Authors of The Illumination

Karen Tintori and Jill Gregory
Interview
Authors of The Illumination

ISBN: 978-0-312-37597-3
ISBN-10: 0-312-37597-2

(Purchasing Information at
http://us.macmillan.com/theillumination)

It is a great opportunity to be able to speak to authors who are collaborators on a book. We don’t often get this opportunity. Being a collaborator on a WIP (Work In Progress), I know that it is not always easy to work on a project such as a book with someone else.

Karen Tintori and Jill Gregory have been best friends for more than 26 years. By the time they wrote their first novel together, they decided that since they write with one voice they'd do it as one person--Jillian Karr, a combination of their first names. For nearly a decade, Karen and Jill concentrated on their individual careers while trying to figure out how to "out" the Lamed Vovniks. The Illumination, their second hidden history thriller, has just been published by St. Martin's Press in the U.S. and Canada next year, and in Germany -- again by Rowohlt, and by Pan Macmillan in Australia.

Karen and Jill are joined again at the brain, working daily on plotting their next thriller.

I am honored to be able to interview these two prolific authors. I hope you enjoy the interview, and take the time to ask them questions and make comments about their interview. ~Sue

Sue: How long does it take you to write a book together?

Karen and Jill: It generally takes us eight months to a year to finish a book, but by the time we've submitted a new proposal to our editor, the first three chapters are usually included. Plus we've already done thorough research on our subject matter and then write the rest of the book from a well-thought out synopsis.

Sue: Is there a genre that you would like to write in that you haven’t already, either together or singly?

Karen: My mother always told me I'd end up writing children's or young adult books. Right now I don't see it, but many of the other things she'd predicted I'd do have come true, so who knows?

Jill: I might like to write a fantasy or paranormal novel some day. I've written novellas with fantasy elements for anthologies, like the Once Upon A anthologies I wrote with Nora Roberts, Ruth Ryan Langan and Marianne Willman, but never a full -length novel. Some of my favorite books are The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Once and Future King, and the Mary Stewart Merlin books, beginning with The Crystal Cave.

Sue: How do you keep track of your characters and story thread?

Jill and Karen: We make notes and lists for ourselves. Sometimes we'll write down all the scenes we need to do, all the information we still need to reveal, all the major story points we need to cover. There are often so many threads that if you don't write down every single detail you want in the book somewhere or other, you can completely forget to put something in. So we make a lot of notes for ourselves. We also have a poster board on the wall with photos of our characters which we've cut from magazines and which we both agree resemble and personifies the character. Alongside the photos and around them, we scribble important facts about the character, age, eye and hair color, etc. As well as key dates and other information for the character's backstory.

Sue: Do you name your characters or do they tell you themselves who they are?

Karen and Jill: We very definitely name them. We have a baby name book we flip through and one of us will read aloud a name that strikes us and seems to fit the character, and if the other one agrees that it's a good fit, we retain it as a possibility. If not, it's tossed. We also use the phone book. Once, without looking at any book, while I was on the internet in one room and Karen was at the work keyboard in the office, we both suggested the same surname at the same time! It was for a character in THE ILLUMINATION. But this happens to us all the time. Our brains are in sync.

Sue: Do you base any of your characters on people in your real life?

Jill and Karen: No, not at all. We make them up out of whole cloth. We even avoid giving our characters the first names of family and friends. That way we are free to make them whatever we want them to be and what the story needs them to be.

Sue: What was the high point of collaborating on The Illumination?

Karen and Jill: The high point was when we began pulling all the threads together for the culmination of the story, and we came up with several very cool twists that made it all work. It's fun to spring surprises on the reader that flow seamlessly from the story.

Sue: What did you learn through collaborating on this book?

Karen: I learned that we needed to choreograph certain action scenes so that we both saw them exactly alike. Our protagonist, Natalie Landau, knows Krav Maga, the Israeli system of self-defense. While we researched the principles of Krav Maga, when it came to writing the fight scenes, we needed to go through the motions (in slow motion!) in order to understand the movements well enough to describe them in a way that the reader could easily follow the action.

Jill: Karen knew about the evil eye through her Italian background, but I wasn't as familiar with the belief. I learned a great deal about the far-reaching mythology of the evil eye. I knew a little bit before we started, but not how ancient and extensive this belief is throughout human history.

Sue: Do you have any tips for authors who would like to collaborate?

Karen: We work differently than most writing teams we've come across. We write every line together and spend great chunks of time together, discussing every aspect of our characters and the story. It helps if your writing partner is your best friend, because a writing partner is a lot like a marriage -- you need cooperation, give and take, and a willingness to compromise.

