It’s always a pleasure to welcome my fellow Wild Rose Press authors to the blog, especially if I’ve read their work and can whole-heartedly recommend their books to you. Such is the case for Stephen B. King, whose eco-thriller/time travel/romance mashup Thirty-Three Days I enjoyed immensely. Stephen’s new release, Winter at the Light, plays out on a rocky, stormy lighthouse island off the coast of Australia!

Forbes Lighthouse is a dangerous place. Twenty-year-old Molly McLaren agrees to tend the light when her father breaks his leg, so she leaves behind the city and her nursing career. Molly dreads the thought of three months as the sole inhabitant on the tiny island, nineteen nautical miles off the rugged coastline of Augusta in Western Australia.

Molly discovers she enjoys the solitude, and when a massive storm arrives bringing a life raft, Molly risks her life to save the unconscious man inside. On waking, he says he has lost his memory but as Molly nurses him back to health she wonders if he has. When the storm finally clears, Molly has fallen for the man she’s nicknamed John, but still has doubts about his honesty.

The real danger arrives with two men who are searching for her mystery man. They want to kill him and anyone else who can identify them, and Molly quickly learns; on a lighthouse, there is nowhere to hide.

Excerpt:

Molly reached the rocky shore, where waves as tall as she was crashed at its edge and shot up shards of white foam spray to be flung in her face by the wind. The life raft ducked and dived only a few yards away and was coming closer by the minute. She propped the medical bag between two large boulders, determined to keep it from being washed away in the angry surf, then wondered what she could do next.

The dinghy’s opening in the tent-like awning faced away from her, no doubt acting as a wind tunnel, which helped drive the boat ahead of it, but that meant she still had no idea if anyone was inside or not. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hello, is anyone there?” she screamed, trying to be heard above the howling wind, but she feared she wasn’t.

There was nothing, no sound or movement from within, but the boat was coming closer, and she had to decide what she would do when it hit the rocks at her feet. Try to grab it and pull it ashore, I suppose, then look inside the damn thing.

“C’mon little boat, you’ve made it this far, don’t fail me now,” Molly murmured.

The next moment the rounded bow hit a protruding rock, and the wind driving from the rear nearly tipped it end over end. Without a thought for herself, Molly took five steps into the icy cold waves and grabbed the ropes strung along the side. She tried to pull it into safety. “If anyone is in there, get out, I can’t hold this forever,” she screamed, as loudly as she had ever shouted in her life.

Order your copy of Winter at the Light: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ie7gG2

Meet the author!

I have eleven books published, and Winter at the Light will be number twelve. I won several short story competitions, published poetry and wrote music and lyrics in my long-haired rock band days as a guitarist, so I have been telling stories most of my, what seems like, very long life.

Winter at the Light is my latest release with my wonderful publisher, The Wild Rose Press of NY. For my first book, Forever Night I was contracted to a UK publisher who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, or the guilty as the case may be. Before publication that publisher was bought out and the new owners (one of the big four) cancelled the line I was contracted to, which left me in publishing no-man’s-land.

I self-published my next four books with the help of an editor I hired, starting with Domin8, yet, I was never entirely happy with the finished result. Two years later, I signed with The Wild Rose Press to publish Thirty-Three Days. I followed up that with the Deadly Glimpses Trilogy and soon the trilogy will be comprised of five books – who knew you could do that? I wrote Winter at the Light, while simultaneously completing the fourth Glimpse book, titled Glimpse, the Angel Shot and two more different tales you could never read.

Somewhere along the way, I read Domin8 (that second book) while travelling. I always take a copy of one of my books and deliberately leave it in the hotel I’m staying at, then I wonder who in the world will read it next. I think enough time had passed, and because I’d written eight later books working with my wonderful editor Melanie, I could see all the things wrong with it. I’ve learned so much from Mel and when I discussed it with her, and gave her the outline, she jumped at it. And so, began a twelve-month project to re-write, edit and re-launch it. I’m thrilled that Domin8 has been very well received by reviewers and has won two literary awards.

“How do you find time to write?” Is one of the questions asked of me frequently, my answer is always that it’s easy to find time to do what you love the most.

Another question I’m asked is: “How can you write stories so diametrically opposed such as a serial killer trilogy rampage on the one hand, and a historical romantic suspense like Winter at the Light, on the other.” Well, I suffer from random though syndrome. I might be driving along, and a weird thought will creep into my conscious mind. When I explore that thought, it sometimes turns into the beginnings of a story. In this case the random thought was: The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter. Why I thought that, I will never know, but when I got to work, I Googled it, and much to my surprise found it was a book, written many years before. The thought wouldn’t go away, nagging at the periphery of my imagination, so I wondered why and how a young woman could end up looking after a remote lighthouse by herself. Because her father was injured and he will lose his job if she doesn’t, was the reply…and so it began.

I believe any author worth his, or her, salt, should be able to tell a tale in any genre he, or she, is inspired to write. As my more famous namesake once said: ‘It is the tale, not he who tells it.’

