Kelly Melcher: Would you please start by introducing yourself and how you became interested in writing?Visit Tony Richards' website and blog.
Tony Richards: I’m the author of — so far — four full-length novels, five novellas, and more than eighty short stories, with five collections to my name. I’ve been nominated for both the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy awards. And yes, I’m a full time writer.I’m not sure I did “become interested” in writing. I simply started doing it, from a pretty early age. I’m no kind of artist really, but I started drawing my own comic strips at the age of about nine. And then that progressed to stories by the time that I was twelve. I have no slightest idea why… it’s just the way my brain’s wired.
KM: Your newest work, Night of Demons, has just been released. What is it about, and who is your target audience?
TR: It’s the second novel in a series set in a town called Raine’s Landing, Massachusetts. The first book was called Dark Rain. And the central premise is that there were real witches in Salem, Massachusetts, back in 1692. They got wind of the forthcoming witchcraft trials and left that place before they happened, moving to Raine’s Landing instead. They married into either wealthy families or families who would be wealthy later on. And now, in the present day, they pretty much run the place and the town is full of strange dark magic.
In the current book, a really awful serial killer called Cornelius Hanlon — on the run from the police in Boston — decides to lay low there. But he can’t let go of his old habits. He kills the town’s oldest and most respected adept, and finds himself in possession of an extremely strange magical device that gives him inconceivable powers. He also forges an alliance with a malcontented female adept — it turns out a lot of things are not what they seem, there’s been some bad stuff going on below the surface, and she’s looking for revenge on the whole town. And it’s up to the two central characters — an ex-cop turned detective and a tough, sarcastic waitress — to stop them.Target audience? Anyone with a lively mind who likes a good, fast-moving, entertaining read, I’d suppose.
KM: Urban fantasy has been exploding lately, and in many cases in seems to be taking themes and elements from the horror genre. In your opinion, where is the line between horror and urban fantasy?
TR: I’ve...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Dark Rain.
My Book, The Movie: Dark Rain.
The Page 69 Test: Night of Demons.
--Marshal Zeringue