Jill: Every collaborative team has their own way of working. Both partners have to feel comfortable with whatever way they choose, and you have to have mutual respect and a willingness to put the book first, before your own ego. In other words, if your writing partner doesn't like an idea, don't take it personally. Either convince the other person of the idea's merit, or drop it and move on with an open mind.

Sue: What do you find as the most challenging aspect of writing? The most rewarding?

Karen: The most challenging aspect of writing is avoiding the temptation to procrastinate -- either by checking your email, doing a little more research, or any other device to keep your butt from the chair. The absolute best is when Jill and I are writing and the one who isn't at the keyboard that day is pacing the office as the words roll from our mouths and fingertips, and both of us are totally of one mind and in the ultimate writing zone.

Jill: The most challenging is facing a blank page on the computer screen. It is also challenging to start a book, knowing all the difficulty ahead of weaving all the strands of the story together in a natural, yet suspenseful way and in balancing plot, character, narrative, dialogue, pacing, etc. The most rewarding moment is feeling that what you've written will grip the reader and surprise, intrigue and entertain him or her. Also, the absolutely most rewarding moment is when you write THE END.

Sue: Do you have any additional comments you would like to make?

Karen: Writing is the best job in the world, and probably the most masochistic. At the end of a day, Jill and I are often left whimpering, so exhausted by our mental gymnastics that a three hour rumba class would probably have taken less out of us. Plus, ours is a job, like motherhood, that doesn't end at 5 P.M. The book -- and whatever problems we're having with it -- rumbles in our heads twenty-four hours a day until we reach the end.

Jill: It takes many months and sometimes a year to write a book, but all the while, you're hoping that it will only take the reader a day or two to tear through the book. Our goal is always to enthrall the reader so completely that he or she won't be able to put the story aside. That's what we strive for with every book --that's foremost in our minds throughout the writing process.

Sue: Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you and have you on my blog. It was a real pleasure for me. I look forward to reading more of your collaborations.

Make sure you make a comment or ask a question of either Karen or Jill or both to be entered into a drawing for a free copy of The Illumination. Don’t forget to add an email address where you can be contacted if you are the winner.

Again, thanks to Karen and Jill for being here!

(Purchasing Information at
http://us.macmillan.com/theillumination)

Here is a synopsis of THE ILLUMINATION, by Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori:

Natalie Landau, a museum curator with an expertise in Mesopotamian protective amulets and magical beliefs, has received a puzzling gift from her sister Dana--a necklace with a blue evil eye pendant on it. The Evil Eye is a symbol of protection common throughout the world, with a history connecting it to many religions.

When Natalie learns Dana was murdered only hours after sending the gift, she begins to think her evil eye amulet had something to do with her sister’s death. As she races to discover the origin of the pendant, Natalie is sucked into an international battle between powerful religious factions, each battling for the eye, which turns out to be far more valuable—and far more powerful--than she could ever imagine.

Their websites are: www.karentintori.com and www.jillgregory.net

(Purchasing Information at
http://us.macmillan.com/theillumination)

Here are some comments about The Illumination.

“The intrigue is high. The excitement is palpable. The story is priceless. Combining mysticism, history, and fanaticism, this is one thriller that's simply impossible to put down until you've reached the ending - breathless and so well satisfied. Tintori and Gregory are first rate story tellers! ”--M.J. Rose, international bestselling author of The Memorist

“Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori return with another extraordinary thriller after their outstanding The Book of Names. Their new novel, The Illumination, skillfully weaves history, ancient art, dark legend and religious fanaticism into a story of high-stakes terror and international intrigue. The excitement stays at a high pitch from the opening scene at the looted Iraqi National Museum to the final sensational twist. A page-turner. extraordinaire.”--New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston, co-author of The Monster of Florence and The Wheel of Darkness

“Stirring and imaginative. A tense, intelligent, and surprising thrill. Drum tight in execution, fueled by imagination, the plot is as sharp as a broken shard of glass. If you like your tales loaded with intrigue, treachery, and a wealth of secrets you're going to love The Illumination.”-- New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry, author of The Charlemagne Pursuit and The Templar Legacy

(Purchasing Information at
http://us.macmillan.com/theillumination)

The Illumination Excerpt

The Illumination
A Novel
By Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori

Excerpt

Prologue

Iraq National Museum

Baghdad

April 12, 2003

Ibrahim Baaj picked his way through the darkness.

All around him, irreplaceable history lay shattered. As U.S. troops advanced along the dusty streets of Baghdad, chaos and pandemonium ruled. And so did greed.

