I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing one of today’s hottest new authors, Chris Kerns, about his book that releases today: Crash Alive.
Or, I should say, I had the great idea of interviewing one of today’s hottest new authors about his new book, Crash Alive, which releases today. But instead, we opted to binge watch House of Cards & The Mindy Project while partaking in some bourbon and wine.
By the time our Netflix and Hulu fixes were satisfied, it was late and time for bed (the author is my husband, if that wasn’t clear already) so I suggested that in lieu of conducting an actual interview, I could just make some assumptions about how an interview would go. Since we’ve been together for 19 years, I have a pretty good feel for what his answers would be, plus, it gave him more time to watch videos of dogs who are bad at catching things and then go to bed while I stayed up typing.
Me: Thank you for taking the time to meet with me. Your home is lovely. I particularly like your collection of Star Wars Lego books and the archaeological-dig-worthy assortment of food bits under your kitchen table.
Mr. Kerns: The pleasure is all mine. Might I add, you look particularly fetching tonight in your maternity yoga pants.
Why thank you. I’ve been wearing them for three days straight because I can’t put down your new book, Crash Alive! By the way, is this your first book?
It’s my first novel but I also wrote a business book called Trendology which is all about using data to measure the value of real time marketing.
Mmmmm. You sound smart and sexy. Can you go upstairs and check which of the kids just caused that giant crashing sound?
It was a cat.
Speaking of crashing, tell us about your book, Crash Alive.
It’s a mysterious Internet puzzle. A secret society holding the world in balance. A hacker that has been pushed too far—and is about to push back.
Wow, that almost sounds like your wife took the lazy route and copy and pasted the Amazon.com summary of your book. I’ll phrase this next question so that it can also be answered using your Amazon summary: The main character in the story is a ‘girl next door’ who is able to use her computer & coding skills to solve amazing mysteries. Tell us more about her.
The only comfort teenager Haylie Black knows is in the world of technology—coding late into the night, building cool gadgets, and occasionally breaking into places where she doesn’t belong. But Haylie’s world is turned upside down when she learns shocking news: her brother has vanished attempting to solve an Internet puzzle known as “Raven 2309.”
To find him, Haylie must enter an unknown world, circling the globe and uncovering the dangerous group behind Raven’s design, to outsmart a puzzle that has never been solved; the puzzle called “The Greatest Mystery on the Internet.”
Crash Alive is a next-generation thriller, featuring hacking techniques ripped from today’s headlines, real-world secret societies, and puzzles that will keep readers turning the next page, trying their best to stay one step ahead.
One of the real world secret societies you refer to in the book is the all-male Bohemian Grove. The Washington Post recently tied this group to the International Order of St. Hubertus, which is the group Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was hanging out with when he died recently. That’s a pretty big coincidence.
Yes, I was concerned people may read the book and not believe that such a secret society exists, but now the whole world has heard of it.
That seems like pretty good timing for your book release.
What are you getting at?
Well, he was in Texas……and YOU live in Texas…….
No more wine for you.
Just sayin’……..
As a fellow writer who often has a hard time pulling together an 800 word blog post more than once every 3 months, can you tell me how you managed to write an entire f*#@ing novel in just one year?
It was all about being disciplined with my time. I woke up early and wrote before I would leave for work………..
Yeah, I don’t like waking up early.
And I would try to take a couple hours each weekend to dedicate to writing…..
Nope. My weekends are dedicated to endlessly cycling through lists of things that I should be doing in my head without actually doing them. What else?
I got in the habit of using any free bits of time to squeeze in some writing.
That sounds like it would really get in the way of my obsessive Facebook refreshing.
I’m sure your children would appreciate that.
Well, I have to tell you, I really loved the book. It was a fun mix of Da Vinci Code type excitement and sequential mystery solving with high tech and internet based puzzles. I especially love that the hero of the book is a smart & clever young girl. That sounds like someone I know.
Like our daughter?
I was talking about me…..but she’s clever & smart too. I would love to see girls read this book and get really excited about learning more about STEM.
Speaking of which, is Crash Alive appropriate for young readers?
My 10 year old daughter was the first person to ever read Crash Alive and she can’t wait for all her friends to read it. It’s intended to be a great read for both Adults & Young Adults. There are a few “goddamnits”, “hells” and one “asshole” in the book.
Just the word “asshole”, right?
Go to sleep.
Where can people purchase Crash Alive?
It’s available in print and for Kindle at Amazon starting today
I hope you sell a million copies & get a movie deal.
So does my wife.
You can read more about the research that went into the book, Crash Alive, on Chris’s blog, Chris-Kerns.com.
Read more about Chris’s other book, Trendology.
I also wrote about the Trendology release here and Chris’s amazing 10th Anniversary gift to me here.
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xo - Susanne
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Love this post 🙂
Just ordered–I’m excited to read and I’m thinking Sam will want to read too!
Thank you – I’ll let Chris know! Definitely leave a review at Amazon after you read it to let us know how you liked it.
Went fun a run this morning – missed you! 🙂