It’s Coffee Chat time!
Every Wednesdays I take the opportunity to chat with author friends or authors new to me. Today’s guest is S. Lee Manning with her featured book, Trojan Horse, a spy thriller!
Good morning, Sandy. How do you take your coffee?
SLM: Black. A lot of coffee. Non-stop coffee – until lunch when I cut it off.
Ally: We can easily manage that! While I pour, please introduce yourself to readers.
It’s Coffee Chat time!
Every Wednesdays I take the opportunity to chat with author friends or authors new to me. Today’s guest is S. Lee Manning with her featured book, Trojan Horse, a spy thriller!
Good morning, Sandy. How do you take your coffee?
SLM: Black. A lot of coffee. Non-stop coffee – until lunch when I cut it off.
Ally: We can easily manage that! While I pour, please introduce yourself to readers.
Bio:
S. Lee Manning spent two years as managing editor of Law Enforcement Communications before realizing that lawyers make a lot more money. A subsequent career as an attorney spanned from a first-tier New York law firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, to working for the State of New Jersey, to solo practice. In 2001, Manning agreed to chair New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NJADP), writing articles on the risk of wrongful execution and arguing against the death penalty on radio and television in the years leading up to its abolition in the state in 2007.
An award winning short story writer, Manning is the author of international thrillers. Her life-long interests in Russia and espionage are reflected in her Kolya Petrov thrillers. Her first novel, Trojan Horse, is coming in October 2020 from Encircle Publications.
Manning lives in Vermont with her husband and two cats, but frequently visits her daughter Jenny in California and her son Dean in New Jersey.
Something unusual/unique that isn’t in my regular bio: “I was a semi-finalist last year in Vermont’s Funniest Comedian contest. I wake up and decide whether I feel like making people laugh or torturing someone in a thriller novel– or maybe a combination of the two which would make me a Bond villain.”
Author Contacts:
Website: https://www.sleemanning.com
Contact me: https://www.sleemanning.com/contact.html
Twitter: @SLeeManning1952
Blog: https://www.sleemanning.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandra.manning.33
S. Lee Manning spent two years as managing editor of Law Enforcement Communications before realizing that lawyers make a lot more money. A subsequent career as an attorney spanned from a first-tier New York law firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore, to working for the State of New Jersey, to solo practice. In 2001, Manning agreed to chair New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NJADP), writing articles on the risk of wrongful execution and arguing against the death penalty on radio and television in the years leading up to its abolition in the state in 2007.
An award winning short story writer, Manning is the author of international thrillers. Her life-long interests in Russia and espionage are reflected in her Kolya Petrov thrillers. Her first novel, Trojan Horse, is coming in October 2020 from Encircle Publications.
Manning lives in Vermont with her husband and two cats, but frequently visits her daughter Jenny in California and her son Dean in New Jersey.
Something unusual/unique that isn’t in my regular bio: “I was a semi-finalist last year in Vermont’s Funniest Comedian contest. I wake up and decide whether I feel like making people laugh or torturing someone in a thriller novel– or maybe a combination of the two which would make me a Bond villain.”
Author Contacts:
Website: https://www.sleemanning.com
Contact me: https://www.sleemanning.com/contact.html
Twitter: @SLeeManning1952
Blog: https://www.sleemanning.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandra.manning.33
INTERVIEW:
Ally: What inspired you to write your featured book?
SLM: I’ve always loved the spy genre, because there’s good guys and bad guys, but a lot of what intelligence agencies on both sides do falls into a morally ambiguous area. I also like spy novels because – like fantasy novels, which I also enjoy – there’s a parallel world with stuff going on that the average person doesn’t know about and spies have to conceal who they really are. I wanted to write a story where there was a real danger that had to be countered, but the actions taken by the government would fall into that gray zone. So I came up with the idea of an intelligence agency deciding to sacrifice one of its own agents in order to feed false information to a terrorist and cyber criminal. I’ve also been fascinated by Vlad the Impaler – so I decided to have one of his descendants as the villain who kills people by impaling them.
Ally: How did you get your first book or story published?
