Scott Bury Does JET Kindle Worlds!

 

Blog: http://writtenword.ca/wordpress/blog/

Russell: What brought you to the JET Series Kindle World?

Scott: I read the first JET novel as an advance review copy and loved the character and the world. I first heard about Kindle Worlds when another author, Toby Neal, invited me and a few others to participate in her Lei Crime Kindle World. I was knee-deep in writing that novella when Russell Blake invited me and other writers to join the JET Kindle World. How could I say no? The challenge was writing two short books, getting them edited and getting covers for them, then producing the e-book versions, on time. But it was a blast.

Russell: Tell us how your story links to the JET Series. Is there any crossover or meetings between your characters and any of the original characters? 

Scott: JET – Stealth includes Maya/Jet herself, and is set almost two years before the beginning of the action of the first JET novel. It begins with Jet on her way to her new, post-Mossad home in Trinidad, when she gets pulled into a new fight: an international crime cartel has stolen the prototype of a gun that can pass undetected by any technology. Naturally, the bad guys have the bad luck to try to hijack Jet’s flight. Mayhem ensues, during which Jet finds herself distracted by the unreasonably good looks of a freelancer opposing the Cartel and trying to take the stealth gun back to its inventor.

Russell: The JET Series books are fast-paced action and adventure stories. What other genres do you explore in your story?

Scott: I like blurring the boundaries between genres. With JET – Stealth, I decided to stay with action-adventure, but add in a little romance and a lot of humor. I’m hoping readers have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Russell: The JET series has been set all over the world… the Middle East, Asia, South American, the Caribbean, etc. Tell us about where you set your story, and why?

Scott: JET – Stealth is set in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, from Chetumal to Merida. I placed it there because it is plausibly en-route to Maya’s home in Trinidad from the first Jet novel.

Russell: Tell us a little about your main characters. Why do you think readers will like them?

Scott: Besides Jet, the protagonists in this story are Van and LeBrun. Van is both similar to Jet, and very different. For instance, he’s fit and unreasonably good looking. He knows how to handle weapons and how to fight. However, he doesn’t have a military background or any training in spycraft. Everything he knows, he’s had to learn by doing.
Van is also intelligent, and has a strong social conscience and an edgy, irrepressible sense of humor. Finally, Jet finds that there’s something about him that she just cannot stay away from.

His partner, the man who provides his weapons, gadgets and money, is a hardware genius named Earl LeBrun. This is the kind of guy who can make his own smart phone out of a broken mirror and components from an eight-track tape deck.

Russell:What made you into a writer?

Scott: I’ve loved writing stories since I was a child. After 20-plus year career as a journalist and editor, I decided to return to fiction and actually write those books I had dreamt of writing for so many years.

In 2012, I published the historical fantasy I had worked on intermittently for seven years: The Bones of the Earth. And it was then that I discovered the vibrant community of supportive writers online. I have published three more novels since then, as well as short stories and I cannot imagine how many blog posts. I have also found that I have more and more ideas for books, far more than I think I’ll ever be able to write.

Russell: Tell us about your interests besides writing.

Scott: I love to travel, to learn about different places I see on maps. I hope to be able to combine writing and travel more. For instance, my visits to the Yucatan, where JET – Stealth is set, informed the descriptions in the novella. I also visited Maui to do research for my previous book, Torn Roots.

In the future, I will try to base more stories on places I’ve actually been, or even better, visit interesting places that would make good settings for books.

Russell: What are you working on next, aside from the novella in the JET Series Kindle World?

Scott: I just may continue the story of Van and LeBrun, two freelancers fighting international crime and terrorism.

The next project that I absolutely have to finish is the follow-up to my memoir in novel form, Army of Worn Soles. That tells the true story of a man drafted into the USSR’s Red Army in 1941, just in time to face Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany’s invasions of the Soviet Union. I hope to be able to publish Under the Nazi Heel this year. It will tell the true story of my father-in-law’s role in the underground resistance to the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in 1942–44.

After that, all my readers tell me I have to write the sequel to The Bones of the Earth. I have the plot outlined. But it’s a big book. I just hope it doesn’t take me another seven years to complete.

And of course, if readers want it, I can write more about Van and LeBrun.