Brindle Books Interview with Patrick Sacchetti, author of 'Heaven's Assassins.'

 First published 27th August 2022

Welcome to the first of our Author Interviews, where we will put 12 questions to a different author to find out a little more about them, their work, and their writing habits.

We hope that these interviews will become a regular feature, and we are seeking new authors to feature. If you are an author (either self-published or signed up with a publisher), and would be interested in being included in our interview posts, details of how to be included can be found at the end of this post.

Our first author interview is with Chicago resident Patrick Sacchetti, author of Heaven’s Assassins, a new thriller, shot through with dark humour and satire; a cry of anger at the injustices of the modern world.

So, let’s hand you over to Patrick to find out more:

Brindle: In about three sentences, what is your book about?

Patrick: Heavens Assassins is about average, middle class working people tired of being used and abused by the 1% ruling class. They don’t trust politicians from either side of the aisle and don’t believe in mass violence or guns. Using their brains instead, they figure out the root causes of which of the ruling class holds down their workers, pollutes the environment and takes advantage of the religiously ignorant and decides to confront those root causes directly.

Brindle: When did you first get involved in writing?

Patrick: In grade school I wrote a story about animals that ended up on a local news broadcast. In high school and college, I wrote album reviews – when there were albums and not CD’s or digital downloads. I read fiction and non-fiction throughout my entire life and realized that I can write at least as well as some of the published authors, so I gave it a go.

Brindle: What got you interested in this subject in the first place?

Patrick: The rise of Trumpism in America got me riled up, but I didn’t want to write another Trump book since there are so many already. I wanted to write the other side of Trumpism, about the people who are tired of the fascist, ruling elite and don’t buy into the political fascist propaganda machine that is spinning out of control in America right now.

Brindle: What’s been your highlight or biggest achievement in this field?

Patrick: I don’t know if I have a particular business highlight in this field. I take personal satisfaction and pride from people who check out what I have completed and tell me it is interesting, entertaining and funny, at the same time. I consider those compliments as my biggest achievements.

Brindle: What is it that drives you to write?

Patrick: Writing gives me an outlet to express myself and creating a book is a legacy of sorts. When I am dead and gone at least Heavens Assassins, and my first, Specialty Meats will be still be around in some format.

Brindle: Can you tell us about your research methods?

Patrick: I read a lot of books. Fiction and non-fiction, for my entire life. Thank God for Google by the way.

Brindle: What are the best and worst things about being a writer in this field?

Patrick: There is stiff competition, and it is easy to get lost in the field of writers. Since I have never been good at self-promotion, that is a drawback. What is most satisfying is getting an idea and watching it grow onto the pages. It is great when people realize where I am trying to be funny and tell me that certain parts of the book are very humorous.

Brindle: Which authors etc. are your biggest influences?

Patrick: Stephen King is someone I have always admired. Murakami is a modern-day genius in my opinion and there have been several Thomas Pynchon books that I totally devoured.

Brindle: What do you think is the most important quality/skill for a writer in your field?

Patrick: First, there is no better way to see formats of books than by reading a lot of different authors. Also, I like listening to what other people have to say. I try to get other people talking about any subject. For my first piece, Specialty Meats, about the human organ black market trade, I had a discussion with a pharmacist about how crazy this country, and world, was getting and he mentioned that there must be a more advanced civilization someplace in the universe and I responded, “Yes there is. We are probably their reality television programming that they watch when they want to see how the lower form of human life interacts.” That is a concept used in Specialty Meats, especially at the end of the book.

Brindle: What are your future plans?

Patrick: I would like to do more travelling. Go to some beaten, off the path places to visit. Like to see where the Salem witch trials were held on the East Coast and see a couple of the Civil War prison locations, just to see and find out what I can see and find out. Maybe a visit to Alcatraz off San Francisco. Not exactly glamorous vacation spots but areas of interest. I also need a real good Las Vegas vacation to get that out of my system.

Brindle: Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? (location/time/words per day/schedule etc.)

Patrick: I don’t do any words per day type routine although I know that is what Stephen King teaches in his book on writing. Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading and research type of work for my upcoming work. Another take on the Reality Television politics that are ruining America. I am 40,000 words into that one and write furiously whenever idea’s or topics come to mind.

Brindle: What advice would you give to new writers in your field?

