Angela Alsaleem is a writer of the macabre and member of the ITW and HWA. She lives in Northern California. She has written two novels, Sanitarium and Women Scorned.

Angela met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about the relationship between sexuality and murder, and horror fiction. To what extent do you think sexuality and murder are connected?

Sexuality and murder can be related at times; however, not all murders are related to sex or sexuality. Murder is one person killing another. Humans do this for many reasons: drugs, war, gangs, hate, insanity. Sexuality is one of those reasons, but not the most prevalent.

In my novel, Women Scorned, however, the majority of the murders are directly related to sexuality. The spirits in this book seethe with their last tortured moments, continuing to haunt their murderers, seeking the one to avenge their deaths. Camilla, the main character, is their tool of vengeance. In creating these spirits, I had to wonder what type of murder would be so hateful that the victims carry that anger into the afterlife. Their deaths had to be violent and personal.

Do you think death is an opening or a closure?

Death is the opening to the unknown and the closure to existence as we know it. No one knows for certain what lies beyond.

In Women Scorned, I used the pagan concept of the spirit world for the back drop of my story. The spirit realm has several levels, the first being filled with angry or lost spirits. This level is very much like hell, the spirits trapped there until they are able to overcome their anger and ascend to higher levels. In my novel, death is an opening to this world and what exists beyond.

Tell us about Women Scorned.

At its heart, Women Scorned is a story about revenge and how it may make one feel better in the moment, but in the end, it is a poison that eats at the soul. It’s a graphic, gory, violent romp with scenes of torture, rape, and murder, so it’s certainly not for the squeamish.

After Camilla is murdered, an ancient spirit possesses her, to use her body as its tool of vengeance. Tortured by visions of murdered women, she is thrust into a world of terror as she seeks a way to rid herself of the nightmare she has become.

Her dead flesh hungers however for a substance that only exists on the breaths of criminals. Their tortured souls fill her, complete her, injecting her with more energy than she ever possessed while living. Like an addict, she is torn between ending her suffering and tasting retribution.

A secret cult in need of her spirit, for an ancient ritual, has sent their Chosen One to capture her, a dark virgin who delights in teaching unwilling victims the pleasures of pain. The spirit inhabiting Camilla’s body is their key to unlocking hell and unleashing a horde of demons into the human realm.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Camilla learns this first hand on her journey through death and back again.

Who are your literary influences?

I fell in love with the horror genre after reading Christopher Pike’s Chain Letter series when I was a kid. My world was never the same. I knew movies could be scary, but it was so much better to delve into a scary book.

Once I was a bit older, I turned to Stephen King. I’ve read almost all his work, so you could say that King has been a major influence. His book, On Writing, is one I refer to quite often.

I started reading Anne Rice when I realized that I didn’t just want to daydream about writing, but that I actually wanted to make it happen. I wanted to see how women wrote horror and I wanted to expand my list of books. I was not disappointed. Her vampire series quickly became a favorite.

When I was in college, writers like Joyce Carol Oates and David Foster Wallace opened my eyes to the craft itself and the idea that there are no hard-fast rules when it comes to writing. In Oates’s books, Zombie and Rape: A Love Story, I saw form broken down. Though her books are written largely in fragments, a reader can understand everything that happens. In Zombie, there are certain scenes that are repeated, word for word. I thought is this good writing? And I realized, yes. It’s brilliant, as a matter of fact, because the book was all from the perspective of a man who wanted to make a zombie. It was his journal. Of course he would repeat that.

David Foster Wallace’s book, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, showed me that a book doesn’t have to be linear, a story can be a quick set of dialogue, and that you can actually understand what is happening even if huge chunks of text and dialogue are missing. I’ve written several stories where the only voice heard is the one telling the story. The inspiration to do so came from this book.

Over all, I read everything I can. I love a book that can scare me, so I set out to write a book that would make it difficult for me to turn out the lights. I think I succeeded in Women Scorned. This book is essentially my nightmare.

