Guest Author - A Local and International Journalist!

Today, I’m pleased to introduce you to, Tom Abraham, a local and international journalist. I connected with Tom through LinkedIn, and I’m pleased to have him on my blog.  

Tom is a Texas television reporter and anchor, who has spent 20 years covering local, national, and international news. He's interviewed Presidents, cabinet members, and leaders in congress. He's reported live from the White House, Capitol Hill, and the United Nations.

Tom's covered five national political conventions. He has flown with presidential candidates, gone backstage at their rallies, and broken stories about them on television and online.

He was at the Pentagon while smoke still rose in the hours after 9/11, and was in the room when Secretary Colin Powell made his case to the U.N. Security Council for war against Iraq.

Tom lives in the Houston suburbs with his wife, Courtney, and their two children. SEDITION is his first novel.

Book Genre: Political Thriller

Synopsis of Sedition

The President of The United States is dead. There is no Vice President to take his place. As the nation slips into a constitutional crisis, a small group of disenfranchised neo-patriots conspire to violently seize power. They have the will. They already have someone on the inside. And they have the explosives.

Standing in their way is a woman who listens to conversations not meant for her to hear. She reads mail not intended for her to see. She knows their intention. But can she stop them in time?

SEDITION is a smart, fast-paced, modern day political novel woven in reality and based on the 1820 British plot, The Cato Street Conspiracy. It navigates the thin line between good versus evil and patriot versus traitor, proving there’s always a reason behind treason.

Who is your target audience?

Anyone who likes politics, art, history, and/or conspiracies with a lot of twists. The book reads somewhere between literary and genre fiction.  And you won't see the ending coming...

What motivated you to write Sedition?

My wife and I loved watching the television series The Tudors.  After each episode, we would get online to learn how historically accurate (or not) that night's plot had been.  One night, I came across something called The Cato Street Conspiracy.  After researching it, I thought it could make for a great political novel.  Being that I know very little about the nuance of 19th century London, I chose to modernize the conspiracy and place it in current day Washington D.C.

Do your character names have special meaning?

Matti Harrold is the protagonist. While it's unusual to write a female hero in the male dominated genre, I thought it might add a different dimension to what might seem to some a thriller-typical plot. She is, as hero's should be, flawed and conflicted. For her, the world is black and white. There is good and bad, right and wrong.  Her linear, myopic view of the world fits well in her job as a code-breaker. Codes are black and white. They are linear. But when forced to interact with people, who are by their nature shaded in varying degrees of gray, she challenges her long held belief system. As she pushes to unravel a conspiracy, she learns about herself and the unpredictable world around her. She is tough without the testosterone.

What are the major themes in Sedition?

Patriotism has a lot of definitions. And many of them are explored in the narrative. What does freedom mean? Where does one's love of country become so engrossing that he or she is willing to betray it for its own sake? SEDITION is more than just a thriller. There are layers that explore the motivations behind the extremes on all sides, while at the same time leaving it up to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions about what it means to be a patriot.

While not themes, per se, clothing and architecture are also mechanisms used to tell the story. Washington is a city of appearances. And so I used, as an intentional device, specific and descriptive language to explain how different characters dress, present themselves, and live their lives. Some might think the descriptions too much, but they are intended to act as literary devices used to mold the characters into something more than what they say and do.

What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment, so far?

Being a dad and husband. Oh wait, you meant book-wise! I had a sales goal for year one. I surpassed it in 15 weeks. So I was really pleased with the response. As a self-published author, it can be difficult to find an audience and build a brand. And while I spend more time marketing SEDITION than I'd like, it's paid off so far. I'm slowly building a following who, I hope, will be back for more when I release my next novel. I don't know that I'm setting the world on fire, but the book has spent time in the bestsellers category for political fiction on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, without any paid promotion and without utilizing KDP Select just yet..

If you could work with any author, who would it be?

I'd work with Michael Crichton, if I could. When he was alive, he was so incredibly gifted at blending reality with fiction. He created stories like Andromeda Strain and Sphere that drew upon the real world and created fantasy. He's the kind of author I'd love to be.

What are your current projects or future projects?

I'm working on another political thriller. It is not a sequel to SEDITION. Instead, it takes place in Texas and follows a young political aide who finds himself caught in a dangerous conspiracy he doesn't understand. And he has only so much time to figure out in what he's unwittingly involved himself. The working blurb is:

Jackson Quick should have known better.

He loved a ginger.

He trusted a Lone Star politician.

And he drank a beer that tasted funny.

If he'd avoided just one of them, he wouldn't be on the run trying to get his life back.

Because even conspiracies are bigger in Texas.

Links to where the book can be purchased: Amazon, itunes, B&N, Amazon UK, Kobo, Murder by the Bookstore, Creatspace, and Tower Books.

Politics and Conspiracies,

Bea