Patrick: Read and write often and have fun doing it. Write for fun and if the profit comes, that is great. Write for your enjoyment and if other people enjoy your writing and come along for the ride, that is great. If monetary gain comes along that is great also.

Heaven’s Assassins by Patrick Sacchetti:

They were angry over the hypocritical lies espoused on their brothers and sisters. They were enraged by the power elite who made jobs dangerous and poisoned community waterways. They were upset with people pledged to look over the community and instead poison them physically and spiritually with toxic ideas. The hypocritical, self-righteous, alleged morality keepers who picked the pockets of and poisoned the brains of their flock – this was damning most of all. A surprise shock ending that will amaze the reader. Do not reveal the ending to any other readers.

Heaven’s Assassins is available now on Amazon.com:

Heaven’s Assassins - Kindle edition by Sacchetti, Patrick J. , Korol, Anna, Maus, Shirley. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

 

The Fun and Frustration of Book Cover Design.

 First published 16th May 2022

An insight into the fun tasks (and occasional struggles) of a micro-publisher’s production process.

When I first decided to set up Brindle Books Ltd, I had a dream. I wanted to re-create the style as well as the substance of the books that I had enjoyed so much in my younger days. I was a voracious consumer of the classic Pan, Penguins, and New English Library paperbacks that were so popular in years gone by, as I mentioned in a previous post which was predominantly about the TV Tie-in books that I collected.

My interest in these old tomes, however, was not confined to merely the content of these works, but also to the covers. After all, that was the first thing that you saw, and it was the thing that made you pick it up, read the blurb on the back, and then, (if you’re anything like me), annoy staff and fellow customers by blocking the bookshop aisles, reading the first chapter or so. The cover is very important:

NORMANBY

NORMANBY: Amazon.co.uk: Dixon, P G: 9781739864811: Books

When we released our first title; Normanby by P G Dixon, I knew exactly the kind of cover it needed. Normanby is basically a Spy Novel (with elements of the detective novel mixed in there). It’s unlike most modern spy stories, in that the central character is not a larger than life super hero type, with dazzling martial arts skills and such like. Nor is the book set in glamourous locations that most of us can’t afford to visit. The closest book in tone that I could relate it to would probably be Len Deighton’s ‘The IPCRESS File’, (though again, there are major differences – Normanby is very much set in the modern day, dealing very much with modern issues, both in the Intelligence world, and in society at large). For this reason, I felt that the cover illustration should reflect this.

We drew on the basic theme of Raymond Hawkey’s brilliant design for the first cover of The IPCRESS File for our own Normanby cover. Hawkeys’s design was a stark black-and-white image showing a chipped mug of tea, in which a cigarette butt had been disposed of, above a revolver and two rounds of ammunition. Of course, the image is such a classic that it has been copied, to varying degrees, by many publishers.

Raymond Hawkey's cover design for Len Deighton's 'The IPCRESS File.'

In the cover photo for Normanby, the chipped cup has been replaced with a pair of spectacles. I’m sure that many people would assume that this is part of the homage, since Michael Caine and, later, Joe Cole play the role of Harry Palmer in the Film and TV adaptations of ‘IPCRESS’ wearing similar spectacles. Of course, any purists reading will know that the central character in Deighton’s novel isn’t called Harry Palmer and, as far as I recall, doesn’t mention wearing spectacles. The titular character in Normanby, however, does.

The revolver in the IPCRESS cover is replaced in Normanby with a different kind of weapon, a Makarov, or Pistolet Makarova, the Russian equivalent to the Walther PP. As this particular handgun plays a significant role in Normanby, it was an absolute necessity that we use the the right kind of handgun. Of course, living in the UK, firearms are somewhat difficult to obtain. Fortunately, I knew of a very good Military Surplus and outdoor store, Army Stall, Wakefield, which I often use for camping equipment and workwear. They also sell a range of CO2 air gun replicas, and I was able to order the Makarov from there. (It’s also great fun for back garden ‘plinking’- taking down dangerous and hostile tin-cans - by the way).

Beneath the pistol on the Normanby cover, Hawkey’s bullets have been replaced by a chess piece, a white pawn, seemingly lying dead, with a splatter of blood coming from its head, as though it had just been shot. Again, this part of the image ties in with the book itself. The main tag-line, used in the advertising, and the blurb for the book, and one of the themes in the story is “Pawns were made to be sacrificed.”

