Thursday, July 22, 2010

Meet Brendan Carroll





Today I'm pleased to introduce Brendan Carroll, who has an entire series available for you to enjoy.  Leave a comment for Brendan and for any previous or future authors in this author party and you will be eligible to win a $50.00 Amazon.com gift certificate!

The Red Cross of Gold:. Assassin Chronicles leans toward fantasy, but is set in modern times and centers around a rather grumpy, semi-immortal knight left over from the Crusades. He is one of twelve members of the ruling Council of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold. His primary job as Knight of Death and assassin for the order makes him a rather dark character to start with. His secondary occupation as alchemist requires his attention in a dusty, musty old lab in Scotland making gold to support the Order’s financial needs. He considers himself a simple monk and wants nothing more than to be left alone, but fate has other things in store for him. The Order’s Grand Master sends him on a mission to America to retrieve a traitorious member of the Order who has defected to another Order. It should have been a simple snatch and grab mission, dead or alive, no problem, but he runs into trouble in Texas when he runs afoul of nasty little fellow who throws some sort of mysterious chemical in his face that causes him to temporarily forget who he is and why he’s there. By the time his memories return, he is in deep trouble.

I have always been interested in mystical subjects such as the mystery of the Templar Knights’ treasures, the Ark of the Covenant mystery, Freemasonry legends, mythology, conspiracy theories, ufo’s, quantum physics, time travel, cosmology and other subjects too numerous to mention. The myriad facts and trivia that I amassed over the years inspired me to attempt to tie everything together in one simple package.

I guess my favorite character has to be the Chevalier Mark Andrew Ramsay, Knight of Death. But I have a number of characters I am quite fond of throughout the series. I love to start off making the reader dislike the characters and then gradually cause them to fall in love with them. I wouldn’t ever classify the books as romance exclusively, but I have heard from a number of my female readers just how sexy my grumpy knight really is.

In addition to writing, I’ve done a variety of crafty things over the years from making birdhouses to oil painting (which I found much too expensive and messy to continue). I love to draw and paint and make things. I’m an amateur bird-watcher and I collect wind-up toys.

Right now, I’m attempting to read The Cost of Betrayal by David Dalglish. I have Gone for a Soldier by Jeff Hepple waiting in my kindle as well as a number of other indie books that sound very interesting. I am also reading a new book about faeries.

In the works is The Red Cross of Gold XVIII:. The Company of Women, the eighteen book in the Assassin Chronicles series. It should be out before the end of the month. I have written all the books in the series already and am now simply editing and formatting them for kindle, smashwords and paperback editions.

Here is a very nice review I received on The Knight of Death from one of my readers:

This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I took my kids swimming, and sat there for 3 hours engrossed and on the edge of my seat. They had to beg me to take them home, because I didn't want to stop reading. Every time I got a free minute, I wanted to get back to this book. I am so glad there are many more in the series!

Our hero is Mark Ramsay, immortal Templar Knight, alchemist and assassin, rough and tough and oh so gorgeous. He finds himself kidnapped and without his memory, and discovers who he is and what he is about, along with the reader. Just when you think things can't get any worse for our hero, his Brothers come to his......rescue? Murder and mayhem, sword fights and brawls, flashbacks to life during the Crusades, love and loss and sex and even some unexpected humor all abound in this terrific tale.

I highly recommend this series!


My books can be found at Amazon.com, smashwords and Barnes & Noble. They are also listed on KOBO and in the I-store and are available in a number of e-formats as well as paperbacks.

I have blogs at Blogspot, Wordpress & Author’s Den. I can be found on Facebook, LibraryThing, Shelfari and Goodreads.

4 people stopped folding laundry to write:

Janice Seagraves said...

Sounds like a very intriguing story, something I could get lost in myself. I love that kind of a book. ;)

Janice~

Nancy said...

Wow! I'm intrigued. :)

*18* books?? How long did it take to write all of those? Was the series "complete" before you started, or did it come to you one book at a time?

Nancy said...

tweeted: http://twitter.com/no_zimmer/status/19300536501

:)

Nancy said...

Bought the book :) Can't wait to start reading it!!

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