I’m so excited to welcome author ML Buchman to Urban Girl Reader. I fell in love with the cover of The Night is Mine the moment I saw it. There is a certain edginess to it and I just had to get hold of this book to read it!! Romantic suspense is a relatively new genre for me but I find I am being drawn to these types of books more and more. What about you guys?
When I saw that ML Buchman was going to be on a virtual tour for The Night is Mine, I just had to interview him for the site. So thanks to ML for taking the time to come and visit with us today and to Sourcebooks Casablanca, for giving UGR the opportunity to give two lucky readers the chance to win a copy of The NIght is MIne. So without further ado……
Hi ML!
Thank you for taking the time to visit us at Urban Girl Reading. We’re looking forward to chitchatting a bit about novel, The Night is Mine, the first book in your Nighstalker series. Please tell us a bit about it and the series.
ML: Thanks for having me. The Night is Mine is a simple premise that took me an immense amount of research and writing to realize. It is simply the first woman to step into the purely male world of U.S. Army Special Forces helicopter flight. Captain Emily Beale earned the privilege by simply being the best, not the best woman, but the best, period. She can out fly, out gun any man. Well, all except one. Her legendary commander Major Mark “The Viper” Henderson has a few tricks of his own. But neither counted on the rocket flare heat they each feel from the first moment they meet. The problem as a storyteller was to be as authentic as possible. Yes, it’s an over-the-top romantic suspense, that’s what makes it fun. It’s about flying secret military helicopters which is a cool setting. But learning about and attempting to capture warrior mentality, that took some serious work.
The series is based on another simple premise. The nastiest helicopter weapons platform every launched into the night sky is the MH-60M DAP Black Hawk. The Direct Action Penetrator carries more technology, more weaponry, and the most highly trained pilots in the history of rotorcraft. It has four seats and hence four books to launch the series as the first women join the Night Stalkers. And each has a difference approach. Captain Emily Beale, the pilot, is simply the best. Pure military. Kee Smith is gunner/sniper/street kid in I Own the Dawn and to her everything is a battle, a fight to the finish, including the battle against her own heart falling for copilot Archie Stevenson III. Books 3 and 4 are still in development!
UGR: The Nightstalkers series is based on the real-life 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), what inspired you to write about this group in a romance novel.
ML: When I first stumbled on this U.S. Army’s 160th SOAR, I was out looking for a military helicopter to stage a rescue in my thriller Swap Out! At first I was amused about this whole arm of the military that apparently no one had heard of, least of all myself. Then I was intrigued. Then in flat-out awe. These are not tour-long military, these are career fliers. They actually have to volunteer five separate times and have a minimum of five years experience to see if they even qualify for the two additional years of training required once you get into SOAR. These are the rock star / movie screen celebrities of a very small, very quiet, and very dangerous world. They truly are the best helicopter pilots, gunners and mechanics on the planet. Grenada, Panama, bin Laden, those are only the very few that are known to the public. Even in the disaster of Mogadishu portrayed in “Black Hawk Down,” when you read the real-life accounts, these guys operate at a whole different level. Then I thought, hmmmm…… love in a secret, high-risk military society… and I was gone.
UGR: If you had to give Emily and Mark “theme” songs, what would they be and why?
ML: Ha! Captain Emily Beale is tricky. She flies smooth and clean and quiet in the air and in life. Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” comes to mind. But there’s an intensity underneath like “Cool” from “West Side Story.” She flies like Escala’s “Palladio” but inside, beneath all that military drive, there’s the energy of KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.”
Emily pulled her pistol and let fly at the laptop. The first shot shattered the screen and flipped it off the empty ammo case. The second spun it in midair, and the third punched the computer into the sand.
A dozen guys inspected the smoldering laptop in the ear-ringing silence and then Emily’s face as she reholstered the sidearm. A little more mayhem than she’d intended, but she was a pilot first, dammit.
