Today it is my pleasure to welcome author R.W Buxton and his Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance novel, Beverly Hills Torture.

Author’s description

A frantic middle of the night call jolts Gerry from his quiet, but lonely life, back into a world fraught with dangerous creatures of the night. Erin’s frenzied call leads Gerry across the country where he finds himself immersed in the luxuries of Beverly Hills and the seedier side of the Hollywood strip.

Sadness and longing grip him as he finds a blood-spattered room and Erin is nowhere to be found.  Alone in a strange city with nothing to go on can Gerry find and save Erin? Or is this the end of something never meant to be?

 

Her past has caught up with her and he’s her only hope. With a group of trusted friends Gerry takes on the impossible and gives everything to save Erin.

 

Beverly Hills Torture is the second novel in the Erin Kingsly series. Be sure to check out Capital Thirst.

How much backstory should one provide?

Noticing this is the second book in a series, I asked the author about his approach to providing information from the first book. Here is his response.

I read a lot of series. It seems that it’s the most popular format for authors to write these days. Honestly, when I started writing Capital Thirst, the first book, it wasn’t my intention of writing a series myself. But there was more story than I wanted to stuff into a single book so I did it, I started a series.

Backstory is always an issue, whether it’s the second or third book of a series or the first book. The trick is to get it in so the reader knows what’s going on, without boring them to death. I hope I could achieve that. I am reading the second book in a series by another author. I loved the first one, but in the second book the author will take paragraphs in the middle of action to cover the backstory from the first book. I tried not to do this. As a reader of the first book, I find I just skip this stuff and even if I hadn’t read the first book, I don’t need to know the details of what happened just that something did and it has an impact now.

When I wrote Beverly Hills Torture, I knew new readers wouldn’t know what happened in Capital Thirst but there are just key parts they needed to know. So if you read Beverly Hills Torture without reading Capital Thirst I tried to only include the key points that you need to know without retelling what happened in the first book.  This also means a lot of what was in Capital Thirst isn’t revealed. But I hope just enough for the reader to know why things are happening in Beverly Hills Torture.

Most of the backstory I tried to include in dialog or quick thoughts that Erin or Gerry have. There is a bit of explanation in the first chapter, but when you jump in right in the middle there has to be a brief explanation because the new reader knows nothing about the characters.

Writing a series is a progressive thing to undertake. In the first book, all you need to worry about is the backstory of the characters. In the second book, you have to worry about the character backstory and reintroducing it for new readers as well as including key elements of what happened in the first book. The third and fourth books are even more difficult to pick the details because there are a lot more of them and keeping them straight becomes more and more complicated. Not to mention deciding which ones are important and which aren’t.

It’s a balancing act, I hope I have enough, but if I erred, I would prefer to err on the side of not enough. If it’s not there, readers can make their own decisions or assumptions. If they’re curious, they can go back and read the first book. But I would rather do that than spend paragraphs writing about what happened that will bore readers that have read it and may or may not add something for the readers that have.

The facts about how Gerry became a “day walker,” and his relationship with Erin are all there. The rest, if I really felt it was important, is there.

About the Author

I love a good paranormal read, something about the un-dead haunts the fringes of my mind. Mix in romance, love, loss, and you have a great story.

I voraciously read everything, fiction, and non-fiction but always find myself turning back to the darker stories. I’ve always wanted to write and the dream became a reality with Capital Thirst, and the remainder of the Erin Kingsly novels.

I spend most of my days designing and building websites, but my free time is devoted to my wife, family, and cats. Yes three grown children and three cats. Things can be hectic.

For fun you might find me driving winding roads with the top down or out photographing nature.

Find the Author at:
Website: RWBuxton.com
Facebook: R.W. Buxton – Home | Facebook
Twitter  RW Buxton Author (@rwBuxtonAuthor) | Twitter
Other Links:
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/r-w-buxton
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19658320.R_W_Buxton
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48481089-capital-thirst
https://allauthor.com/author/rwbuxton/

Buy Beverly Hills Torture.
https://www.amazon.com/Beverly-Hills-Torture-Kingsly-Novel-ebook/dp/B0886HW69D/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beverly-hills-torture-rw-buxton/1136398689
https://books.apple.com/us/book/beverly-hills-torture/id1498346169
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/beverly-hills-torture

 Yes, there is a giveaway.

R.W. Buxton will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Enter here to win.

This post is part of a tour sponsored by Goddess Fish. Check out all the other tour stops. If you drop by each of these and comment, you will greatly increase your chances of winning.

My Favorite Excerpt

As he stood there staring, he couldn’t accept that Erin was gone. Now he was the sole person who could save her. Turning, he left his thoughts of Erin behind with the house. He started down over the grass, with no specific destination in mind. He just wanted to wander with his thoughts, trying to clear his mind and determine what the next course of action was.

He couldn’t do anything until Vernon arrived. He hoped Vernon would have some insight about what was going on. These were his people.

Whatever was going on was serious. A life and death matter. The way her bedroom appeared told him that much. Whoever took her wasn’t messing around.

Before Gerry could return to his thoughts, he ran out of lawn. A wrought-iron fence lined with towering, thin cypress trees blocked his path. The fence itself was about ten feet high. “So, there is a limit to her property,” he said out loud.

“Helloooo?” A woman’s voice broke through Gerry’s thoughts like an ice pick splitting a block of ice. “Is someone there?”