Over a year ago the extremely popular author J.A. Konrath
(Joe) left a blog post inviting authors to write a short story using any of his
characters and if he liked the story he would make adjustments and publish it
as a collaboration. This is something
quite common among talented and popular authors who have a large reader base
(See James Patterson.) He stated that he
would only publish the ones he liked and if the author’s work wasn’t chosen
they could simply change the character’s names and publish it on their own. Seemed fair.
So I submitted a story using his popular Jack Daniels character with one
of my characters, Tommy Bracco, FBI agent Nick Bracco’s mafia-connected cousin.
A few weeks later Joe contacted me to let me know that he
really liked my short story and he would publish it. Here is the Link to that story released on
Amazon’s Kindle Worlds yesterday:
At the time Joe asked if I would be interested in writing a full
length novel using Jack Daniels with my Nick Bracco character. Of course I was thrilled with the offer and
immediately went to work on the project.
Fast forward a year.
The book is finished. I contacted
Joe only to discover that his plate is full of projects and he can’t actually
collaborate on the book, but he would sanction the release and for part of the proceeds
(something I already offered him before I started) he would pay for the
proofreading, the cover and even the formatting to have it released on several
platforms. These were things I already
had budgeted for, but Joe felt compelled to pay for these services himself. This is a leap of faith for Joe, because if
the book isn’t up to his usual standards then his solid reputation can take a
hit.
The result is a brand new Nick Bracco/Jack Daniels Thriller
titled, A Touch of Tequila. Since all my Nick Bracco books start with A
Touch of . . . It was easy to keep that theme going along with using Tequila in
the title which is the name of a character from one of Joe’s earlier books, A
Shot of Tequila.
Both the short story and the novels are written by me, but
sanctioned by Joe. Even though I wasn’t
able to collaborate with him, I felt a responsibility to make sure his characters
were properly portrayed and behaved within the realm of their
personalities. I read and reread many of
the Jack Daniels thrillers for research and feel confident my work will
resonate with his readers. At the same
time, my own readers will definitely welcome the return of Nick, Matt and Tommy
Bracco.
If you’re a fan of either of ours, or just a thriller fan--take
a look below. It took a year to
accomplish, but I had fun playing in Joe’s sandbox and I think the wait was
worth it:
