A. Most of the reviews I get are good, usually five stars. When I get a bad review, I read it carefully to see if it has merit or is someone with an ax to grind. After decades of writing, you sometimes develop “literary enemies.” For a while there, I had a stalker following me around leaving one-star rankings of my books but without writing a review. I felt that I had become a star in the literary world because I had a stalker, so I posted on Facebook and other media about how happy I was because I had a “stalker.” I never complained to Amazon or Goodreads, but eventually they deleted those rankings. What do you do with a bad review? If it has merit, you learn from it. If it doesn’t, you ignore it. Readers are smart, and they can figure out on their own if that review has merit or not.

A. I have written under a pseudonym. Ironically, it was my most successful book. It sold 50,000 copies, and it was notorious for a while.

You probably never read it, or, if you did, you didn’t know I wrote it. I won’t disclose my pen name; it was an erotic novel. My agent wanted me to write more, but I declined. My first daughter had just been born, and I didn’t want her growing up and asking me one day, “What kind of books do you write, dad?” And me answering, “I write erotic books, honey.”

A. I like to explore different genres. I have written novels in the following genres: romantic suspense, mainstream, Young Adult, and thrillers. My novels often combine genres—like in THE WALL. However, they have one thing in common: whatever type of novel I write, I try to make it exciting and entertaining.

A. I like to write between 2:00 and 7:00 in the morning when everything is quiet and only Deirdre, my Irish green-eyed guardian angel and muse, and sometimes, the leprechauns keep me company. Although, to be honest, I prefer it when only Deirdre comes—the leprechauns get kind of rowdy sometime.

During the workweek, I roll out of bed between 2:30 and 3:30. I have a quick breakfast and work until 6 or 7 am, shower, get dressed and start teaching at 8. At night, I sleep maybe 2 hours, sometimes 3. In the afternoon, between classes, I sleep one or two more hours. During weekends, I may linger writing and checking emails until later.

A. I teach Math and English at a community college, so I have to balance my writing life with my teaching life.

A. I always wanted to be a writer. I was a voracious reader and admired writers. I wanted to be like them.

A. My favourite types of music are classical, opera, and jazz.

A. They know it’s my passion, and they are proud of my achievements. My twenty-year old daughter is an award-winning playwright with several plays already staged. She’s far more accomplished than I ever was at that age.

A. If my current book ‘The Wall’ were to be turned into a movie, these are the actors I would suggest for the roles:

Prince Stanislaw (Alex) – Liam Hemsworth

Thomas Bertram – Christian Bale

Domingo Jimenez — Michael Pena

Cecilia – Rosario Dawson

Blanca – Eva Longoria

Nancy – a Latino child star

A. A writer, always a writer. Authors are writers who get published. I consider myself a “word-tinkerer.” Writing is my passion, whether I publish what I write or not.

A. I have a long list of people whose criticism I trust. To keep it objective, I usually pay an editor who doesn’t know me or my work to critique my book—as I did with The Wall and Golden.

A. Two years, usually.

A. I used to plot my books meticulously, but I found that an exciting part of writing is to let your characters take you to places you didn’t expect. Writing scenes where I knew exactly what my characters were going to do wasn’t much fun. I don’t plot so meticulously anymore. Instead, I develop a general idea in my head, and I know where I want to end the book, but I allow my characters to surprise me and dictate the journey.

A. I don’t know who or what inspired me to write. I was a voracious reader as a little kid and loved westerns. I was eight or nine when I wrote my first novel, a western called David Patterson, El Temerario. I wrote it by hand, and an uncle typed it for me. I remember thinking in my ignorant youth that I could write better than many Western authors, which motivated me to write the novel. My favourite western authors were Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L’Amour. I still have all of Max Brand’s books.

A. Probably the best peek into this book was written by best-selling author Paul Levine when he described THE WALL as “a family saga, a border thriller, and a novel of sizzling suspense.” It’s a novel that will make you feel. It elicits different emotions from people who have read it–some have cried, others have felt fear, and others have experienced joy.

A. I learn many things from my characters since I allow them to tell the story. Specifically, in this book, “THE WALL”. I learned a lot from the character of Alex–in real life.

Alex’s character is based on an actual character, also a Prince with the same name. The real Alex stayed in my home for over a year and taught me how to fight with a knife and hand-to-hand combat. Like the Alex in the book, he was also a movie star in Mexico, where he usually played the nasty gringo. He was a soldier of fortune too.

A. My favourite author is Ernest Hemingway. I read Cervantes’s Don Quijote when I was seven, and the Greeks, and Steinbeck, and Emilio Salgari, and Sherwood Anderson, and Fitzgerald, and Jane Austen, and Mary Louise Alcott, and Daphne Du Maurier, and many other great writers, but it was when I read The Old Man and The Sea (the first Hemingway book I ever read) that the strength of the writing bowled me over. I made Hemingway my favourite author then and have never wavered. However, my favourite Hemingway book has changed from The Old Man and the Sea to The Sun Also Rises, which I believe is his masterpiece.

A. Sure, the first one is that my most successful book is one my fans have probably never read, or, if they did, they didn’t know I wrote it. The book sold 50,000 copies, and it was famous for a while. I wrote it under a pen name, which I won’t disclose, and it was an erotic novel. My then-agent wanted me to write more, but I declined. My first daughter had just been born, and I didn’t want her growing up and asking me one day, “What kind of books do you write, dad?” And me answering, “I write erotic books, honey.”

So, I didn’t write any more erotic books.

The second thing my fans may not know about me, since I have published eleven novels and several of them have earned literary awards, is that English is my second language. I’m an immigrant myself, which helped me identify with the characters when writing THE WALL. I was a penniless nineteen-year-old non-English speaker when I arrived in America, clutching my immigration papers. While that happened a long time ago, I have never forgotten those early memories. I came to the United States seeking the American Dream: to be successful and have a better life than the one I had in my country of birth.

And I have.

My life has been a fantastic rollercoaster ride. I have been a millionaire three times, and three times I have lost everything and had to start with nothing all over again. I have been married several times to lovely and awesome women from different countries, including a French aristocrat who introduced me to European nobility, that gave me five beautiful children. I have travelled worldwide on business and pleasure to more than thirty countries, including those described in THE WALL. I have earned three college degrees: English Literature, Mathematics, and an MBA. I have lived in six different countries and learned four languages, including those spoken in the book. I have competed in show jumping, equestrian events, and track and won multiple medals and ribbons. And I have done a lot of crazy but fulfilling things too: race sports cars, jump obstacles higher than Michael Jordan on horseback, ride racing camels in the Arabian desert, and a few other things that bring smiles to my lips but that I will never share with anyone because I’m not the kiss-and-tell type.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about me, and possibly the most unexpected, is that I’m a cowboy at heart. I love the cowboy ideal, whether real or not—honesty, loyalty, and courage. In my teens, I dreamed of running away to Canada and becoming a cowboy. I still dream of owning a ranch with horses and cattle and living a cowboy life.

Who knows, now that my youngest daughter is away at college, I may just do that. I love the smell of horse sweat in the morning.

A. I like to explore different genres. I have written novels in the following genres: romantic suspense, mainstream, Young Adult, and thrillers. My novels often combine genres—like in “THE WALL”. However, they have one thing in common: whatever type of novel I write, I try to make it exciting and entertaining.

Variety and inspiration drive me to the genres I write. My reading taste is like my genre selection. I read everything, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Hemingway to Kazuo Ishiguro to David Baldacci, John Grisham, Harlan Coben, Michael Connelly, and Ken Follett.

A. I expect a good review, and that means a five-star review.  Anything less than that, it’s on me.