In distinguishing between male and female horror fiction how would you say the differences between male and female sexuality influences the subject matter?

This probably isn’t exactly a good thing, but I have to confess, I haven’t read too many female horror authors. I know there are quite a few out there, but, so far, I haven’t found any that write what I am truly interested in reading. Maybe I should make it a point to do that. Anne Rice is the closest I’ve come to reading horror from a female author, but I’m not sure that her work is strictly horror. Her characters tend to be a bit flowery, her language more poetic. Her descriptions are based on romantic sensations like pleasant fragrances and soft touches, and her characters are very into their melancholy emotions.

The male authors I’ve read are more into the physical sensations, the odors and the raw emotions of anger and fear. When it comes to reading horror, I have tended more toward male authors because, based on my limited exposure, I’ve found the male authors to be more likely to really get down and dirty with the characters, unafraid to shy away from the gore and violence. I’m sure there are female authors who do the same, but I haven’t found any.

Since this is more in line with what I like to read, this is what I set out to write with Women Scorned. I’ve never read a horror novel with an all-female cast, so I wanted to be sure that all the main characters were women. I challenged myself to be unafraid of writing through the tough scenes rather than around them.

I’ve heard it said that an author should never be vulgar, but I disagree. An author must be true. If the reader is to truly understand what a character has gone through, then merely mentioning that something horrible happened and then writing how the characters feel afterwards isn’t enough. I wanted my readers to feel just as dirty and abused as my characters.

As for how my characters are portrayed, me being a female author and all, I’ll leave that up to my readers to say if I am keeping up with my male counterparts. All I can do is be true to myself and true to the story, as I’m sure any author strives to do.

Is there a particular event that has changed you and influenced your writing?

Earning my BA in English with a minor in creative writing taught me that there was a lot I didn’t know about writing. I learned what separated great writing from the bad, what made books become legend. I learned that just because I like it, doesn’t mean it works in the story.  Nothing happens in Women Scorned that isn’t intentional. Is it violent? You bet. Do I shy away? No. But every moment is there for a solid reason. If it didn’t move the story, I cut it out.

Violence is usually considered a male characteristic. Do you think there is a distinct female violence?

There is a distinct female violence and it’s motivated by different needs compared to male violence. Traditionally, men use violence to assert dominance. On the other hand, women are usually violent to defend themselves or their offspring. Of course, there are exceptions in both categories.

In my writing, I prefer to explore the exception rather than the rule. Aludra is one who is violent simply for the sake of being violent. She is not trying to assert dominance or defend herself. She is merely exploring the pleasures varying degrees of pain can instill, and is experimenting with what pain can do to the soul. Camilla’s violence is motivated by vengeance and defense. All the men in the story are violent to assert dominance. Aludra is my exception to the rule in Women Scorned.

Do you think there is no such thing as a sadist but there are varying degrees of sado-masochism?

Everyone has varying degrees of sadism and masochism embedded in their personalities. It’s a sliding scale that oscillates within people from situation to situation. Some people only slide within the sadistic range and others within the masochistic. I prefer to focus on those who are in between. These characters have more depth and are more relatable.

Aludra from Women Scorned plays more in the sadistic side of the scale, relishing the pain of others. The masochists in the story are those who dwell within the cult, slaves to the whims of their masters, doing anything to please.

What are you working on now?

I always have a couple stories in the works. Currently, I’m working on a psychological thriller/supernatural horror. When the line between real and imagined threats becomes blurred, when you can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is illusion, how do you know who to trust? How do you escape? How do you discover the truth? We all have a darkness within us, but some have a deeper darkness, and, once forgotten, who would want to remember the terrible deeds of their pasts? This one has changed several times, otherwise I could give you more basic plot points. As it stands, I’m starting from scratch yet again. With all my works, they go through several rewrites before I discover the heart of the story. I don’t think I’ll need to rewrite this one as many times, however.

What scares you?

