The Book Bin

Interview with Denise Robbins, author of 'Phish NET Stalkings'

High-tech becomes high-risk in Denise Robbins’ novels. The New Hampshire based author uses two decades of experience in computers to explore the killer possibilities in technology. Denise integrates her knowledge of computers and technology along with secrets, intrigue, suspense, and even a little romance into all of her techno-romantic thriller novels. Readers and reviewers agree Denise writes stories that will keep you at the edge of your seat and clamoring for more.

Her latest book is Phish NET Stalkings.

You can visit her website at http://www.deniserobbins.com.

Thank you for this interview, Denise. Why was writing Phish NET Stalkings so important to you?

Have you ever received a phishing email? One of those little emails that invade your privacy and try to steal your information? I have. I’ve been hacked. I’ve had my information stolen and it was not pretty. Now I’ve learned. By the time users finish reading Phish NET Stalkings they will hopefully know the dangers and know how to protect themselves.

What was the experience like writing Phish NET Stalkings?

Writing Phish NET Stalkings was different for me because my hero was a small town cop and the heroine is afraid of badges. I used my own anxiety toward men with beards to help in portraying the heroine’s fear of men with badges.

Can you tell us more about Cooper Chance, the chief of police?

Cooper is an ex-FBI cybercrime specialist turned small town cop. After a yearlong job on a special task force, Cooper Chance has to leave the FBI or lose his mind. He’s seen too many bad things.

What are his strengths and what are his weaknesses?

His strengths are his cybercrime skills, but also his love of children and women and making certain they are safe. His weakness is also that love of wanting to keep people safe. He gets involved.

Why does Jane have a fear of cops?

When Jane was younger, she hid in the closet while her mother was murdered. Her only real recollection is seeing a shiny badge on the person who killed her mother.

Are there any supporting characters we need to know about?

Jack is Cooper’s longtime friend who helped get him the job as chief of police. David is Jane’s business partner and mentor, and the man who helped turn her life around. Amy is Jane’s best friend from college and they are still close.

Can you open to page 25 and tell us what’s happening?

The hero and one of his police officers who is a longtime friend are planning on going out for a drink to a local bar and grill called Billy’s. Jack is impatiently pounding on Cooper’s office door while Cooper is rushing to change clothes. I don’t dare tell you more, but suffice it to say, Cooper is in such a rush that he doesn’t get completely out of his disguise before he leaves his office.

What about page 65?

Jane, my heroine, just walks into her house after a very disturbing evening out with a friend and her first encounter with the hero, Cooper Chance.

Now that Phish NET Stalkings has been published, what’s your next project?

I just finished my sixth novel with a working title of At Face Value. Cannot wait for it to be published. It takes place in Ireland, has murder, mystery, and the IRA all wrapped into one.

Thanks, Denise, for this wonderful interview. Do you have anything you’d like to tell our readers that hasn’t been discussed?

I hope you enjoy reading Phish NET Stalking as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to let me know what you think.

What's the Price of Invoking a Plant Teacher?

We have a great guest today.  Caroline Alethia, author of Plant Teacher, is here to talk about the price of invoking a plant teacher.

What’s the Price of Invoking a Plant Teacher?

By Caroline Alethia

The idea for the novel, Plant Teacher, was born on a lazy evening at a small guest house in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. I had arrived in the country several days earlier, and, as so often happens when we travel, I immediately bumped into a colorful character. “Greg” was a retired U.S. army colonel who had come to eastern Bolivia to research a book about the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara.

As we lounged in the private patio, sitting under unfamiliar constellations of the southern hemisphere, and enjoying a warm breeze that played across the palm fronds, Greg regaled me with the story of his ayahuasca experience.

Ayahuasca, also known as caapi, is a psychotropic concoction brewed by indigenous people in the Amazonian regions. Under the guidance of a shaman, people imbibe (or sometimes inhale) ayahuasca in order to experience its hallucinogenic effects. The hallucinations caused by ayahuasca, and the plants that cause these hallucinations, are known as “plant teachers” because they supposedly impart spiritual guidance and knowledge.

Greg’s trip had, in his opinion, been a good one. He described to me seeing dozens of snakes and feeling that the snakes were benevolent. He had beckoned them to come and entwine themselves around him, and although this scenario would cause most people to break into a cold sweat, Greg enjoyed this bonding with his serpentine plant teachers. He valued the experience as something which had brought him closer to the natural and spiritual worlds, and he felt that he had attained a degree of enlightenment via the encounter.

I listened to Greg’s story with frank skepticism. I recalled a girlfriend who, years earlier, had also experimented with indigenous drugs while studying anthropology in Latin America. Her drug use had been followed by a manic outbreak and, ultimately, chronic bipolar disorder. While the two events, the drug use and the bipolar disorder, could not be causally correlated, I wondered. I knew that I would never try a hallucinogenic plant unless the infusion was forcefully shoved between my unwilling lips.

As Greg and I left the patio that evening and retired to our respective bungalows, I considered the possibility that an ayahuasca trip might speak to both ends of a spectrum. Suppose the “student” took away both positive and negative experiences from the hallucinogenic episode? Suppose the plant teachers did, indeed, impart wisdom, but there was a price that came with that wisdom?

Two years later, I found myself revisiting these questions as I typed, reflected, and plotted out the actions, choices, and destiny of one of the main characters in Plant Teacher, Martin Banzer. With the omnipotence of the fiction writer, I forced Martin to try ayahuasca, and then I watched where his experimentation took him. Now, I invite the reader to also follow Martin’s journey and, at the same time, to entertain the question, Does wisdom come at a price?

Author Bio:

Caroline Alethia is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, on radio and in web outlets. Her words have reached audiences on six continents. She lived in Bolivia and was a witness to many of the events described in Plant Teacher.

You can visit her website at www.plantteacherthebook.net.

About the Book:

Hailed by Huffington Post contributor Joel Hirst as a compelling and powerful story, Plant Teacher begins in 1972 when a hippie in Oakland, California flushes a syringe of LSD down a toilet. Thirty-five years later, the wayward drug paraphernalia has found its final resting place in Los Yungas, Bolivia, the umbilical cord between the Andes and Amazonia.

Enter into this picture two young Americans, Cheryl Lewis, trying to forge her future in La Paz and Martin Banzer, trying to come to terms with his past in the same city. The two form an unlikely friendship against the backdrop of a country teetering at the brink of dictatorship and revolution.

Bolivia sparks the taste for adventure in both young people and Martin finds himself experimenting with indigenous hallucinogenic plants while Cheryl flits from one personal relationship to another. Meanwhile, the syringe buried in the silt in a marsh in Los Yungas will shape their destinies more than either could anticipate or desire.

Plant Teacher takes its readers on a fast-paced tour from the hippie excesses of Oakland, to the great streams of the Pacific Ocean and to the countryside, cities, natural wonders and ancient ruins of Bolivia. It reveals­ the mundane and the magical, and, along the way, readers glimpse the lives of everyday Bolivians struggling to establish equanimity or merely eke out a living during drastic political crisis.