SLM: So long story about Trojan Horse’s journey to publication. About fifteen years ago, I wrote the first draft – then cut it from 850 pages to 425 pages and submitted the first 50 pages to MWANY’s mentor program, placed in the top three, and got an agent, Nancy Love, who was unable to sell the manuscript – although my favorite rejection was something to the effect that the editor loved the book but was up to his neck in soy thrillers. Puzzled over the soy thriller part of it – until I realized that “o” is next to “p” – and he’d meant to type spy thriller.
After that, I wrote a straight mystery (didn’t sell), took time off to care for my father, then wrote another book with the same characters, thinking I could sell it as the first in the series and Trojan Horse would become a prequel– and did a rewrite and edit of Trojan Horse. Took both to Killer Nashville, and six months later, had a contract to publish Trojan Horse with Five Star Publications.
Eight months after that but before my launch date, Five Star announced that they were terminating their suspense and mystery line, but they would honor my contract. I was told by a number of editors and agents that subsequent books in my series would be dead if I went with Five Star, so I bought back my rights. I got a new agent – Nancy had passed – who came from a well-regarded agency but it didn’t sell. We parted ways.
Then last summer, I met up with Eddie Vincent of Encircle Publications at Maine Crime Wave – the printer for Five Star when they did mysteries and who has since become a publisher and picked up a lot of the orphaned Five Star authors. He was interested in taking a look at Trojan Horse. I did another rewrite and re-edit of Trojan Horse last summer and sent it off. Encircle Publications read and loved the book – and it will finally be out in October 2020.
Ally: Do the people in your real life show up in your writing? In what way?
SLM: My protagonist, Kolya Petrov, is based loosely on my husband – in terms of personality, and he’s also a blond – which my husband is – or was when he was young. Both of them are intellectuals and on the introverted side but can put on an act with other people when they feel like it. Both feel deeply but don’t like talking about it. Kolya is much more of a risk taker than my husband – who, although he likes riding motorcycles, isn’t likely to scale walls and confront villains with guns. Both of them have a bit of a skeptical attitude towards authority figures and rigid rules, but my husband is a little more cautious than Kolya – and a little politer to people he thinks are idiots. Both of them have law degrees, but Kolya disliked the practice of law and became a spy, and my husband became an accomplished attorney. My husband and Kolya both love music, although Kolya has a thing for jazz and my husband is more alternative. Kolya is a talented amateur pianist. My husband is not.
I have to admit that there’s bits of me in both Kolya and Alex Feinstein, his fiancée. Kolya, like me, has gone on a Jewish journey. I’m Jewish, but I’m not religious. I wasn’t a member of any Jewish organizations for many years, and then in 2017, when Nazis were chanting Jews Shall Not Replace Us – I decided to join the Jewish Center of Greater Stowe to try to figure out my identity as a Jew. Kolya started his life in the first draft of Trojan Horse as only ¼ Jewish and ¾ ethnic Russian– but when I was re-editing it last year to submit to Encircle Publications – the fact that anti-Semitism, which had been underground for years, had again crawled out from under the rocks – made me decide to make Kolya a Russian Jewish immigrant, whose name comes from his non-Jewish grandfather on his father’s side and who like me is not religious, and who starts to think a little about his Jewish identity after the anti-Semitism expressed against him by the villains. Alex, his partner in life, is a lawyer like I was for many years and engaged in innocence work – but she’s a much better lawyer than I ever was, much tougher than I am, and willing to put up with Kolya’s profession – which I wouldn’t have been.
Ally: What's the best writing/marketing advice you can pass on to other writers?
SLM: The best writing advice – write what calls to you. Don’t write something because you think it will sell.
Ally: What three books in your genre would you recommend to fans (after they’ve read yours, of course!).
SLM: Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series. There are a lot of books, so start with The Kill Artist. Francine Mathews’ Blown. Gayle Lynds’ The Book of Spies.
Ally: You’re thrown through a black hole into an unknown world, what book hero would you want with you? Why?
SLM: Dumbledore – because he’s a wizard and can just magic us back.
Ally: What is your next writing project? Anticipated release date?
SLM: My next writing project is book 2 in the Kolya Petrov thriller series, working title Nerve Attack, with anticipated release date in July 2021.
Ally: Which of the short answer questions did you choose?
Ally: What inspired you to write your featured book?