I’ve always used my writing as a way to confront my fears. Crazy people scare me because they are unpredictable. Their reality is not the reality I perceive. They don’t follow the same rules the rest of us follow. Also, ghosts scare me for the same reason, however ghosts are scarier because they also aren’t bound by the same rules in which we are bound. The worst…a crazy ghost. Women Scorned has several characters that are obsessed, insane and angry. It was frightening to me.

Thank you Angela for an informative and perceptive interview.

Links:

‘Women Scorned’ can be had at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, B&N, and Kobo

Find Angela Alsaleem at her website, on Facebook, and Twitter

Anne Trager grew up in Ohio, loves the south west of the US, and calls France home. She founded Le French Book. This publishing house just released The Bleiberg Project, which was published on April 30. Anne met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about flavours and culture.

Tell us about Le French Book.

I’m always happy to talk to people about Le French Book. Thank you for this opportunity. I recently described the venture as a “crime of passion,” because we translate and publish crime fiction and thrillers from France, my personal favorite kind of book to read. I’ve lived in France since 1985 and truly love the unique Gallic way of combining creativity and pleasure seeking. If you’ve ever shared a meal with the French, you know what I mean: three hours enjoying several courses later and over coffee you are still talking about food. Well, there is a lesser-known creative world in France, which is just as enjoyable and takes the form of the many great reads being written in that country. I woke up one morning, after many years working in translation, publishing and corporate communications, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. Too few of these well-written entertaining reads were making into English. The rise in e-book reading means there is now a perfect medium to showcase these authors and their work. So that is the genesis of Le French Book. We focus on crime fiction and thrillers, although we also just launched a really fun collection of short stories as well. Our motto is “If we love it, we’ll translate it.” We are fortunate to work with France’s top publishers and all of our authors are prize winners and bestsellers. Our English translations are available through all major e-book retailers for now.

Would you say there is a particular flavour to the stories?

A flavor? Chocolate, considering the huge quantity I eat to keep me going. Dark chocolate, of course, chocolat noir. No, seriously, the whole impetus to this venture is that there is a very vibrant creative culture in France that we wanted to share with new readers, which means there is a lot of diversity as well. We are focussing on crime fiction and thrillers, but our books are all very different. One is an edge-of-your-seat police procedural with a serial killer in Paris. Another is more of a classic whodunit with deceit and treachery in a wine estate, another is a legal procedural with rolling countryside, hidden secrets and a quest for the truth. One upcoming thriller has a self-pitying trader thrown into a race to save the world from a horrific conspiracy straight out of World War II. Another has freelance French spies, Arctic icecaps breaking up, and a merciless war for control of discoveries that could change the future of humanity. So no, there is no one flavor, but a multitude of them. They are all written by French authors, yes, but each has his or her own style and story to tell.

Defining French culture and literature is as complex as describing the versatility of French cuisine. How relevant is the rallying cry of the French decadent poets like Baudelaire and Rimbaud: ‘épater le bourgeois,’ and is the best food decadent?

To be honest, I think people tend to mix the good with the haute. French cuisine is not as complex as that. The French cuisine everyone is really raving about is what you find in that small unsuspecting bistro, or in a French family home, or at a local open-air market. It is cuisine that is made from high-quality ingredients, simply prepared, and thoroughly enjoyed. It is made by men and women who work full time at demanding jobs, who have kids in school and busy schedules, but who bother to get that really good chicken from one of their uncle’s friends who has a farm, who stop at a local vineyard on a weekend away, who make their own pie crust for quiche, which they serve up with salad from the market, a few fine cheeses and maybe some dried sausage. It’s not complex. It’s not decadent. But it is good. Even French haute cuisine is not as complex as everyone makes it out to be: it is mostly about pushing those principles I just talked about to an extreme. You could say the same about haute couture, and then there are those French women who manage to be elegantly dressed always and everywhere. Similarly, with French literature, there is the haute literature, which is highly praised for good reasons, and then all those other writers with good stories to tell and recognized for that. That’s what the best literature is all about anyway: telling a good story. And just as with cuisine, France is lucky enough to have a very lively literature scene in all genres. One of our translators, Julie Rose, is best known for her translation of Victor Hugo’s classic Les Misérables. She describes it as “one of the first great detective novels of our time.” She is currently working on a global warming thriller for us. Ultimately, the connections with the haute are really interesting. It is wonderful to discuss with French thriller writers, who almost inevitably slip in something about some Age of Enlightenment philosopher, or some pressing social issue, alongside their inspiration for writing about serial killers and forensic detail. It makes for rich conversation and stories. But I would not describe it as complex or as decadent.