Mark’s is easy. He’s the gut-thumping power of Queen’s “We will rock you.” He’s the “1812 Overture.” He’s Holst’s “Mars, God of War.” He is the powerhouse from how he looks to how he flies to how he acts and leads. Honor, integrity, commitment.
A booted foot smashed down and delivered the coup de grâce to the wounded laptop.
Major Mark “The Viper” Henderson stood two paces inside the rolled-back flap of the tent, one foot still buried in the machine. Six feet of clichéd soldier. Broad-shoulders, raw muscle, and the most dangerous-looking man Emily had ever met. Eyes hidden by mirrored Ray-Bans. Rumor had it they were implanted and the Major no longer needed eyes.
In the tent, he swiveled his head once, the sunglasses surveying the crowd. Every man jack of them knew the Major had memorized exactly who was there, what they’d said, what they were about to say—and probably knew what they’d been thinking the moment they exited their mothers’ wombs. If they weren’t careful, he’d start telling them what they would be thinking about during their last moment on Earth, and none of them, not even Crazy Tim, wanted to run head-on into that level of mind-blower.
UGR: What is your writing process? Do you outline, fly by the seat of your pants or a combination of both?
ML: I’ve tried both, and several other methods. I’ve tried stacks of index cards, graphs, brainstorming on white boards, building the five key scenes and trying to bridge between them. After a dozen books I’d have to say, “yes.” Yes, each book is different. Yes, I use whatever tool seems appropriate to the moment. When I start I usually know the key character, the general setting, and the final scene. The Night is Mine I started with the scene that still opens the book, Emily Beale and secret helicopters and the final scene in—but that would be telling. I sort of sat in the first scene, aimed for the last scene, and just pulled the trigger. Then I sat back to watch what happened. I started book #2 I Own the Dawn with only Kee Smith, a rifle case, and Archibald Stevenson III. And nothing else. There were so many surprise turns that this book still startles me sometimes.
UGR: What genres do you read? Do you have any favorite authors? And what books would we find on your nightstand/bookshelves?
ML: For a decade I read nothing but SF/F, then the next decade was mostly classics, (okay, I’m a little compulsive sometimes, I can feel my wife nodding in agreement even though I didn’t ask). Then, in 1996, I was dragged to my first ever writing conference, Romance Writers of America National Conference. There I read my first romance, okay, my first 3 or 5, I didn’t sleep much. For probably another decade I read mostly romance. I’ve added thrillers for the fun of it. Oddly, mystery is the one major genre I hardly ever read.
My favorite authors? How about who has driven me to read every book they’ve ever written? Arthur C. Clarke, Heinlein (post pulp), Ayn Rand, Herman Hesse. I’ve read a great deal of Nora Roberts, Susan Wiggs, Laura Kinsale, Stephen King, a bunch of Kathryn Rusch/Kristine Grayson, and Lee Child has his hooks in pretty deep at the moment.
UGR: What upcoming projects are you working on and when can your fans expect to look for them?
ML: The rest of the Nighstalkers series from Sourcebooks is my front-line project. August will bring Kee and Archie in I Own the Dawn. February 2013 mechanic Connie Davis confuses the daylights out Big John Wallace in Give Me the Dusk. With Lola and Tim following not far behind in Book 4. This is a world I could happily stay in for a long time. I have published several SF/F, a thriller, and just launched the first in a four-book contemporary romance series “Angelo’s Hearth” Where Dreams are Born, one calendar, twelve lighthouses, two hearts. Links to all at my website, also Amazon, B&N, iBooks and all the usual suspects.
UGR: OK, I need to ask. Why write romance? There are very few male authors that write in the genre. So what drew you to it?