SLM: I’ve always loved the spy genre, because there’s good guys and bad guys, but a lot of what intelligence agencies on both sides do falls into a morally ambiguous area. I also like spy novels because – like fantasy novels, which I also enjoy – there’s a parallel world with stuff going on that the average person doesn’t know about and spies have to conceal who they really are. I wanted to write a story where there was a real danger that had to be countered, but the actions taken by the government would fall into that gray zone. So I came up with the idea of an intelligence agency deciding to sacrifice one of its own agents in order to feed false information to a terrorist and cyber criminal. I’ve also been fascinated by Vlad the Impaler – so I decided to have one of his descendants as the villain who kills people by impaling them.
Ally: How did you get your first book or story published?
SLM: So long story about Trojan Horse’s journey to publication. About fifteen years ago, I wrote the first draft – then cut it from 850 pages to 425 pages and submitted the first 50 pages to MWANY’s mentor program, placed in the top three, and got an agent, Nancy Love, who was unable to sell the manuscript – although my favorite rejection was something to the effect that the editor loved the book but was up to his neck in soy thrillers. Puzzled over the soy thriller part of it – until I realized that “o” is next to “p” – and he’d meant to type spy thriller.
After that, I wrote a straight mystery (didn’t sell), took time off to care for my father, then wrote another book with the same characters, thinking I could sell it as the first in the series and Trojan Horse would become a prequel– and did a rewrite and edit of Trojan Horse. Took both to Killer Nashville, and six months later, had a contract to publish Trojan Horse with Five Star Publications.
Eight months after that but before my launch date, Five Star announced that they were terminating their suspense and mystery line, but they would honor my contract. I was told by a number of editors and agents that subsequent books in my series would be dead if I went with Five Star, so I bought back my rights. I got a new agent – Nancy had passed – who came from a well-regarded agency but it didn’t sell. We parted ways.
Then last summer, I met up with Eddie Vincent of Encircle Publications at Maine Crime Wave – the printer for Five Star when they did mysteries and who has since become a publisher and picked up a lot of the orphaned Five Star authors. He was interested in taking a look at Trojan Horse. I did another rewrite and re-edit of Trojan Horse last summer and sent it off. Encircle Publications read and loved the book – and it will finally be out in October 2020.
Ally: Do the people in your real life show up in your writing? In what way?
SLM: My protagonist, Kolya Petrov, is based loosely on my husband – in terms of personality, and he’s also a blond – which my husband is – or was when he was young. Both of them are intellectuals and on the introverted side but can put on an act with other people when they feel like it. Both feel deeply but don’t like talking about it. Kolya is much more of a risk taker than my husband – who, although he likes riding motorcycles, isn’t likely to scale walls and confront villains with guns. Both of them have a bit of a skeptical attitude towards authority figures and rigid rules, but my husband is a little more cautious than Kolya – and a little politer to people he thinks are idiots. Both of them have law degrees, but Kolya disliked the practice of law and became a spy, and my husband became an accomplished attorney. My husband and Kolya both love music, although Kolya has a thing for jazz and my husband is more alternative. Kolya is a talented amateur pianist. My husband is not.
I have to admit that there’s bits of me in both Kolya and Alex Feinstein, his fiancée. Kolya, like me, has gone on a Jewish journey. I’m Jewish, but I’m not religious. I wasn’t a member of any Jewish organizations for many years, and then in 2017, when Nazis were chanting Jews Shall Not Replace Us – I decided to join the Jewish Center of Greater Stowe to try to figure out my identity as a Jew. Kolya started his life in the first draft of Trojan Horse as only ¼ Jewish and ¾ ethnic Russian– but when I was re-editing it last year to submit to Encircle Publications – the fact that anti-Semitism, which had been underground for years, had again crawled out from under the rocks – made me decide to make Kolya a Russian Jewish immigrant, whose name comes from his non-Jewish grandfather on his father’s side and who like me is not religious, and who starts to think a little about his Jewish identity after the anti-Semitism expressed against him by the villains. Alex, his partner in life, is a lawyer like I was for many years and engaged in innocence work – but she’s a much better lawyer than I ever was, much tougher than I am, and willing to put up with Kolya’s profession – which I wouldn’t have been.
Ally: What's the best writing/marketing advice you can pass on to other writers?
SLM: The best writing advice – write what calls to you. Don’t write something because you think it will sell.