What do you make of the e-book revolution?

When the iPhone first came out, I was living in France. My husband went to the Champs-Elysées and stood in line for hours to get one. And, because I am a little bit of a geek at heart, I told him he had better bring two of them home, or I would change the locks and send him divorce papers. He did, I assure you, bring one home for me, and then, from one day to the next I started reading e-books. In fact, for a long time, even after I got an e-reader and a tablet, I read on my phone. Just as easily, I did eventually start reading on my tablet. I tell this story because I had no trouble shifting over to another technology for reading. Personally I am more interested in the story than in the technology I use to access the story. I do think, however, that e-books are liberating publishing from its arcane traditions and ways, and are forcing the industry to reconsider how it goes about getting stories to readers. This is a good thing. It is creating opportunities. I think there are also a lot of falsehoods circulating. For example, if you produce a digital-first or digital-only book, you still do have all the costs of producing the initial book, with the exception of the paper. It can be very cost effective for backlists that have paid themselves off, but that’s about it. Otherwise, you just have the same cost and a less expensive product, so it is harder to make ends meet. Another example, as many self-publishers are finding, is that publishers really do play a role in advocating their books and attracting attention to authors. So, I’d say that publishers have a future, as do e-books, for their convenience and ease of access and cost. I also believe that there will be people who continue to read stories in all types of formats, including paper. So ultimately, I’d say that it is less of a revolution than an evolution.

What makes you passionate?

I suppose there are two answers to that question. What in me makes me passionate about the things I do and what am I passionate about. For the first, I think I’m just made that way. When I get interested in something, I get excited about it, then I get very involved and quite passionate about that thing. I tend to go all the way. When I became interested in good food, I learned French and went to Paris to train and then work as a chef (that was a long time ago!). When I took up tango dancing, I ended up dancing five nights a week and making a pilgrimage to Buenos Aires, where I did nothing, literally, but dance. I’ve always loved mysteries and thrillers, ever since I read Nancy Drew and Ian Fleming as a kid. So I was living in France, I was reading French crime fiction and realized I wanted to share that passion with others. And now we have Le French Book. For the second part of this question, my long-standing passions are mysteries and thrillers, France in general, food and wine—and chocolate in particular—and martial arts.

What advice would you give to yourself as a younger woman?

That’s a hard one. I’m fairly satisfied with my life so far. I’ve done a lot of different things, all by choice, and that is because as a younger woman I always believed I could, and I opened my mind to new experiences. I suppose I would recommend to that younger me to pay more attention to that old Chinese tai chi master I met in Taipei when I was too distracted to be interested enough in tai chi to do it seriously (I swear that’s a true story). That and generally just to chill out a little bit.

Do you think we live in a restless age?

I suppose we do. I’m amazed by the incredible energy of restlessness. It’s quite stimulating, in fact, and certainly makes you stay on your toes. I am, however, reminded of something I heard on the radio in France some time ago. I believe it was the French author Daniel Pennac, who was talking about an essay he wrote about his experience as a poor student in school who then later became one of France’s best-known authors and who also teaches. He mentioned an exercise he gave to his students, which was to do nothing, absolutely nothing for twenty minutes a day. I think that is an interesting exercise for all of us, and one that is particularly difficult. Try it. I find it a good way to keep up with the restlessness. You know what they say about opposites, and how you can’t have one without the other.

Are you working on any future publications?

