ℚ♫ No Rest for the Wicked - Dane Cobain

Today we have the pleasure of meeting up with author Dane Cobain, a fellow Brit, to talk about his début novella No Rest for the Wicked, a supernatural thriller (26 May 2015, Booktrope / Forsaken, 127 pages).

Author Q&A | Trailer | Synopsis | Teaser | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

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Hello Dane and welcome to BooksChatter.

What was the inspiration for your latest book, No Rest for the Wicked?

"Oddly enough, the main concept – the idea of the avenging Angels, who judge everyone as being guilty of sin – came to me in a dream.  I woke up and wrote it down, then forgot about it for a couple of weeks.  Then, I went back to it, started to flesh it out, and the novel was born!"

How much of yourself is reflected in this novella, and how?

"Good question! I usually put a lot of myself into my writing, but I tried to avoid that to some extent here because I wanted it to be as accessible as possible – because of that, I tried to use a wide mixture of characters so that there’d always be someone you could relate to.  However, the character of Robert Jones in particular has a lot in common with me – not his past, necessarily, but the way in which he thinks and acts."

The first thing that draws me to a book is its cover. Can you tell us about your cover - why you chose that concept and who the artist is.

"My cover artist is Ashley Ruggirello [Cardboard Monet], and she’s incredible – I’ve already recommended her work to a few of my other fellow authors, because her designs are consistently amazing.  For No Rest for the Wicked, we had a chat beforehand and I explained that the main thing that I wanted was an ambiguous cover – I didn’t want to put either the Angels or the main characters on the front cover, because I think it’s more powerful if their appearance is left to the readers’ imagination.  Ashley worked up a few concepts and then I picked the one I liked the most – we had to make a few tweaks, but what you see now is pretty close to her original concept."

Why should we read No Rest for the Wicked and what sets it apart from the rest?  What makes it unique?

"It’s just a really badass story – it rolls along really quickly and it’s one of those books that you could happily read in one sitting.  I think ‘unique’ is too strong a term for any book, these days – as a voracious reader myself, I probably only find one book a year that seems totally unique to me.  But you should read it because it’s fun to read – I don’t think you need any more of a reason than that!"

Can you tell us something quirky about the No Rest for the Wicked, its story and characters?

"Well Robert Jones, the secondary protagonist, has a quirky story behind his name, but that’s actually revealed in the book and so I can’t tell you much about it!  The Angels are pretty quirky, though – there are a few stylistic things that I had to think about.  The word ‘Angels’ should always be capitalised, they never appear by themselves and they don’t use contractions when they speak."

Who would you recommend this book to and what should readers be aware of (any warnings or disclaimers)?

"I think it has fairly wide appeal, so just anyone who enjoys a fast-paced story – it’s suitable for teens as well as for adults, although I do think that it’s particularly tailored towards a British audience just because of my writing style. "

If you could / wished to turn your No Rest for the Wicked into a movie, who would be your dream team?

"Interesting! Well, we’d have to do some filming at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider under the Franco-Swiss border, because that’s one of the locations in the novel, and I suspect that Father Montgomery would be played by someone like Sir Ian McKellen.  I’d also insist on using the church space at the Arts4Every1 Centre here in High Wycombe, where I held the book’s launch party, as the church that Montgomery lives and works at.  We already had a dramatic performance there and it worked really well – in my mind, that’s what Montgomery’s church looks like."

I am not familiar with that centre... but then again, I haven't been to High Wycombe for several years - we would usually go to the Swan or the Town Hall for the HellFire Comedy Club.  Yep, we are less than 20 miles away from each other :-)
Talking about your launch party, I know that you have put together a playlist of songs to listen to whilst reading No Rest For The Wicked, and which you also used during your launch party!  I love music, hence I would like to share it here for everyone :-)



What do you like to write and read about?  Do you stick to a particular genre or do you like to explore different ones?

"I like to experiment where possible, and so I try to think of new types of writing – in fact, I’ve been working on an RPG game (www.forsakenrpg.com) recently, purely because I thought it’d be fun to write the story to a computer game. My writing is usually quite dark, as well – I think that’s just because I think it’s more interesting to write about things falling apart than about things that are beautiful.

I try to explore elements of different genres, really – if anything, my work is usually more ‘literary’ than ‘horror’, but we’ll see what happens. I’m currently doing a lot of work with Forsaken, the horror imprint of my publisher, Booktrope, and so perhaps the other writers on the imprint will turn me into the next Clive Barker.

[When it comes to reading] I’m really into beat poetry and prose, as well as ‘classic’ writers like Hemingway and Graham Greene.  I also love detective fiction – not the more modern crime fiction, but stuff like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter.  But then, I’ve read more books by Terry Pratchett than by any other author, and let’s not forget that I read a lot of non-fiction, too!"

What is your writing process?

"Ha!  Oh dear, this is where I start to sound crazy.  I have something that I call ‘the system’, which helps me to stay productive – whenever I’m at home, I listen to music and then every time that the song changes, I switch activity.  I start by doing stuff on my computer, such as formatting websites and checking e-mails, then move on to tidying the house and doing stuff that involves me leaving my desk, and then finally spend the third song writing before repeating the process.  I think I might be a little bit OCD about it, but it helps me get stuff done and so I’ll stick with it."

I am envisioning three-minute deadlines and you running around like Speedy-Gonzales, although I suppose it would depend on the type of music you listen to...
Talking about OCD... I actually read about another couple of your peculiarities on your book blog... You only review hard copies (electronic books are banished - which funnily enough is the very opposite of what I do, although I do collect some first editions), and... your reviews have as many words as the number of pages in that book... hence No Rest for The Wicked would get a 127 words review.  Definitely quirky and possibly a little OCD ;-)

What is in store next? 

"I’m currently about 85,000 words into writing a novel called Former.ly, about a social networking site for the dead.  I’m hoping to have that going through edits by the end of the year, but there’s some other stuff I’m working on in the meantime – I’d love to put out a book of my poetry, and I’m also thinking about revisiting an old manuscript for a project called ‘Growing Up Fast’.  But there’s so much to do, I don’t know how I’m going to find time to do it – there’s no rest for the wicked."

I know exactly what you mean! Excellent placement ;-)
Once again, thank you so much for being with us Dane.    Best wishes with the tour and your future releases.

You can find out more about Dane Cobain and connect with him by visiting our About the Author section.  And don't forget...

No Rest for the Wicked - available NOW!

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