Ibrahim understood greed. He was driven by it. It was greed that called him here tonight as common looters stormed the great museum. Little did this rabble know that his greed surpassed even theirs. As did his daring.

He was betraying men so powerful, so far-reaching, that he himself marveled at the brazenness of his own audacity.

Ibrahim smiled to himself through the sweat dripping from beneath his mustache. This steamy stone building was home to 170,000 of Mesopotamia’s oldest cultural treasures—some dating back to the cradle of civilization. Yet the crazed throng coursed through the galleries, shooting, grabbing, smashing, and plundering as if they were in a junk shop.

Very few were professionals as he was, searching with purpose and discrimination, carefully selecting the booty they would spirit away. Yet he suspected that amid this greedy throng there must be one or two agents who’d been sent by the United States or Israel, for both nations knew that this museum hid the greatest treasure of them all. The treasure he’d come for and intended to claim before the night was over.

Ibrahim gasped for air as he descended alone into the windowless, blackened bowels of the building and the oxygen-deprived chamber closed in around him. He paused to listen, blinking as beads of sweat stung his eyes. Despite the clamor above, he could discern no sounds down here besides his own ragged breaths. Trying to ignore the stale stench, he edged forward, prowling through the tomblike underworld of the museum’s five basement storerooms. The narrow beam of his flashlight was nearly useless, barely illuminating the floor directly beneath his feet.

No matter. He’d had twelve years while Saddam’s Republican Guard patrolled the compound—fearing another American strike—to memorize the crudely sketched layout that Aslam Hameed had given him. Twelve years to rehearse in his mind’s eye, waiting for a night like this one, with Saddam in hiding, the Americans on the march, and the museum’s courtyard gates smashed open. Now the moment was upon him.

He must seize it.

Nejeeb Zayadi knew the fifth storeroom as well as he knew his own wife’s body. Lovingly, he’d cared for the treasure secreted within it, just as his family had for generations. They were a family of caretakers.

Only a few outside of his brood knew what lay nestled here within the lockers. The slim storage bins looked innocuous enough—like the metal lockers outside any school gymnasium. But these compartments that he tended, checking daily to make certain they were secure, held wealth beyond measure. Coins, gold, silver—and the Eye.

Even the director of the museum knew nothing of the Eye’s presence. She didn’t even possess keys for all of the locks in this vast museum. It was he, Nejeeb, who had slipped the treasure deep inside the back set of lockers in 1966, transferring it from the old museum alongside the Tigris, where his father had preceded him in watching over it.

Nejeeb’s father had been a child when the vigil began. He’d told Nejeeb many times about how he was awakened by the voice of the stranger who had come to his father in the dead of night.

“Guard this until I return. I will make it well worth your trouble,” the stranger had said in a voice that sounded to the sleepy boy like the wind howling across the sand.

As Nejeeb’s father had peeked through the crack in the door, he’d watched his father shivering in his nightshirt, staring down at something in his palm, looking stunned.

“What is this?” Nejeeb’s grandfather had asked.

“Something dangerous in the wrong hands. I am entrusting you with it because your family name is an honored one, recorded among those who served in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar. Your table will always have bread and your sons will always have honor if you keep this safe.”

Nejeeb’s grandfather was dead now. Nejeeb’s father was dead, too, and Nejeeb himself was an old man. Soon his eldest son would step into the role of caretaker. For how long? Nejeeb wondered. Year after year, the money still came, but the strange man had never returned.

Nejeeb hoped that in his lifetime he would learn the truth about that which he guarded. If he could keep it safe through tonight?.?.?.?

A sudden sound in the darkness made Nejeeb jump. Footsteps. The creak of a drawer opening. One of the looters has made his way to the treasure rooms. Someone who knows to search for the keys.

Nejeeb’s gnarled hand tightened momentarily on the key he kept pinned inside his shirt, then fell to his side as he groped for his gun. But what good was a gun in the dark? Swearing under his breath, his fingers latched onto his pushbroom—it would sweep in a wider arc.

Fear congealed in his bowels as he heard the footsteps coming closer. More drawers opening, closing. A quick gleam of light, a shadow—all he needed to pinpoint the intruder. The old man lunged, lashing out fiercely with his broom, but it sliced through dead air. He swung it again and this time it connected—but he found himself suddenly dragged with it, pitching forward, down. Hitting the ground, he choked on dust and fumbled in panic for the gun—but it was too late.

He felt the blade nick at his throat an instant before it slashed his Adam’s apple in two.

