The Second Option by Lora Moore and Julie Zuehlke is this week’s book worth reading.
Here is an author interview with Lora Moore:
Q: What inspired you to write a story about a Marine Sniper?
Lora: I’m fascinated with the mind-set of those few, rare individuals who have the skills and the abilities to carry out the extraordinary operations asked of them. How do they maintain a firm grip on right and wrong, when they are asked to do some pretty awful things? What kind of person is able to voluntarily chose to put themselves in life and eath situations, over and over? How do these people cope with “normal” life, life without the constant fear of lethal danger? I guess my admiration and curious nature, regarding our elite soldiers and operatives working to keep us safe, led me to write about the ficticious Marine Sniper, Chance Hughes.
Q: This isn’t a typical genre for women authors. How does this affect your ability to compete in a tough, “manly” genre?
Lora: There are some really awesome writers out there that kick butt in telling a good espionage, military thriller story. I love reading Vince Flynn and Brad Thor novels. My novel, however, differs in that it’s not quite as “hard-core” as those stories. I concentrate more on telling an entertaining, engaging tale. There are far less details of weapons, politial theories and war-gore. This story is more about how a damaged soldier deals with his reality. The Second Option still contains enough testosterone to appeal to the men, but a touch softer to draw in more women. Contrary to popular belief, women don’t want to read all romance, fluffy, self-help genres all the time! Lots of women I know like a good spy thriller thrown in the mix for fun.
Q: How do you even begin to research for such a book?
Lora: Oh, man, I’ve spent WAY too much time delving into the shadowed activities of covert operations and undercover agents. I’m fairly certain that my name has been red-flagged by the CIA and FBI. Seriously, I’ve researched and “googled” every word and phrase considered taboo by Homeland Security.
Q: You co-authored this book with your sister, who lives hours away. What kind of system do you have in place to make such a thing possible?
Lora: Julie and I have been writing together for nearly fifteen years now. It’s pretty natural for us to come up with a story and toss it back and forth, until it turns into something worth writing. For the most part, I do the actual typing and story construction. Julie will think up of an idea, or conversation that helps the story along, type it up and email it to me. I will then immediately call her up, discuss, laugh and perculate until we figure out how to thread her ideas into the story line. We go in spurts. Sometimes I burn through a couple of chapters that were mostly my ideas, and then Julie’s ideas will take over for a few chapters.
Q: In the past, you went through a publishing house for your book, “Our Family Song”. What made you decide to go the self-publishing route this time?
Lora: It’s all about control! A publishing house is fine, good actually, in many ways. Most of everything is taken care of, for the author. However, I felt like I was sitting in the back seat of a car, watching it drive on completely different roads than I wanted to take. And the driver didn’t listen! Family Song came out ten years ago. I’ve spent the past ten years improving my writing and story-telling abilities. I promised myself that I wouldn’t publish anything until it was worthy of publication. I also promised myself that this time around, I wasn’t sitting in the back seat. This time I was going to drive!
Q: How can we learn more about The Second Option?
Lora: If you want to discover more about this novel and it’s authors (my sister and me!), check out the website, Broken Branch Publishing