Ally: What three books in your genre would you recommend to fans (after they’ve read yours, of course!).
SLM: Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series. There are a lot of books, so start with The Kill Artist. Francine Mathews’ Blown. Gayle Lynds’ The Book of Spies.
Ally: You’re thrown through a black hole into an unknown world, what book hero would you want with you? Why?
SLM: Dumbledore – because he’s a wizard and can just magic us back.
Ally: What is your next writing project? Anticipated release date?
SLM: My next writing project is book 2 in the Kolya Petrov thriller series, working title Nerve Attack, with anticipated release date in July 2021.
Ally: Which of the short answer questions did you choose?
- a memorable book you’ve read: The Wall by John Hersey
- an item on your bucket list: To spend two months in a flat in Paris and become fluent in French. Okay, not fluent, not in two months, but at least not having the waiters immediately break into English as soon as I say Bonjour.
- ebook or print? Print
- What type of music do you prefer? Jazz
- favorite quote: “When you’re winning, shut up.” Judge Judy.
- Your pets: 17 year old black cat with kidney disease named Lizzie – who I found in a window well at age 2 weeks and bottle fed – and who loves my husband, not me. 9 year old Tonkinese cat named Xiao who is very talky and follows me – unless he’s bullying Lizzie.
Trojan Horse
Genre: Espionage thriller
Rating: PG-16 (mature teen)
Release date: October 16, 2020
American operative Kolya Petrov is tracking Mihai Cuza, a descendant of Vlad the Impaler. Kolya suspects him of planning meltdowns of nuclear power plants around the world, but every time Kolya gets close, a member of his team dies in agony. Margaret, the head of Kolya’s agency, seizes upon a devious plan to place a Trojan horse on Cuza’s computer. But for the plan to succeed, she must betray one of her own agents. She chooses Kolya, a Russian-Jewish immigrant with no family, for the honor.
Kolya is initially unaware that he’s been set up for kidnapping and torture. Realizing the truth, he must choose between stopping a plot that could kill thousands and protecting his own life and the life of the woman he loves.
Book blurb reviews:
"Bristling with suspense, Trojan Horse by S. Lee Manning hurls the reader into the dark underbelly of international crime, espionage, and politics. The dialog is sharp, the characters memorable, and the insider details fascinating. This is an exciting new talent. May Manning’s novels be many and frequent. You won't want to miss this, Manning’s outstanding debut." -- Gayle Lynds, New York Times best-selling author of The Assassins.
"Authentic settings, non-stop action, backstabbing villains, and rough justice lace every page of this high-octane thriller. Settle into your favorite spot, take a deep breath, and enjoy." -- Steve Berry, New York Times and internationally best selling #1 author.
Pre-Order/Buy links:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BG24WRN
https://encirclepub.com/product/trojanhorse/
Genre: Espionage thriller
Rating: PG-16 (mature teen)
Release date: October 16, 2020
American operative Kolya Petrov is tracking Mihai Cuza, a descendant of Vlad the Impaler. Kolya suspects him of planning meltdowns of nuclear power plants around the world, but every time Kolya gets close, a member of his team dies in agony. Margaret, the head of Kolya’s agency, seizes upon a devious plan to place a Trojan horse on Cuza’s computer. But for the plan to succeed, she must betray one of her own agents. She chooses Kolya, a Russian-Jewish immigrant with no family, for the honor.
Kolya is initially unaware that he’s been set up for kidnapping and torture. Realizing the truth, he must choose between stopping a plot that could kill thousands and protecting his own life and the life of the woman he loves.
Book blurb reviews:
"Bristling with suspense, Trojan Horse by S. Lee Manning hurls the reader into the dark underbelly of international crime, espionage, and politics. The dialog is sharp, the characters memorable, and the insider details fascinating. This is an exciting new talent. May Manning’s novels be many and frequent. You won't want to miss this, Manning’s outstanding debut." -- Gayle Lynds, New York Times best-selling author of The Assassins.
"Authentic settings, non-stop action, backstabbing villains, and rough justice lace every page of this high-octane thriller. Settle into your favorite spot, take a deep breath, and enjoy." -- Steve Berry, New York Times and internationally best selling #1 author.
Pre-Order/Buy links:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BG24WRN
https://encirclepub.com/product/trojanhorse/
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