, two of the strongest in the world, actually—a Russian known as Nikolas Stahl and a savage Los Angeles native named Mason Richter. The book had ancient knowledge regarding something that had been locked away, secret, since the beginning of time—

The origin of the vampire. How it all began.

No longer was Alexandra’s life so linear. Her journey suddenly came upon forks of all kinds. And obstacles.

The book, dating way back to the times of the Exodus, revealed the origin. And it was a shocking one. One that would shake the pillars of the world, of faith—

The world’s first vampire was the world’s first murderer. Fitting. And terrifying.

Cain, brother of Abel, son to Adam and Eve, had struck a deal with Satan to cleanse himself of the guilt, the shame, the despair of a dying world and the mark of banishment on him. The cleansing took away his humanity, took away his soul even—and made him into what was commonly known as…vampire.

Driven by blood, as a reminder of Abel’s blood on his hands, Cain walked the earth. Immortal.

What Alexandra realized was that Nikolas and Mason planned on finding Cain. The secret book revealed his hidden location for so many centuries. What Alexandra feared was what they intended to do once they found him—

It didn’t take her long to realize that they were planning on killing him. These two master vampires, countless ages apart from a man of the book of Genesis, were going to silence the father of the damned.

Now on any other day, Alexandra Glade, Berith Lochem vampire hunter of vengeance, she wouldn’t have a problem with the idea of the father of the damned dying. But she knew Scripture. And what she knew terrified her even more than Cain….

She couldn’t allow Nikolas and Mason to kill Cain.... For the sake of the world hung on the balance that Cain had to live. All her training, all her scars, everything, anything that made her who she was, a hunter, she had to forsake and leave, protecting the very first vampire from death. All to save mankind.

Could she make such a decision? With her duty, her need to hunt and kill vampires, her fierce vengeance…. Could she reject all of that…. And save a fierce killer like Cain?


I’ll let that simmer in you a little bit. I can’t give all of it away, people. Come on! You’ll have to read the book when it debuts.

THE CAIN LETTERS is, indeed, a beginning of what is most definitely a series for me. Having landed a contract, you’ll see a few more continuations, following the adventures of Alexandra Glade and the Berith Lochem. But until then, face the fear that is THE CAIN LETTERS. And believe. Believe in evil.

That’s all I got for all of you, readers. Give it up for Karen Cioffi as well! Put your hands together. It has been an honor being her guest, and do give her the honor of reading her work as well. Feel free to make as many comments as you like! Karen and I will be checking. Questions? Concerns? Coffee? Cupcakes?

Well, that's not quite all, Pierre will be back tomorrow with a questions and answers interview.

Don't forget to stop back tomorrow,

Karen

Meet an interesting author and his novel, by Vivian Zabel

Kirk Bjornsgaard, an acquisitions editor for the University of Oklahoma Press, trusted his novel to 4RV Publishing. Before the revisions could be done, cancer returned causing Kirk not to be able to make them. However, we finished needed revisions with my doing the work and his approving or giving suggestions, and the novel, Confessions of a Former Rock Queen, was released this week.

The book, set mainly in Oklahoma and New York, grabs the interest of “Boomers,” “Sooners,” and music lovers, especially of old time rock ‘n roll.

Bjornsgaard weaves his knowledge of music and rock ‘n roll into the book, giving a realistic taste to the plot and characters. As John Wooley, author of Ghost Band and From the Blue Devils to Red Dirt: The Story of Oklahoma Music writes, a person can always tell when a novel about music is written by a musician. Such is the case with Confessions of a Former Rock Queen. Bjornsgaard, “a rock ‘n roller for almost four decades, expertly chronicles the life of an unsophisticated small-town Oklahoma girl tapped on the shoulder by fame in the swingin’ ‘60s.”

Copies of Confessions of a Former Rock Queen can be purchased through most bookstores or on line, including on the 4RV Book Store.

Vivian Zabel
Brain Cells & Bubble Wrap

Bubba and Giganto: Odds Against Us by Lea Schizas

I'm excited to be a part of the Virtual Book Tours members. The group began end of last year with several writers hopping on board and supporting each other by taking turns touring our books.

I've been proud to showcase my tween-crossover novel, Bubba and Giganto: Odds Against Us, published by 4RV Publishing in 2008. Here's a quick summary on the book:

Bubba hates it when his dad gets a contract for a new project. That means uprooting the family from one city and moving to another. Attending a new school is a major pet peeve of his. His smart alecky nature attracts the bullies in every school he’s attended.

On the first day of school, Bubba bumps into this rather large student. Fearing a confrontation, he wears his tough guy attitude and waits for the punches to begin. Remarkably, the new student apologizes and Bubba and David (aka Giganto as Bubba eventually nicknames him) become best friends.

Bubba and Giganto try out for the high school soccer team and that’s when trouble begins. Bubba knew eventually he’d meet the bullies of the school and he was right.

In the first initial weeks, Bubba learns about a death that occurred the previous year, faces the bullies on several occasions, helps Giganto practice soccer before tryouts, and challenges the bullies to a scrimmage.

Little did Bubba know Giganto held a secret, one that will place Giganto in a deadly situation.