It’s another Omnific release day!! And it’s Valentine’s Day!! AND it’s our TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY (check out our anniversary special at the end of Sarah’s interview)!!!
Tomorrow, we will add Sarah M. Glover’s Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story to our catalog and are so excited!
Sarah was kind enough to take a few minutes and answer some of our questions for us and share a little inside information about her process and her characters.
Andrew Hayes, a brilliant but troubled musician, has been haunted since childhood by memories of his muse. One night from a San Francisco stage, he spots her, but before he can reach her, she vanishes from sight. Desperate to find the woman, he accepts a curious offer to stay in the city, moving into a dilapidated Victorian under going renovations that stir up far more than dust.
Andrew’s life soon becomes even more chaotic with the arrival of martini-swilling ghosts and a troupe of flesh-and-blood stoner spiritualists bringing bad tidings from the Great Beyond. The dark side of his obsession creates visions both thrilling and menacing, and as he struggles to solve the mysteries threatening him, Andrew discovers his life is repeating a refrain more deadly than he’d ever imagined.
Inspired by the sexy noirs and comedies of the past, Grave Refrain transports the reader to a place where the things that go bump in the night not only thrill you, but might just take your breath away for good.
Omnific: What was your inspiration for writing Grave Refrain: A Love Ghost Story?
Sarah Glover: I wanted to turn the paradigm of boy meets girl on its head. What happens if boy has loved a girl for his whole life but she has no idea who he is? How does he even begin to romance her without scaring her to death? I also wanted to play with the idea of what it means to be haunted: haunted by loves, past and present, haunted by lost opportunities, haunted by ghosts both charming and deadly.
Omnific: Which of your Grave Refrain: A Love Ghost Story characters is your favorite to write and why?
Sarah Glover: Andrew. He is on the edge during so much of the story, trying to come to terms with his madness and his desires, and at the same time, trying to be a normal twenty-something. Well, as normal as he could ever be. There is a constant state of wanting in him: for Emily, for fame, for freedom from of what haunts him. He is a live wire who tends not to do anything by half. He is also his own worst enemy. He’s the classic Byronic hero coupled with an intellectual, word-playing rocker in desperate need of a cigarette.
Omnific: As a busy mom and wife, how do you find time to write? And when you DO find time, what’s your writing process like?
Sarah Glover: I worked for years in NYC as a management consultant and then went on to get my CPA, so I’m fairly self-disciplined. That said, it would be great to have a door to my office as it is a small room off the kitchen with a view of the backyard swing, which is always a constant temptation. During school days, I have a nice block of hours in the late morning to work and a decent cup of coffee can do wonders. If a plot is complicated, I start with an outline. I spend a long, long time with character studies to get into the skin of my people; I interview them often, and once they reply consistently, I know I’m close. I word smith things to death. I’m an editor’s and typesetter’s nightmare.
Omnific: Since Omnific is all about the romance...what is your favorite romance scene of all time?
Sarah Glover: My favorite romance scene of all time takes place in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Notorious.
A bit of background first. A CIA agent, Devlin (Cary Grant), is assigned to watch over Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), a socialite whose father has been convicted of spying for the Nazis. In order to prove her allegiance to the United States, she becomes an agent herself and travels with Devlin to Rio de Janeiro in order to infiltrate a secret Nazi group. Before they understand the dire nature of the job they’re taking on, they have one moment of happiness, although Bergman believes that Grant doesn’t really love her. Grant, however, is falling hard. Now, in 1946 there was a rule that an onscreen kiss could last no longer than three seconds. Grant and Bergman’s kiss lasts over two minutes and is incredibly erotic even by today’s standards. A gamut of emotions---desire, frustration, hope, joy---pass between them in such a real and heady way. Hitchcock is clever though; he has them break apart every 3 seconds and nuzzle or whisper before they resume the kiss, thereby staying within the rules. The kiss, however, breaks all the rules.
Omnific: Now, would you want recast this scene?
Sarah Glover: It is a scene I would never recast. It could only be played by Grant and Bergman. They’re perfect.
Omnific: Do you have anything else up your creative sleeve? Can we hope for or expect anything new from Sarah M. Glover in the future?
Sarah Glover: My muse recently bought me a martini and placed it next to my morning coffee. I’ve been obsessed with another paranormal mystery about a San Francisco detective who is assassinated by members of a sinister family he helped bring to justice. After his murder, he ends up in an ominous world which resembles a bizarre and antiquated version of San Francisco and is inhabited by – you guessed it--- ghosts. Ghosts, of which he is one. But he is quick to learn, he isn’t dead enough.
In addition to answering all of our questions, Sarah was able to share with us one of her favorite excerpts from Grave Refrain. Enjoy!
With her Earl Grey in hand she found a bench near the park, opened her book, and started to read. Across the lawn, the Friday night gathering of T-shirt and shorts-clad pothead bongo drummers had started up, oblivious to the cooling fog making its way from the ocean. Their tie-dyed, peasant-skirted groupies twirled barefoot to the music, arms raised in some sort of farewell rite to the disappearing sun. Emily tried to ignore them, but the sound of nearby chuckling made her glance up from her book.
On a low stone wall several yards away sat a homeless man who was only slightly less shabby than the hippies. He stared at them, laughed, and strummed his guitar idly, his case open for donations at his feet. Clearly he wasn’t bothered by too much competition for one corner, as this end of the park was notorious for its stoner population who liked to camp under the trees, defecate in the bushes, and frequent the McDonald's across the street. Emily turned the page and took a sip of her tea, hoping to God that she and her roommates would not be reduced to this if worst came to worst. The guitarist began to play in a more complicated way than befitted the average drug addict. Emily had read the same paragraph three times before she gave up and peered over the top of her book at him.
He wore a thick fisherman’s sweater, a shabby red scarf, and equally disreputable jeans, although his shoes looked new, but those could have been part of some shelter’s outreach program for all she knew. Though the black cabbie cap pulled down over his forehead was intriguing, it also shielded his eyes. Why she wanted to see them, she couldn’t say.
The damp wind made her huddle into her coat and wrap her fingers around her tea. As always, she felt the cold clear through to her bones and shivered. She had been raised in New York City, a place with four vocal seasons, not this interminable wet fall. The chill moved through the trees, and the bongos became a distant heartbeat. Even the guitar was muffled, for he had turned to the side, his leg hitched on the low wall. He began to sing.
There was a guitar and there were hands---beautiful hands strummed those chords. Emily understood this; she could see this. She could smell pot and the grease from McDonald's and the dregs of her tea. Other people had gathered to listen now; she did not know what they could see or smell or feel, but a hush fell over them, and they stopped and waited. It reminded Emily of the feeling she had when she was very young, sitting in the dark in her living room, waiting for her parents to turn on the Christmas tree lights for the first time…the very air around her changed. Everything changed. She was bewitched.
She watched him until it grew late. She did not move a muscle, only held her tea between her frozen fingers. He finally packed up and left, oblivious to her still huddled on the bench. When she was sure he had gone, when she was sure everyone had gone, when she was sure she was alone, she whispered to the night, to the empty space on the wall.
“It’s you.”
Thank you so much for your time Sarah, and I am really looking forward to getting this one in my hands!
If you are like me and really intrigued, I have a GREAT deal for you. Tomorrow (February 14, 2012) if you buy a copy of Grave Refrain from AMAZON, and send the AMAZON proof of purchase for that date to Omnific at promotions@omnificpublishing.
And if you want to find Sarah, look for here in these places:
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