The overall design of the Normanby book cover is very simple, neat and uncluttered, but each item in the photograph has something to do with the book. The moment you see it, you can get a pretty good idea about the themes of the novel. The simplicity of the cover also makes it very easy to identify as a thumbnail picture, which I felt was very important. Let’s face it, most indie fiction releases these days are more likely to sell as eBooks than print editions, and most of those shoppers are buying their reading matter from Amazon, picking their next read on the basis of that tiny picture, along with the book description next to it. The customer’s ability to see the cover as a thumbnail is therefore very important now.

A LITTLE BOOK OF STRANGE TALES

A Little Book of Strange Tales eBook : Hinchliffe, Richard: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Our second release was my own little collection of short stories, and a few poems. The stories are a mixture of horror, science fiction, and well, simply weird things. The cover illustration doesn’t relate to any particular story in the book, but illustrates the nature of the work, which is odd and occasionally (hopefully) mildly disturbing.

We wanted to create something along the lines of the old Pan Books of Horror Stories, but with a feeling for the old Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits television shows.

The Tenth Pan Book of Horror Stories.

For this one, we were able to have a lot of fun. I liked the idea of something so scary that even if you cover your eyes you cant stop seeing it, and that led us to the design that we eventually came up with.

The eyes were fun to make. The eyeballs themselves were flat dolls eyes intended, I guess, for sticking on stuffed toys. We needed those eyes to look realistic though; they needed eyelids if they were to look as though they were actually growing out of the back of someone’s hands. We made the eyelids out of strips of latex, cut from surgical gloves, and then matched the skin colour using concealer make-up from a local beauty store.

After a series of photographs using a black bathroom mat as a background, we had something to work with, and tried a series of special effects, eventually coming to our final decision again, partly, due to how the picture looks as a thumbnail.

We had a great deal of fun making the eyes at our kitchen table, and with the photo shoot. As we were so pleased with they way that the eyes had turned out, just from the materials that we had, we decided to use them again for a short YouTube video that we made as a sort of book trailer, using one of the poems from the book. You can see the video using the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paBZRhnxCFg

THE ‘LOST’ VILLAGE OF LAWERS

The 'Lost' Village of Lawers eBook : Bridgeman, Mark: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

This one was a little different for us as we didn’t design the cover at all. Mark Bridgeman, the author of the work, had already written, produced and published the paperback version of the book. It sells very well in his native Scotland, and he has had enquiries from the United States and other countries from people who are interested in buying the book, so our job here was simply to produce an eBook version of the work, so that it can be distributed worldwide without the cost of posting out hard copies, and therefore keeping the price at a manageable level for buyers.

The cover of the book is a photograph from the ‘lost’ and abandoned village, in all its eerie, other-worldly beauty.

The only change that we made to Mark’s original cover for the eBook version was to add the Brindle Books logo to the front.

TO THE DOURO (WELLINGTON’S DRAGOON; BOOK 1)

To The Douro (Wellington's Dragoon Book 1) eBook : Blackmore, David J: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

This was another title where we had a lot of fun making the cover. You may have seen my previous post; WELLINGTON’S DRAGOON AND SOME EQUINE SUPERSTARS, about the photo shoot that we did to get a cover picture for David J Blackmore’s historical adventure. Here’s a link to it, just in case you haven’t:

https://www.brindlebooks.co.uk/post/wellington-s-dragoon-and-some-equine-superstars

During the photo shoot, my partner, Emma, took about 300 photographs, so that we would have one illustration that would be suitable for the cover. The author himself, David J Blackmore, dressed in the uniform of a 16th Dragoons officer charged repeatedly on horseback past the camera.

As David pointed out to us, he is a little older than the central character in the book, whom the picture is meant to represent. “Don’t worry,” I told him, confidently. “We’ll sort that out in post-production.”

Of course, these things are never as easy as one thinks they’re going to be, and it turns out that I’d made a lot of work for myself with my confident assurance. With the equipment and programs at my disposal, I was told, there wasn’t much chance of putting a youth’s face on the pictures.

