The Backstory: The Bridge to Caracas by Stephen Douglass

Stephen Douglass is a retired oilman from Waterloo, Ontario. He started working with Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell, and retired after selling his own small oil company in 1989. He and his wife summered in Muskoka, Ontario and wintered in Port St. Lucie, Florida. One summer, he discovered he had a story to tell…

---

Stephen: For me, writing was an accident. I had never witten anything, other than several long essays in university. When my friends in Muskoka and Florida, my homes in obscurity, became aware of the story of my incredible life in the Canadian oil business, they encouraged me to commit it to writing. They were shocked when I told them the story of the most audacious crook I ever knew, of how he managed to steal $325,000,000 from the Canadian and U.S. Feds, and of how my association with him nearly cost me my business, my love, and my life. They insisted it was a story that must be told.

Reluctantly, I did, but it took a Muskoka rain to get me started. I was compelled to cancel another in my endless series of ridiculously bad golf games, and was faced with virtually nothing to do. Cleaning the cottage would have made my wife happy, but I wasn’t inspired. Watching television was a reasonable alternative until the intensity of the storm obliterated our satellite signal. Undaunted, I picked up my book du jour and started to read. That activity ended when a tree fell on our power line, terminating all electricity.

By candlelight and a roaring blaze in the fireplace, I picked up a writing pad and started to write the story of my life, long hand. I had no idea how much fun it would be until I did it. Writing the story was like living it, all over again. After more than twenty years the story was finally made public. It is the story of an endless and conflicted love and one of the largest and most audacious thefts in Canadian and U.S. history. If readers have half as much fun reading about my life as I did living it, they will be enriched.

The store I wrote is entitled The Bridge to Caracas, for reasons that will quickly be obvious to readers; it’s a romance crime novel. The sequel, The Tainted Trust (what happened to the $325,000,000) will be published soon and I am actively writing the third book in the King trilogy, Kerri’s War, a thrilling epic chronicling the pursuit of love and money, and spanning four tumultuous decades.

---

The Bridge to Caracas: Amazon | iBookstore

Visit the Author’s website. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.

The Backstory: The Pyramid Legacy by Clive Eaton

We’re back with a fascinating look into Clive Eaton’s inspiration for a book that he published in May (ebook) and June (paperback) 2012. It looks to be a rollicking tale. In our conversations about his backstory, Clive mentioned that he even has an interview with his main character. Read on.

---

Clive: One evening, as a child, I was totally ensnared by a black and white film on the television. So many years have passed that I can’t remember the title, but the images that really engaged me took place within the Great Pyramid of Giza. Builders were trapped as an Indiana Jones type of sequence took place—large slabs of rock sliding into position, closing off exits, as huge amounts of sand rushed through small gaps triggering a type of domino effect. Every time I see a similar type of sequence today, such as in the aforementioned Indiana Jones movies, my mind is transported back to that original film.

I was drawn back to the pyramids again in 1993 when German robotics engineer, Rudolph Gantenbrink, was under contract to install ventilation fans in the shafts of the King’s Chamber. Many academics have theorised for years about the purpose of these shafts, and amongst the theories were ventilation, transportation of water or energy, and even releasing the souls of the dead to the stars. Some said they had astronomical significance as they pointed to specific constellations in the night sky. Gantenbrink’s work immediately dismissed the ventilation theory when he discovered a door blocking one of the shafts rising from the Queen’s chamber. My first question was in regard to the purpose of the door, and what, if anything, it was concealing. At this stage I was already well aware of one interesting fact—unlike so many other Egyptian structures, the Great Pyramid has NO hieroglyphs, even though hieroglyphs were used in Egypt for several hundred years, prior to the Great Pyramid being built.

After nine years of negotiation with the Egyptian authorities Gantenbrink was finally permitted to drill a hole through the ‘secret’ door. By this stage I was following every news story linked to this exploration, as I was desparate to know what, if anything, the Great Pyramid was concealing. Sadly the only discovery was another door beyond the first door. However, Gantenbrink did discover yet another door, this time in a second shaft heading from the Queen’s chamber. Since 2002 no further explorations have been carried out, or if they have, they haven’t been officially reported. This story about Gantenbrink’s discoveries sent my imagination running into overdrive, and I wanted the Great Pyramid of Giza to be protecting an image; An image which would cast a huge question mark over the identity of the architects of such a monumental structure. After a field visit in 2009, and having the opportunity to personally view the inside of the Great Pyramid, I felt compelled to put pen to paper. The final push I received to writing a novel was the level of engineering required to dress the internal stones so accurately. Even a cigarette paper cannot be fitted between them. Egyptologists claim the Great Pyramid was completed in 20 years, by men with just copper tools and hammers fashioned from rocks. 2.6 million stones, each weighing several hundred tons, dressed with copper tools? I wasn’t convinced. So my main character in The Pyramid Legacy, Ben Anderson, a robotics engineer, has been given the task to really find out what is behind that door in the second shaft. And find something he does …

Finally, this story doesn’t end with my first novel, The Pyramid Legacy. I have now embarked on a sequel, as during my research I also found a common link between the Great Pyramid of Giza and a well visited field in south-west England…

---

The Pyramid Legacy: Amazon | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | iBookstore

Read more about The Pyramid Legacy on Goodreads and at its book page. Read an interview with Ben Anderson, the principle character of The Pyramid Legacy. Hooked? Clive hints about the sequel.

Follow the Author on Twitter or Facebook. Learn more about him on his website, or his profile on the Independent Author Network.

Bluebonnets, Bagpipes and Books

Bluebonnets, Bagpipes and Books is an entertaining and informative podcast that can be found on Stitcher Radio, starring Mark Rice, author of the fantastic heavy metal fiction book Metallic Dreams, and The Book Connection’s digital director Deena Harrison Schoenfeldt. Every week, Mark and Deena bring their listeners interesting interviews with authors and other knowledgeable guests from the publishing industry. There are always helpful bits of advice and discussions of relevance to authors and readers alike. This weekend, I was their guest: we talked about the links between music and literature, including an important discussion about copyright laws involving song lyrics in books. We also spoke about the need for proper research for authors wanting to publish historical fiction. It was a musical and book geekfest for Mark and I, as we share a common love of all things rock and are both trying to make rock or music fiction a viable and recognisable commercial genre.

Enjoy Episode 13: Rocktober and Roll.

An Interview with T-Mak World

T-Mak World is an online Toronto site for Music, Movies and Culture filled with interesting articles. In this particular issue, there is news about Rush and Neil Young. I was interviewed by Terry Makedon, who also reviewed Behind Blue Eyes: Love Reign o’er Me and offered his readers a chance to win a personalised, signed copy. Enjoy the interview and be sure to enter the contest at the end of it!

No Backstory This Week

I regret that we have no backstory to publish this week. We have several nearly ready, but because of a death in the family this past week neither Anne-Marie nor I were able to work with the submissions we already have.

There are enough submissions to keep us busy through the first week of November—but if you have a project that you want to tell us how it came to you, please send us a Backstory as we are looking for submissions for November and December.