Blood spurted across Ibrahim Baaj’s beard as he dispassionately searched the old caretaker’s body in the dark, hunting for a key ring. Nothing had jangled when he’d fallen.

Ibrahim’s search was quick but thorough. His fingers froze on the single key pinned inside the old man’s shirt.

One key. Interesting. It could be the one.

He switched on the flashlight for an instant, and located the lockers. Then, careful not to slip on the blood pooled around the old man’s body, he moved toward the lockers, praying for a perfect fit.

There wasn’t much time. He was surprised he hadn’t already been forced to dispatch a competitor tonight, one armed with inside information as accurate as his own. But the air held only the smell of must and blood and death, no hint of the adrenaline sweat of another human.

Noiselessly, he slid the key into a dozen locks before a tumbler finally clicked home. His heart thrummed with excitement as he pried open the door.

His fingers found a worn leather pouch tucked behind boxes of metal coins, clay cylinders, and small pottery figurines, all of which he ignored. He tore at the drawstring. There was no time to study it now, but he beamed the light inside just long enough to glimpse the dull gleam of ancient gold and the gem-emblazoned eyes staring back at him, one from each side. He had it: The prize countless men around the world had been seeking for centuries was in his palm.

Through pitch darkness, Ibrahim retraced his steps. Barely breathing, he slipped through the mob of thieves like an eel through deep water, smuggling the treasure through the chaos and rubble, easily concealing it within the pocket of his coat.

Then he was racing through the shouts and the gunfire of the streets. Panting, he sank into his car and sped north until he came to a field far from the city, far from the gun battles raging through Baghdad.

Ignoring the thick curtain of unrelenting heat, Ibrahim hacked at the dirt until he’d dug three feet down. He paused only for a moment to wipe the sweat stinging his eyes and to gaze upon the treasure again before he buried it.

It was just as it had been described in the crumbling manuscript he’d been shown: the timeworn leather drawstring pouch, painted on each side with a black-rimmed eye of bright blue.

A shiver ran through him as he untied the pouch adorned with the ancient protective symbol, thinking of the riches its contents would bring him. Carefully, he found the golden chain nestled within, and he drew the egg-shaped pendant out.

The Eye. It was magnificent, like no other—a pendant of hammered gold inlaid on both sides with jewels depicting an eye. He turned it over to make sure—smiling as he saw the identical orb staring at him from the opposite side.

Greedily his fingers traced over the red and yellow gemstones forming the center of the Eye and around the borders of lapis lazuli lined thick as Cleopatra’s kohl.

But Ibrahim dared not break apart the pendant to gaze upon the treasure locked inside.

His hands shaking slightly with urgency, he shoved it back inside the pouch and buried it, as war raged throughout his homeland. The treasure and its innate power had lain hidden for centuries here in Babylon. It would remain hidden a bit longer, until his price was met.

Ibrahim Baaj snuck back into the city by the same route he’d left it. Tomorrow, while the world learned how horribly its cultural history had been plundered, he would betray those who had hired him to seize it and would launch the bidding war for his prize.

But there was no tomorrow for Ibrahim. As he listened to the sounds of war exploding through his city, war came to him. A rapid burst of gunfire ripped through the windshield and blew his left eye through the back of his head.



Chapter 1

Five years later

Baghdad

The sand was everywhere—in her throat, in her eyelashes, embedded beneath the screw-on cap of her Gatorade bottle. Dana Landau had always loved the beach, but after three months in Iraq she’d be more than happy to never again feel the grit of sand between her toes.

“A few more minutes and I’ll have the rest of the footage,” her cameraman, Rusty Sutherland, called out.

“Make it fast.” Dana glanced warily around as he panned the wreckage yet again. She’d seen enough. And every minute they were out here, away from the fragile security of the Green Zone, they were in the devil’s hands.

If you liked this excerpt, read the full book by purchasing it at http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage.aspx?isbn=9780312375973#Excerpt

Blog Tours Coming

Next week is going to be a busy week for me on this blog. I will be hosting two author blog tours right here on Sue's Snippets. I am so excited!

On Monday, January 26th, Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori, authors of The Illumination, will be sharing their book with us. There will be a book give-away. So make sure you stop by and comment on Monday, January 26th. It is an all day event online.

Wednesday, January 28th, Phyllis Schrieber, author of Sinner's Guide to Confession, will be right here on Sue's Snippets. Make sure you stop by on Wednesday, January 28th and make a comment to have a chance in Phyllis' book give-away. This is another online all day event.

I am looking forward to all comments and questions for these two blog tours.

Til Next Time!