I had this romanticized idea of Harold Carter and the King Tutankhamen discovery and all this Victorian/Egyptian stuff, so I thought I’d bring this all together in a modern context with a terrorism theme and some old school Egyptian lore. I spoke with the Brooklyn Museum about how they examine mummies with CAT scans and DNA testing. All mummy books are all about curses and that nonsense but modern science brings it to new light and makes it relevant. So all my books take an old Victorian theme and update it.
perspective and action from a feminine.
R: Any ideas for the third book?
KP: I keep everything. I write it cinematically; I don’t write in continuous
KP: Yes, it’s about volcanoes. But, I won’t tell you anymore
R: What’s your day like writing; do you wake up and start writing immediately? KP: Yes, I write in my bathrobe. I write, breakfast, shower, write, but I mostly write and that’s what I did at CNN I got up and I wrote all day long so it’s not that different except now I’ll go to the Met to research ancient Greek artifacts. R: Do you keep everything you write?
stream. So each scene has a beginning and a resolution and each scene has a point of view either from Cordelia or John. There is a reason for the scene; whether it is to let my reader relax and enjoy a lunch in or to move action forward. Every scene has a mission. I’m very analytic about it, perhaps overly analytical. I talk to other authors and some write 200 pages then decide it doesn’t work. How could you do that? That would drive me crazy. My book is written for commuters or moms who need to pick up kids so each scene is in a different place and then it goes about three pages. You can put this book down any time and not get lost when you return.
R: Are you sure? KP: Yes (laughs). R: You must do a lot of research when you write a book. KP: Yes I do tons. I go everywhere before book, and so I go to these places and shoot videos. Deep research is needed on the theme of 1918 pandemic, for example, for which I studied old army medical records. is essential. R: Do you think the video aspect that you add is something different for an author? KP: book on Kindle versions. One of my videos for The Stolen Chalice went viral and got 208,000 hits, so it is working. The last scenes of The Explorer’s Code seemed to trigger interest in the global seed vault. R: Are there overlapping characters across different titles? KP: Yes there are two characters that are the benchmarks. John Sinclair, the handsome dashing archaeologist, sort of tall, dark, handsome, and then Cordelia Stapleton is an oceanographer and she is equally as strong as the male protagonist. So there is male and female, earth and water, working together to actually solve the mystery through the thrillers, the resolution. I got irritated by the typical male dominated thrillers where the female takes a very passive role, and the guy just shoots through and saves the world. A lot of smart women like thrillers but they want more female aspects to them, so I write one scene from a masculine point of view and one from a feminine. So in The Stolen Chalice I mix it up and write romantic scenes from a masculine
Resident