#MMBBR #Showcase The Scorpion by John A. Autero's

Watch the trailer here:  https://youtu.be/Y41TrmT45-Q

You watch the TV news every night and think you know what’s going on… think again. Three friends stumble upon information that describes an underwater excavation site and refinery that processes a newly discovered source of energy. Who built the site? What is the fuel used for? What happened on December 26, 2004? The friends are determined to reveal the truth about their findings to the public and realize that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s right. “The Scorpion is a Techno-Thriller on steroids!”

John A. Autero is an indie author of techno-thriller adventure novels. An engineer by education, John employs a technical style of writing that combines existing technologies with those that are yet to be developed. John enjoys anything sci-fi, automotive, heavy metal and ballistic. Always a fan of government conspiracies and black-ops, stories like "The Terminator" and "The X-Files" are always on his list of favorites. John was born in the United States and has spent his entire life there, where he happily lives with his wife and pets.

Q.  What inspires your writing?

I just love to read books (and watch movies) with twisty story lines, and I thought that I could write books with the same kind of excitement. I think it’s great when readers tell me “Wow… I didn’t see that coming!” And once I heard that, I was hooked and I wanted to write more of them.

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being a writer?

I really like the quiet, creative time. I thoroughly enjoy sitting in my den in the morning and tapping on the keys. I hear birds outside the window and sip a cup of coffee. The hours just fly by.

Q.  What is the toughest part of being a writer?

I have a traditional 40-hour job, so my writing time is limited. I normally put in four or five hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I wish I could spend more time writing but it’s just not possible. But on the bright side, writing a book over an extended period of time gives you a chance to process the story line to make sure it’s realistic and allows you to come up with ideas to make it more enjoyable.

Q.  If you could not be writer, what would you do/be?

I’m employed as the manager of an engineering training department and have a degree in Industrial Engineering. I have always loved to show people nifty technical things and training people helps me to express that. I really like my job and have been doing it for close to 25 years.

Q.  What would the story of your life be entitled?

It would probably be something like ‘All is Well’ or ‘It’s all Good’. I always felt that life is sort of like a roller coaster, sometimes going up, sometimes going down. But you have to put your hope in God and realize that all things happen for good. I guess no one’s life is perfect and you have to realize that when you come to the end of the ride, you always pull back into the station with a slow and smooth stop. Check out the story about Mr. Davidson in chapter seventeen of the ‘The Scorpion’. You’ll see what I’m getting at.

Q.  What is your favorite book of all time?

This seems to change as the years go by. I received a copy of a rock-and-roll tell-all novel as a Christmas gift a few years ago and I thought it was incredibly interesting. I’ve kind of followed that band wagon for the last five or six books I have read. While they aren’t necessarily epic novels of exceptional writing, they do draw me in, reminding me of past times and places and I find them hard to put down. And isn’t that what a good book is supposed to do?

Q.  What character from all of your book are you most like?

When I create characters, I don’t normally make them 100% of anyone I know, but I frequently take small snippets of people’s personalities and mix them all together. For example, in my book ‘The Scorpion’, the character ‘Bruce’ brings dill pickles in his lunch every day. This trait comes from a very good friend of mine and I felt it would add some color to the character. In ‘Footprints’ the main character ‘Scott’ has a few personality traits similar to my own, but still only a few. So I guess to answer this question, I would have to go with ‘Scott Hrdinski’ from “Footprints’.

Q.  Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?

I think it would be great to get inside ‘The Scorpion’ and visit Harrison, Nebraska and experience the wide open spaces and smell the fresh air. I’m not a city person and find it more comfortable to drive down a gravel road between two corn fields. Even though I would like to visit Harrison, I wouldn’t want to find myself inside the harrowing situation that occurs in ‘The Scorpion’. But sipping lemonade on Gommy’s front porch… I’m all in.

Q.  What is your favorite season?

I like the fall. The temperature is comfortable. My wife and I like to pick apples and sit in the back yard next to a campfire in the evenings. Fishing in the fall is much more fun too, since you don’t constantly sweat like you do during the summer months. And who doesn’t love Thanksgiving?

Q.  What inspired your book cover(s)?  Or what is your favorite book cover and why?

I think the cover of ‘The Scorpion’ came out great. I don’t like when a book has a cover picture that really doesn’t have anything to do with the story. In this case, I tried to directly copy one of the scenes from the book for the cover picture. I think it gives folks a feel of the book and the clandestine nature of the story.

Q.  Tell me something funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book.

The ‘person’ depicted on the cover of ‘Footprints’ is actually a picture of me in my basement. When I asked my wife to help me, she was just about ready to reach for the telephone and dial the looney bin. Check out the cover of ‘Footprints’ and you’ll see what I mean.

Q.  Are you working on something new?

I’m about 75% finished with a dark, sci-fi, who-done-it. It’s more dark and grungy than “Footprints’ or ‘The Scorpion’. It takes place on a hydrogen condensing depot in the middle of space. The place is smelly, dirty, loud and sweaty. Some of the characters are pretty crude, while others appear to be boy scouts. It’ll be something good to read on a rainy night around Halloween if you’re interested in a good ‘scare’. But it ends up being about a PG-13 with some bad language, some mid-grade violence, some creepy situations, but no sex.

Q.  Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

Thank you to Mrs. Mommy Book Nerd for allowing me to be a part of her blog and I hope the information I have provided will peak your interest about my current book, ‘The Scorpion’.