We are working on two new thrillers, some sequels to our currently published book, and hope to be introducing another police procedural series in the near future. We are also looking into bringing our books out in other formats.

Our most recent release, The Bleiberg Project, was published just yesterday, April 30. This prize-winning espionage novel was an instant success in France, catapulting its author into the ranks of the country’s top thriller writers. It reaped in the superlatives—”spellbinding,” “exceptional,” “staggering,” “captivating,” “brilliant,” “astounding”, “fascinating”—and has already sold over 100,000 copies there. The movie is in the making. It’s the fast-paced story about self-pitying Wall Street trader Jeremy Corbin who finds himself thrown into a race to save the world from a horrific conspiracy straight out of the darkest hours of history. Could human experimentation be carried out worldwide? What actually is happening? Can it be stopped? Publishers Weekly called it “a solid thriller.”

After that, we are bringing out the global-warming spy novel by Bernard Besson. In it, the Arctic ice caps are breaking up. Europe and the East Coast of the United States brace for a tidal wave. Meanwhile, former French intelligence officer John Spencer Larivière, his karate-trained, steamy Eurasian partner, Victoir, and their bisexual computer-genius sidekick Luc pic up an ordinary freelance assignment that quickly leads them into the glacial silence of the great north, where a merciless war is being waged for control of discoveries that will change the future of humanity.

Oh, and we have ten more volumes of our 52 Serial Shorts short story collection that we are getting ready for publication (two volumes are already available). We will also put out all the stories in a single volume.

There is a lot afoot at Le French Book. To stay up to date, sign up for our newsletter (http://eepurl.com/j5K79). Make sure you say yes to get the monthly blog recap. We announce everything there, but also have interviews with our authors and other posts about France, mysteries, thrillers and publishing.

Do you think much fiction sanitises crime?

I think that good fiction changes the way we perceive the world, it shifts our awareness, at least for the period of time we are reading the book. I would say that crime fiction is one way to process and deal with senseless violence that is all around us. It’s a little off topic, but I’m reminded of something one of our authors said. David Khara said, “The idea for The Bleiberg Project came to me after listening to a woman who survived the death camps. Three things struck me. The first was her sharp sense of humor. She said that prisoners inside the camp made jokes whenever they could. Humanity cannot be destroyed as long as laughter is possible. It becomes an act of resistance. The second thing was her will to survive, no matter the obstacles, no matter the horrors. And finally, she was living proof that to remember and understand History is the best, and maybe the only way, to avoid repeating our mistakes.”

Tell us something about yourself few people know.

Being as focused as I am, I’m fairly unaware of the world around me. My husband always makes fun of me, for example, because until just a little while ago I didn’t even know who Céline Dion was. I have to admit that I’m still not exactly sure why I should know that, but I smile politely every time this fact about me comes up in dinner conversation. In any case, forget making references to celebrities in my company, because I’ll get a lost look on my face and, well, just smile politely.

Thank you Anne for a informative and observant interview.

Anne Trager
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‘The Bleiberg Project’
An adrenaline-pumping conspiracy thriller and the first in the Consortium Thriller series by the French writer David Khara. The book was an instant success in France, catapulting the author to the ranks of the country’s top thriller writers. It was published in English by Le French Book, a digital-first publisher specializing in best-selling mysteries and thrillers from France.
Visit the website and read an excerpt.
Buy a copy at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

Award winning novelist Tony Black is writing some of the most compelling crime novels in the UK at the moment. Gritty and Noir, they paint a real and unsparing picture. Black has a new novel out, Last Orders, and I review Gutted here. Black met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about his brand of crime fiction and his multi-cultural background.

Tell us about Paying For It.

Paying for It is Gus Dury’s first outing in the world and my own first attempt at a crime novel with some Celtic sensibilities, there’s also lots of whisky, so that explains the cover shot … Shot, see what I did, there?

How do you think UK crime fiction differs from US crime fiction?

Very little, it shares a lot of the same themes and certainly the new wave of UK writers are heavily influenced by, not only the classics from Chandler to Goodis and Thompson, but a lot of the later writers like Vachss and Block.