Stubbornly, I did it anyway, but it took some doing. Getting another image of a young face at precisely the correct angle to replace the one on the photograph took time, patience and the help of an Action Man (that’s a GI Joe action figure, for readers across the pond).

Once we were satisfied with the results, Emma and I were eventually able to produce a series of finished cover picture ideas with different effects. After all the hard work and frustration, we ended up picking a picture that had needed no fancy post-production wizardry, opting instead for a picture where David’s face had been obscured by his sword arm! It was, I must confess, the best choice as, as David himself pointed out; it allows the reader to have their own view of what the character looks like.

The time spent editing was not wasted, however. It was an opportunity to learn new skills which I am sure I will get to use again at some point in our publishing journey...

 

 

Wellington's Dragoon and some Equine Superstars

 First Published 3rd May 2022

An update on the progress of our next release: ‘To The Douro’ by David J Blackmore will be the first instalment in the ‘Wellington’s Dragoon’ series.

 

David J Blackmore on the redoubtable Johnny

 Last week we found ourselves in Eastrington, East Yorkshire, the home of Atkinson Action Horses. We were there for a photo shoot with David Blackmore, the author of our next scheduled release, ‘To The Douro’, the first instalment in the ‘Wellington’s Dragoon’ series, a historical adventure covering of the exploits of Michael Roberts, an officer in the 16th Light Dragoons during the Peninsular war, (that’s the Napoleonic period, for those of you who are not historians).

David preparing for the photo shoot

On arrival, we found David had just finished dressing into his dragoon's uniform. After much searching, he had managed to find a tarleton helmet (though he informed us that the braid was the wrong colour for the exact period). This was not a big issue, one would have thought, but as David is a historian, with several published Military History volumes under his belt, he felt the need to point it out to us so that the colour could be adjusted in the photographs in post-production, so that the illustration on the cover would be historically accurate.

This level of accuracy, along with David’s knowledge and understanding of the period is one of the things that makes the book stand out from many historical adventures about the period. Whilst working on edits and formatting of the book, I felt immersed in the world in which it is set, and thoroughly enjoyed the exciting tale.

David worked for many years as Registrar at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. He has several non-fiction books out in print on the subject of Military History. He also spent many years as part of the Re-enactment scene, bringing an expertise to the field, that is widely respected to this day.

 His mount, for the photo shoot was Johnny, a fine horse on whom David spends many hours ‘becoming a better rider than he was yesterday’, as he says modestly. The bond between horse and rider is apparent, indeed Johnny became the inspiration for the horse used by the main protagonist in the books.

 Once David’s uniform and Johnny’s tack was prepared, we made our way out into the field to begin the photo shoot proper. We spent a little time getting Johnny used to our presence, which didn’t take long. The animals at Atkinson Action Horses are used to the rigours of filming, indeed, many of them are genuine equine superstars, having appeared in productions such as Peaky Blinders, All Creatures Great and Small, Poldark, The Witcher, The Lost King and countless other productions and events.

Ben Atkinson, of Atkinson Action Horses

Whilst there, we met one of the chief trainers and riders there, Ben Atkinson. To even list Ben’s achievements and skills would take a whole blog post, so I’ve put a link at the bottom of this post to find out more about Atkinson Action Horses.

Our main objective was to get action shots that can be turned into an illustration for the book cover. After a few practice runs , we got some photos of Johnny galloping by with David on his back, sometimes using various bits of equipment such as his pistol or Cavalry sabre, thundering by, first on one side and then the other.

 After the main shoot, during which our photographer, the lovely Emma, bravely knelt on the ground being repeatedly charged by a mounted Dragoon, armed with a sabre, she got some stills of the attire that David was wearing, and the equipment that he carried.

Out of roughly 280 photos taken,

she will narrow it down to just a handful, so that David and the team at Brindle Books can put our heads together and produce a suitable cover for the book.

 Wellington’s Dragoon, Book 1: ‘To the Douro’ is set for release on 12th May 2022, (the anniversary of the Crossing of The Douro by British Forces fighting Napoleon’s army).