ML: As I mentioned, RWA National was my first ever writer’s conference, and it was a real eye opener. 1,800+ women who were very, very serious about the business of writing. Once the genre had a hold of my throat, or rather my heart, how could I look somewhere else? I’ve always written very strong women. I married a single mom, and if that isn’t the definition of strong, then I have no understanding of the word. And I’ve always written them a love story, because I love a happy ending. I love hope. I love possibility. When I discovered romance it became a natural. Bring the love story I cared so much about to the fore and let the story take a parallel seat rather than having to “be the one who drives.” What I don’t understand, in the fiction world or the real one, why aren’t there more men who think relationships are the most important thing in their lives? Nothing has brought me more learning, more basis for hope, or more joy than loving my wife and the greatest step-twerp on the planet. Of course I want to revel in that.
UGR: What is the most adventurous thing you've ever done?
ML: Depends on who you ask. To my family and college-era friends, all of whom were east of the Hudson River, it was putting my life in my car the day after graduation and driving to Seattle, a town I’d barely heard of and knew nothing about. Most people who know the various things I’ve done would say it was picking myself up after my business and career imploded and I lost my house and car; I climbed on a bicycle and spend 18 months riding solo for 11,000 miles through 15 countries making a grand circle of the globe. But being the one sitting inside my own skin I can tell you that it was the day I asked this one particular lady to marry me and to share her life and her daughter’s with me. It is the scariest and best thing I have ever done and ever can do.
Quickfire Questions
UGR: Hardcover or paperback books?
ML: not attached to the form, just the substance. I typically buy paper, easier to always have with me, or now for my Kindle.
UGR: Bookmark or dog ear page turner?
ML: bookmark, absolutely. As much as I don’t care about the form, a book is a precious thing. I may beat the crap out of it hauling it around in my pack, but I like that smooth clean page where it is just the author and me..
UGR: Early bird or night owl
ML: Night owl who married an early bird and then had a series of jobs that has made us both wake up even earlier. I can roll out of bed and start writing, but I’d rather write until 2a.m. any day, er, night.
UGR: Coffee or tea
ML: Coffee? Ewww!!!! Nasty stuff. Makes me sneeze, literally. When I go into a Starbucks to buy my Hot Chocolate I have to hold my breath. (Wouldn’t think I’d lived in Seattle for over 20 years, would you?)
UGR: Chocolate or vanilla
ML: I’m chocolate, wife’s vanilla. We’re both fanatics for Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia
UGR: Plotter or pantser
ML: Given the choice of only the two, pantser. My writing is like my life, I make it up as I go along.
UGR: Thank you for joining us today ML, I look forward to the next novel.
ML: Thanks so much for having me!!! To follow and find me, hit http://www.mlbuchman.com
The Night is Mine
by ML Buchman
Sourcebooks Casablanca
February 2012
Paperback, 384 pages
ISBN: 9781402258107
Series: Nightstalkers #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Military , Romantic Suspense, Romance
NAME: Emily Beale
RANK: Captain
MISSION: Fly undercover to prevent the assassination of the First Lady, posing as her executive pilot.
NAME: Mark Henderson, code name Viper
RANK: Major
MISSION: Undercover role of wealthy, ex-mercenary boyfriend to Emily
Their jobs are high risk, high reward:
Protect the lives of the powerful and the elite at all cost. Neither expected that one kiss could distract them from their mission. But as the passion mounts between them, their lives and their hearts will both be risked...and the reward this time may well be worth it.
Buy from: Indiebound | Powell’s | Amazon | B & N | Amazon UK | The Book Depository
M. L. Buchman has worked in fast food, theater, computers, publishing, and light manufacturing. It's amazing what you can do with a degree in geophysics. At one point he sold everything and spent 18-months riding a bicycle around the world. In 11,000 miles, he touched 15 countries and hundreds of amazing people. Since then, he has acquired a loving lady, the coolest kid on the planet, and lives in Portland, Oregon. For more information, please visit http://www.matthewlieberbuchman.com/.
- Giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only
- Giveaway Ends March 1, 2011 @ 12:01 am EST. Winner will be notified by e-mail and have 72 hours to respond.
