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Friday, July 19, 2013

CLEAN INDIE READS INTERVIEW

Many thanks to Lia London at Cleanindiereads.com for this nice interview! You can find it in its original form HERE.

CIR: What inspired you to write Wade Boss: Hybrid Hunter?
MM: When I taught middle and high school English, parents would express to me how difficult it was to find decent new material for their teenagers to read. And by “decent” they didn’t just mean well-written, they meant optimistic, uplifting, wholesome – not obsessed with darkness. Wade Boss: Hybrid Hunter is my answer to that lament. It’s principally an action-adventure story, but with a lot of humor layered in – and even a dash of CLEAN romance!

CIR: So, is this geared for your former students?
MM: Being a YA book, I recommend it for ages 12 and up, but that’s mostly a function of vocabulary and grammar – slightly younger kids who are strong readers will enjoy it as well. There’s a lot of depth as the saga unfolds, but also a lot of subtle wit for the older teens and even adults. There are strong male and female characters. It’s very much a book for the whole family.

CIR: Tell us a little about Wade Boss. The reviewers all love him.
MM: The controlling image for the story is the tag-line on the back cover of the book: “Dangerous New World. Old-Fashioned Hero.” Wade Boss is the kind of action hero I loved reading about when I was a young man: brave and capable, but also good-hearted. He’s an animal trainer who works in Hollywood, but he comes from Texas, and he’s cut from the cloth of the American cowboy. He isn’t perfect, but he tries very intentionally to be a good man.

CIR: Was his character based on anyone you know?
MM: Wade is sort of an amalgam of traits embodied by my many heroes. I’m a huge fan of the book Shane, by Jack Schaefer. There’s a bit of Shane in Wade, and also a little John Wayne. But of course Wade is also a man of today, with contemporary sensibilities. He’s a traditional kind of guy, but he’s not out of touch with the modern world. He’s very savvy, and certainly nobody’s fool.

CIR: Your fans are screaming for more. Will you give it to them?
MM: It’s going to be four-book series, and I’m up to my eyeballs writing the second book, Wade Boss: Agent of Mercy. It picks up with the new Genetic Anomalies Task Center nearing completion, and Wade has a ton of new responsibilities. His mission in life is to see that the hybrid creatures are apprehended unharmed, and then treated with respect. The relationships that began in Book 1 become much more fully developed, and of course the heat is on to figure out who is creating and unleashing the hybrids in the first place!

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