BooksChatter: ℚ♫ The Shadow Man

Today we have the pleasure of meeting up with author Mark Brownless to talk about The Shadow Man (21 April 2019, Mark Brownless, 262 pages), a dark psychological horror thriller.

Great book, from start to finish - absolutely loved the dialogue and banter between the characters. If you've enjoyed recent offerings by CJ Tudor and Gytha Lodge, you'll enjoy this too. ~ Amazon Verified Purchase

A really good read, excellent plot that kept me guessing nearly to the end. A gripping book that I could not put down. ~ Amazon Verified Purchase

‘A fantastic twisty horror tale such of the style of the moment, like The Chalk Man by C J Tudor.’ ~ Books and Emma blog

~ Rachel Read It blog

|| Synopsis || Trailer || Teaser: KCR Preview || Author Q&A || About the Author || Tour Stops ||

A very warm welcome to Mark Brownless; thank you for joining us on BooksChatter!

Here at BooksChatter we love music; do you have a music playlist that you used in The Shadow Man , or which inspired you whilst you were writing it?

"Whilst I love to write to Hans Zimmer's Interstellar theme, maybe the more interesting music story is that I write the music for my trailers, the Shadow Man is here."

What was the inspiration for The Shadow Man?

"The story was inspired by C.J. Tudor’s The Chalk Man, and that whole vibe of kids riding round their hometown knowing something is going on that the grown-ups don’t.

It got me to thinking about doing the same thing around my home village, and how those memories came back to me in layers at a time, like I was peeling away at something deeper beneath, and what if that something was sinister, or uncovered something terrible."

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

"Well it’s kind of me and how I remember some parts of my childhood, with a horror-murder-whodunnit superimposed on top!"

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

"I like to create my own covers and I was searching around in Pixabay one day, looking for just something a little different and I found the image that became the cover for The Shadow Man.

It’s by a Finnish photographer called Mikko Karskela. It’s very different as a horror cover, but it also said ‘sinister’ to me, and it featured a lake, which is quite pivotal in the book. Although work on Pixabay is free to use, I contacted Mikko to ask his permission anyway, which he kindly granted, and I’ve just sent him a signed copy of the book as a thank you, which I hope he likes!"

Why should we read The Shadow Man and what sets it apart from the rest? What makes your book unique?

"I spent quite some time thinking about what is scary and decided that it was taking what we know as memories and experiences and finding out that they weren’t as we remembered them, that our memories, and perhaps our lives had been a lie and we were perhaps even complicit in bad things happening that we have no recollection of."

Can you tell us something quirky about The Shadow Man, its story and characters?

"The main inspiration was my friends and I – a group of teenage boys – riding around my home village like we owned the place. In the book, all the characters are girls in the scenes told in flashback and women in present day when they return to their home village to find out what really happened, once and for all. In a reverse of a lot of horror, there are no strong male characters in the book, apart from the title character."

Who would you recommend The Shadow Man to and what should readers be aware of (any warnings or disclaimers)?

"I would tentatively say if you like Stephen King or C J Tudor then The Shadow Man might be something for you. I’m not trying to say I’m in the same league as those people, though! It is a horror novel though, so there are some disturbing scenes – nothing too graphic I don’t think – and there’s a fair amount of language."

If you could / wished to turn The Shadow Man into a movie, who would be your dream team?

"I haven’t got any particularly strong feelings about this – I did for my last book, but not this one – Rob Reiner would be an obvious director but cast-wise...

I have just written a song that would be a great ‘end credits’ thing for The Shadow Man movie to play out to. Wonder if Lady GaGa and Bradley Cooper have got anything pressing in their diary in the next week or two… "

LOL now you've put A Star Is Born in my head!

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 have absolutely no control of what I write about, my head just decides to start to go to work and my hands have to keep up.

I’ve previously written a medical thriller, The Hand of an Angel, and mainly write thrillers, horror, crime, but have also done some historical fiction short stories about Robin Hood. I love reading these genres too plus some sci fi as well."

What is your writing process?

"I don’t have one. I have a day job, so I just try and grab any opportunity to write that I can. So it can be at the laptop, dictating on the phone, remembering stuff I’ve just thought of in the shower – anything goes really.

I am a little obsessed with Hans Zimmer's Interstellar soundtrack, and I do love writing to that if I can."

What is in store next?

"I’m currently working on two projects. One is another horror novel where I’ve taken as many horror tropes as I can to weave into a story that is designed to really scare you. The other is the start of a planned series that will be my Bond / Bourne / Reacher type character."

And as a final quirky thing, to get to know you a little bit better... do you have a pet or something that is special to you that you could share with us?

"I’m kind of obsessed with unexplained phenomena – and this comes from a weekly magazine in the 80s called, spookily enough, The Unexplained. Each week there were tales of UFOs, Bigfoot, Nessie, etc.

It’s probably no surprise that this has crept through into my writing, with my first two novels having themes involving near-death experience and spontaneous human combustion (which The Unexplained devoted quite a lot of magazine time to as I recall).

To complete my unofficial unexplained trilogy, an upcoming book has a theme of alien abduction."