 To find out more about David Blackmore, you can find his blog by clicking the following link:

David J Blackmore « Practical Military History (wordpress.com)

 To find out about David’s non-fiction books, you can use the following link:

Amazon.co.uk: David Blackmore: Books, Biography, Blogs, Audiobooks, Kindle

 To find out more about Atkinson Action Horses, you can use the link below:

Atkinson Action Horses

 

Inspiration From North of the Border

 By Richard Hinchliffe

First Published 17th April 2022

A short post about our recent break in Gatehouse of Fleet, Scotland

My lovely partner, Emma, and I have just returned from a week in Scotland. We stayed in the beautiful East Cally Lodge, in the picturesque village of Gatehouse of Fleet, in the Dumfries and Galloway area of South West Scotland. The lodges are basically a pair of miniature mansions, originally built as gatehouses to the Cally estate in the 1700’s. In such beautiful and elegant surroundings there is a temptation to swan around, pretending to be Laird of the Manor. As you can see from some of the photographs, this temptation was, at times, too great for me 😊

You can find out more about East Cally Lodge here:

Cally Lodge Holiday Cottages, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries & Galloway (callylodges.com)

Of course, when running a small publishing house, no holiday is just a holiday, so my laptop, and a briefcase full of ongoing projects went with us. When we did manage to go out on walks in the village itself, and the surrounding countryside, our thoughts often turned to books and writing, (to be fair, our thoughts often turn to books and writing).

Walking in the picturesque village, we happened upon a side street, off the main road, called Hannay Street. At the sight of the name, I was immediately reminded of John Buchan’s character, Richard Hannay, the main protagonist in his classic adventure novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps, and its various sequels. A little checking, however, revealed no direct connection. Hannay happens to be the name of one of the Clans from the area, whose ancient seat is at nearby Sorbie Tower.

One could hardly be disappointed, however, bearing in mind the inspiration to other great writers that the area has provided. At the top end of the High Street in Gatehouse of Fleet stands a public House called the Murray Arms. It is in this inn that Robert Burns wrote “Scots Wha Hae” in 1793.

A few hundred yards down the High Street and over the bridge is another public house with some literary history attached to it. The Ship Inn, at No. 1 Fleet Street, on the corner of Fleet Street and Old Military Road, was originally called The Anwoth Hotel. It was here, in 1931 that the great Dorothy L Sayers penned one of her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, Five Red Herrings, which is set both in the village and nearby Kirkcudbright.

Also on the High Street in Gatehouse is The Bakehouse: Bakehouse Community Arts is an organisation based in South West Scotland, dedicated to poetry and the spoken word. You can find out more about them here:

HOME (thebakehouse.info)

The surrounding area is also home to many bookshops, selling a wide range of works by a range of authors, from local historians to the world famous big names in publishing, along with a healthy number of antique and second hand bookshops, which I always find a joy to explore. On an all too brief visit to the bookshop in the local arts centre in the village, called The Mill on the Fleet, I picked up copies of a couple of the old ‘Bulldog Drummond’ shockers, along with a collection of George Orwell essays that I didn’t already have in my collection.

For those of you interested in cinema history and cult horror films, both Gatehouse of Fleet and nearby Kirkcudbright provided filming locations for the 1973 cult horror classic The Wicker Man, starring Edward Woodward. Although Dumfries and Galloway is a long way south of where the film is set, (the Highlands and Islands), the scenery is beautiful and remote. This may well be one of the contributing factors to the sheer wealth of creativity in the country.

Scotland has more than its fair share of creatives, be they authors, poets, sculptors or painters. In any of the small towns and villages in the area, it seems virtually impossible to go more than a few hundred yards without coming across examples of Scottish creativity. It is a part of the world where writers and artists are respected and encouraged by their local communities, much more so than many other places. This attitude seems to stretch the length and breadth of the country.

Much further North than our little break, one of the first authors that we worked with at Brindle Books has been a resident of Perthshire for twenty years. He has been inspired by the history of his local area to write many books, one of which; The ‘Lost’ Village of Lawers, we have been very proud to publish with him in eBook format. The book tells the story of the ‘lost’ and abandoned village of Lawers, on the shores of Loch Tay, and of the mysterious ‘Lady of Lawers’, who made eerily accurate prophecies about the area.

The ‘Lost’ Village of Lawers is also available in paperback from various outlets. You can find more information about this, and Mark’s other work here:

Mark Bridgeman Author

https://books2read.com/u/4DPX27

 If you’re a writer, and you are searching for a location that will inspire you, I would definitely recommend a visit to Scotland.