2-Year Blogoversary Celebration: Day Six ~ Steven James!!

Welcome back, Steven, and thank you for celebrating Christian Bookshelf Reviews' 2-Year Blogoversary with us! What are your current projects?

Right now I'm working hard on finishing the first draft of Singularity the second book in my new series featuring illusionist and escape artist Jevin Banks. I have several projects on the horizon, but I'm doing my best to focus on just this one—something I don't tend to do very well.

What was the hardest part of writing your latest book?

The toughest challenge in crafting Placebo was researching quantum mechanics and something called quantum entanglement. Honestly, I still don't understand how it all works, but I had to pull off sounding like an expert when I wrote the book. Research can be fun, or it can wear me down. In this case, it just ended up bewildering me.

What books have influenced your life the most?

There's a novel I read a number of years ago entitled The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr.
It really taught me how to write concisely. I also loved the book Christianity for Modern Pagans by Peter Kreeft.
It made me think about my faith in fresh ways and really impacted my philosophical understanding of the gospel.

I'm a huge fan of The Bowers Files. What inspired you to start the series and what can we expect in The King?

Originally, I wanted to write a detective novel but kept running into the same types of investigation—DNA research and profiling. I wanted something unique and eventually stumbled onto geo-spacial profiling and my FBI agent Patrick Bowers. The King is really a way of keeping promises from previous books, and it includes the climatic encounters of Patrick facing down two of his biggest nemeses—Basque and Valkyrie.

You also have a new series, The Jevin Banks Experience. Is Placebo different than your other thrillers? How many books do you have planned for the series?

We're planning for three books, and they do have a different feel than the Patrick Bowers crime novels. These are more high-concept thrillers than police procedurals. It's been fun to write stories with a slightly different flavor, and I think it's improving my work on the Bowers series by keeping things fresh.

What's your favorite party food?

Cheetos

Do you have a favorite birthday/party memory you'd like to share?

I'm not really one for celebrating my birthday (that's a story for another time). So nothing really pops to mind except a party my wife threw after I won a Christy Award for The Bishop.

What are your top three favorite songs?

My favorite songs tend to change every couple weeks.
Right now one of my favorites is Life Design by The Parlotones.

What's your favorite comfort food?

Mashed Potatoes

What is something the average reader wouldn't know about you?

I write standing up.

Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

Zephaniah 3:17

A few this-or-that questions:

Tea or Coffee? Coffee

Snowstorms or Thunderstorms? Thunderstorms

Facebook or Twitter? FB

Vanilla or Chocolate? Chocolate

Indoors or Outdoors? Outdoors

Early-Bird or Night-Owl? Depends on what I'm working on. I edit better in the mornings; I write first drafts better late at night.

Thank you so much for being here!!

~~

You can find Steven James online at: his website, AskTheAuthor.net, Twitter (@sjamesauthor), Facebook, Goodreads

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