A few questions for Stephen:

1. Tell us about your inspiration for this story. It maybe sounds weird, but sometimes I get these random thoughts enter my head – God knows where they come from or why. So, I was driving along one day, listening to an audio book, and one hit me (it had nothing to do with the story I was listening to) The Lighthouse Keeper’s daughter. What did it mean? No idea, but it nagged at me. When I got to work I Googled it and discovered it was a book written many years ago, and my heart sank because it had been done. But the thought wouldn’t go away. So, I expanded on it; thinking; she is alone on a remote island lighthouse, why? Because her father was injured. She is miles from the mainland, and she is in danger, why? Because two men are coming to kill the man she’s rescued who has lost his memory. And so, it went on and the plot grew legs in my overactive imagination.
2. Do you write in other genres?  I do. I like to write in whatever genre the inspiration hits me in. I also believe as an author I should be able to write in any genre, and not just stay snuggled inside my pigeonholed comfort zone. That said, no matter what the genre is, I love a good thriller, something that grabs the reader, make them fear for the main character, and want them to succeed and survive. That being the core then, it could be a psychological hunt for a serial killer, like my Glimpse series, a tale of an aging, near crippled ex-cop now a private investigator trying to give something back in Repo, or a nineteen year-old’s struggle for survival on a remote lighthouse after she agrees to tend it during winter after her father is injured in Winter at the Light.
3. Any advice for aspiring writers?  For a long time, my advice was to write from the heart, and edit with your head. But I was recently reminded of something I’d read years ago and forgotten, though I’d like to think it has always influenced my writing. That is: frequently put your protagonist up a tree and throw rocks at them. I think this is awesome advice for a new author to stop the plot from lagging. It’s so easy to write and write and write about the sky, the trees, the flowers that are in bloom alongside the burbling brook half hidden by reeds as the mayfly’s dance in the sunbeams, and………….BORING. What about the man limping from a severe gash on his leg, that he can’t stop the blood flowing from, but he has to get home because his wife is in danger from an escaped convict. The lightning is flashing, and the wind howling, as the river threatens to burst its banks…………See? Story is everything, so don’t let it become boring, is my advice.
4. Authors always seem to have a teetering To Be Read pile. What’s in yours?  Anything by Michael Robotham. A while back I discovered his Joseph O’Loughlin series; psychological thrillers with heart. More heart than I’ve ever read as I got to the end of each book and wanted to scream, cry, and punch the author for leaving me hanging while the next volume was downloading. I was genuinely saddened by the things happened to Joe, and when I read the last in the series I wanted to go to Michael’s house and beg to find out what was going to happen to him next. I’ve never had that before. I was so impressed I wrote to Mr. Robotham, and never expected a reply, yet the next morning, there was an email. I hope one day to be able to tell a story as well as he does; for me, he is the master. I’m now reading his other books.
5. What makes you put down a book without finishing? I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but poor writing makes me give up. The best story in the world still needs to be told well. Similarly, a poor story, well told can be a great read. I’ve been disappointed many times by an ending but loved the way I was taken there. The more an author writes, the better they get at their craft, and the more their characters are believable. Yes, I agree, sometimes you may not like the character, and want to give up on the story, but for me, even that comes down to poor writing skills.
6. Which authors have inspired you? I mentioned Michael Robotham earlier, Stieg Larsen’s Millennium trilogy left me in awe, Val McDermid’s Wire in the Blood series with Tony Hill is incredible, and of course, for more than thirty years, my more famous namesake, the other Stephen King, for me is a true master of character driven storytelling.
7. How did you come up with research for a lighthouse in the 1950’s? Well, you know that old question about what came first, the chicken of the egg? It’s a little like that. On a family holiday ‘down South’ some years ago we visited Augusta, home to two tourist destinations. Firstly, it is where two oceans meet; the Great Southern, and the Indian, and there is a line of turbulence stretching as far as the eye can see where waves hit from two different directions, as described in the book. The second is the tallest lighthouse on mainland Australia, Cape Leeuwen, built in 1895 here is a pic:

We took a tour of the lighthouse and I was deeply interested, though at the time had no inkling I’d one day in the future write a book set in a similar building. Fast forward three years, I was stuck with an inspirational idea while driving along: The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter. I recalled how much I loved the one at Augusta. My fictional building had to be on an island for story reasons, but still, it gave me a basic understanding. From there, once the plot solidified in the fog of my imagination, I had to decide when, the story would be set. I’d learnt that Leeuwen had undergone modernization in the late 50’s, so I knew it had to be before then. Molly’s mother had died in an air raid during the war, and she would be nineteen in my tale of her ordeal, 1952 seemed obvious.

I then set about using Google and reading articles on working in hospitals in that era, nursing (Molly was a nurse) in a male dominated medical system, and of course lighthouse keepers. I loved this research, more than for any other book I’ve written. I found a wonderful diary of family life from 1953 on a remote island, and loved it, and slowly, the background for Molly’s winter living in a lighthouse, alone, came together.

Thanks so much for hosing me, and letting me ramble on about Winter at the Light.

Connect with Stephen B. King on social media:

Website: www.stephen-b-king.comook: @stephenbkingauthoracebook: @stephenbkingauthor
twitter: @stephenBKing1
Facebook: @stephenbkingauthor
Email: stephenk8@me.com