May 30, 2022 |
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What's your book about, and what inspired you to write it? |
'The Rembrandt Decision: A Pia Sabel Mystery' is a murder mystery with a
touch of psychological thriller and references to ancient literature. The
murder of a small-town drunk exposes long held secrets and family trauma.
Visiting industrialist Pia Sabel quickly determines the town’s police chief
will never believe who the murderer is and sets out to show him, clue by
clue. The problems her investigation uncovers range from community and family
inclusion and adoption to racism and dealing with unintended biases. Her
revelations lead to a shocking conclusion not just about whodunit but why.
And that brings the story full circle for the reader. What inspired me to write this (my fourteenth novel) was my adoption history.
When I was nineteen, I adopted a three-year-old girl and raised her. (For
details, visit http://seelyjames.com/adopted .) We
faced many struggles and challenges but overcame a good deal and managed to
survive. I wanted to express the challenges of alternatives to nuclear
families. The feedback, reviews, and critics tell me I managed to convey a
new and interesting look at family, loyalties, race, and blood lines.
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Who is your target audience, and why do you think this book will
appeal to them? |
Because it's primarily a mystery, starting off with a dead body in the
classic murder-mystery vein, it has a very wide audience. I sneak in the
literary issues of inclusion, family values, unintentional racism, privilege
and so on, so as not to scare off the masses. This book appeals to a wide, general audience because it provokes thought
without preaching. It demonstrates small incidents in one person's life that
have a large impact on someone else. Fan mail tells me people have discovered
tidbits of personal growth buried in different parts. There's something for
everyone.
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What message do you wish to pass across to your readers with this
book? |
We are all in this together. The Golden Rule means we respect and help
others without reservation. Regardless of where we come from, who we think we are, who we called Mom, we
are all related.
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What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book? |
There was one discussion between two adults who were adopted as
children. There are many facets to adoption, many scars, many inherent
psychological issues, and writing a dialogue that represented the triumphs
and tragedies properly took days. |
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As a writer, is there anything you've learned about yourself while
writing this book? |
Great question. I tend to tear myself open to write every book. It's
become a form of therapy. In this one, I re-learned something from long ago.
When my adopted daughter was in her teens and struggling with abandonment
issues, I had a moment of clarity about what empathy really means. In that
moment, I knew inside my skin, exactly what it felt like to be her and wonder
why my parents weren't there. Writing this brought back that deep sorrow and
the common parental desire to make all that pain and anguish go away -- while
knowing fixing it is impossible. |
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For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard
back books, and why? |
Hard cover books are the only books! I love them, the smell, the feel,
the weight. BUT, I read ebooks because I can steal ... I mean, I can
highlight great passages and export them for later study. For really great
books, like "Their Eyes were Watching God", or "Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Spy" I buy both. However, I hike mountains for an hour+ every day, so I listen to audiobooks.
Because it isn't a good platform for deep subjects (I space out from time to
time), I listen to things like romance novels, or classics like Jane Austen,
Arthur Conan Doyle.
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What is your niche genre, and if you were to write in a different
genre, what would it be? |
I have two niches: International Thrillers and Murder Mysteries. The
former allows me to spin spy-novel yarns on an emotional rollercoaster about
global conspiracies while the latter allows small town exposes about
relationships and people in a cerebral engaging context. I have a dystopian series in the back of my head that I'd like to find time
to explore. It's not a total-reboot-of-civilization scenario, though. It fits
in that period of time where Climate Change has wrought havoc on civilization
but not total destruction. In this scenario, drought and floods have
destroyed our ability to support 8 billion people. In the new changed world,
only about 2 billion can survive ...
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What books and authors have most influenced you? |
So many ... hmmm. Ken Follett, Attica Locke, James Patterson, Lee
Child, Agatha Christie, SA Cosby, John le Carre for the last century. But
more important were the ancients: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Plato, Tacitus. |
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Do you have any more books in the works? |
Absolutely. I'm halfway through Act I of my next book with plans for
another after that. I don't have ADD except when I'm thinking about the books
I want to write. I'm constantly jotting notes for 2-3 books down the line.
(When I get there, the notes are useless as the story has evolved but they
are part of the process.) |
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Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones? |
Yes and no. I read some of them and skim most. I glean what I can no
matter what the reviewer thought. Other bad reviews are subjective and so I move on as if walking over a blade of grass. Other bad reviews are funny, "I didn't read it, so I gave it one star." Great, thanks. One odd experience was a reviewer who thought I was making fun of a certain
president and gave me one star, advising others why and that they should
avoid my book. About five people commented they were buying it because of his
review. There is no end to unintended consequences. |
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Mention 3-5 fast/fun facts about you that you'd like to share: |
1) Because of my teenaged adoption, I now have three children aged 49,
25, and 22. Three grandchildren aged 29, 25, and 18. And two
great-grandchildren 9 and 4. Mixed-age, mixed-race, mixed-up, and happy. I
think. 3) I wanted to be a Christian writer, but my snarky, cynical sense of humor
would get me burned at the stake. (It's true they don't do that anymore, but
the crowd at my church are looking for an excuse to make an exception.) So, I
afflicted my main character with PTSD-induced schizophrenia: he sees and
interacts with Mercury, the down-on-his-luck Roman god. Mercury's morals and
ideas don't fit in modern times but allow for hilarious theological
discussions and comparisons. |
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How can readers get in touch with or follow you? |
Join my mailing list via https://shop.seeleyjames.com https://www.facebook.com/SeeleyJamesAuth/ https://www.instagram.com/seeleyjamesauth/ |
His writing career ranges from humble beginnings with short stories in The Battered Suitcase, to being awarded a Medallion from the Book Readers Appreciation Group. Seeley is best known for his Sabel Security series of thrillers featuring athlete and heiress Pia Sabel and her bodyguard, veteran Jacob Stearne. One of them kicks ass and the other talks to the wrong god.
His love of creativity began at an early age, growing up at Frank Lloyd Wright’s School of Architecture in Arizona and Wisconsin. He carried his imagination first into a successful career in sales and marketing, and then to his real love: fiction.