How did you make Scotland Noir in your novels in terms of its history and geography?

It wasn’t a conscious decision, I was far more interested in just reflecting what I saw around me, which was contemporary Edinburgh. There’s perhaps a natural noir vibe in that place in terms of history – which is very bleak and bloody – and the geography is that of any big city which is also great noir territory.

Is there a particular incident that has changed your life and influenced your writing?

No dramatic event but discovering my first agent had a huge influence in terms of pushing my writing in a more publishable direction. It’s the one piece of advice I always give new writers, if you’re lucky enough to have the ear of a good agent then take their advice very seriously. With the rush to Kindle now that advice might be somewhat less attractive but I’d suggest no less pertinent to producing good work.

What do you make of the E Book revolution?

It’s the future, you either embrace it or get left behind. So far I’ve only dabbled in indie publishing some short stories and novellas myself but I’m likely to do more; I’m about to get a translator or two to put out some stuff in foreign markets soon. There’s also the potential to fix many of the problems of big publishing – the cookie-cutter lists and so on – but it’s what comes in its place that’s a little worrying … I suppose we won’t know till we’re there.

Graham Greene wrote ‘There is a splinter of ice in the heart of a writer.’ What do you make of his observation?

He said a lot of things, Mr Greene … He also claimed his life had been a battle against boredom, which I kind of get. Yeah, writers definitely have to access the splinter of ice from time to time; good fiction is about the overcoming of tragedies and those who know and understand this are most likely to do a good job of putting it down on the page.

You were born in Australia and grew up in Scotland and Ireland. How has your multi-cultural life influenced your writing?

In many strange ways. I do feel very Scottish – my parents were Scots and I’ve spent most of my time there – but I have huge attachments to Australia and Ireland too. Further back my father’s side of the family is Lithuanian and so you can see I’m a real mongrel. The one thing a varied background like this gives you is access to a host of old stories and characters and I do feel very at home slipping in and out of these backstories from time to time. It doesn’t seem unnatural to me at all to draw on these influences, in much the same way if I’d grown up and lived in the same small village all my life it would feel natural to use that for material.

Who are your literary influences?

I think it’s difficult to track influences, there’s many writers I’d like to think I was influenced by but whether I am or not is debatable. I had a period in my teens when I read a lot of American writers, principally Hemingway, and I do remember my sentences getting shorter. Then I became a journalist and I think they got even shorter for a while. I tend to read much more widely now and my style varies from book to book depending on what I’m trying to do so it’s really hard to trace. In the crime genre there are obviously a lot of people I’m hugely indebted to like Jim Thompson for all that psychological exploration, Ken Bruen for expanding the remit of the detective novel and William McIlvanney for raising the bar so damn high.

What else is on the cards for you this year?

This is a big year, I publish my first non-crime novel called His Father’s Son which comes out in August. I’m also publishing another Gus Dury collection and some short stories under the title Last Orders, that’s out next month in the UK and USA. I finished another crime novel a short time ago called Artefacts of the Dead and that’s just passed muster with my agent so will be getting shopped about – I think it’s my best crime novel to date, part one in a new character series, so hopefully it will find a good home.

What advice would you give to yourself as a young man?

I think it would be something like: keep the faith. It’s a long road to getting published and making a living as a writer but if it’s your true ambition and nothing else will do – and you have some ability – then you will get there. It’s often hard not to get overtaken by all the rejections and the endless false-starts. I spent a long time in the wilderness, and I don’t think I’d like to repeat it, but a light did appear beyond the trees; I think I’d like to encourage the young me to keep going for it.

Thank you Tony for a great and insightful interview.

Links:

Get a copy of ‘Paying For It’:

At Amazon.com in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle formats

At Amazon.co.uk in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle

Pre-order a paperback of ‘Last Orders’ or download a Kindle edition at Amazon.co.uk. In the US, get a Kindle edition here.

Find links to all Tony Black’s books at his website here