Today I am meeting John Howell for breakfast at the award-winning Elmo’s Diner in Durham, North Carolina, so he can tell me about his new book, The Last Drive, the sequel to Eternal Road – The Final Stop. I loved Eternal Road, which cleverly meshed time-travel, adventure, mystery, justice, and the supernatural. The new book does the same – what’s not to like?
Elmo’s Diner opened in the spring of 1997 in the Ninth Street shopping district of Old West Durham. Large windows, wooden floors, high ceilings, and old red brick grace the Durham location, and give a warm and casual feel. The restaurant also is located in an old building with lots of history, having been a former taxi cab garage, beauty college, and bakery at various times. 
Since John offers us wonderful Sunday menus to go along with his Views of the Neighborhood blog post, I thought it only fair to turn the tables on him and offer him the menu from Elmo’s. My recommendation is the baked French toast stuffed with cream cheese and apples, topped with cinnamon apples and whipped cream. It tastes like a breakfast bread pudding and is served with two eggs and bacon, sausage or ham.
After placing two orders for this French toast, plus some eye-opener coffee, I start to pepper John with questions.
NG: John, can you tell me a little about The Last Drive and how it differs from Eternal Road?
JH: Eternal Road and The Last Drive differ in how nasty Lucifer gets in trying to grab off souls that have already been destined for eternal grace. In Eternal Road he sends Sam and James into situations that are dangerous but less evil. In the Last Drive he pulls out all the stops.
NG: Well, that gives me goose bumps. I’ve just started reading the book and I’m already nervous!
NG: Where did the ideas for these two books come from?
JH: When I was ten years old my dad passed away. I had a hard time coming to grips with the loss so I started making up what I thought heaven should be. It came down to heaven is whatever you want it to be which is the theme of both books.
NG: I also think when you get to a certain age, the concept of heaven is on your mind a lot. It’s hard to get your mind around, but I do like your version.
At this point, our breakfast arrives, and we dose our waffles with maple syrup and dig into the eggs.
In between mouthfuls, I ask: What is your favorite breakfast food?
JH: Our local food chain private label Raisin Bran Crunch with bananas and 2% milk.
NG: Do you live on coffee?
JH: I have an espresso machine that makes excellent coffee, but I only have two cups a day.
NG: That’s pretty modest compared to some writers I know, who main line it. My next question is: When do you write and where?
JH: I usually try to write in the morning. I sit on the couch with Twiggy my dog. I have an office, but Twiggy won’t let me write in there. She makes a fuss until I sit on the couch.
At this point, I need to tell our readers that John is the owner of two dogs, the wise older Lucy, who is a boxer, and the irrepressible younger Twiggy, who is a French bulldog. Twiggy thinks that their yard is occasionally inhabited by water buffalo and pumas. Their adventures appear regularly on John’s blog.
NG: Does Twiggy interrupt your writing?
JH: Absolutely.
NG: Do you listen to music when you write?
JH: No. I used to but stopped. My first three books were written to Queen’s Greatest Hits.
NG: I would be totally distracted by anything Queen and would want to sing along. Are you a pantser or a plotter?
JH: A pantser from the get-go. When I started writing I didn’t know how to plot. I do know how now but still prefer sitting in front of the computer with the characters and let them run off with the story.
I stop to take a good gulp of my coffee and let John get on with his breakfast. Then I ask a couple of off the wall questions. Where did you grow up, John?
JH: I grew up physically in the Detroit area. Once I left for college I never went back. Mentally I’m still a kid.
NG: What was your first car? Not a 1956 Oldsmobile like the one in Eternal Road, by any chance?
JH (smiling): No but this sounds like you are going to hack into my financial accounts with secret questions. My first car was a Ford Club Coupe. Being a Detroit kid, I naturally had to squeeze every bit of horsepower from it. So, I installed a duel set of carburetors, dual exhaust, souped-up ignition, and floor shifter. It was the fastest thing on Woodward Avenue, the local drag strip.
NG: My first was a 1930 Model A phaeton, and I’ve missed it for all these years. Definitely not a roadster – I think its top speed was maybe 40 mph. Before we finish I have to ask you: Is there another book in the works?
JH: I have two. One is a memoir and the other is a collection of my Top Ten Things Not to Do posts incorporated into a book
NG: Well, I’m looking forward to both! I really enjoy your Ten Top Things Not to Do, since I’ve so often made the mistake of actually doing them.
I call for another cup of coffee…..
So here is the blurb for The Last Drive, John’s new book.
John began his writing as a full-time occupation after an extensive business career. His specialty is thriller fiction novels, but John also writes poetry and short stories. His first book, My GRL, introduces the exciting adventures of the book’s central character, John J. Cannon. The second Cannon novel, His Revenge, continues the tension. The final book in the trilogy, Our Justice, launched in September 2016 concludes the thriller series. John’s fourth book Circumstances of Childhood, launched in October of 2017 tells a different thriller story of riches to rags, football, Wall Street, brotherly love, redemption, and inspiration with a touch of paranormal to keep you riveted. The fifth book is a collaboration with the award-winning author, Gwen Plano titled The Contract. Heavenly bodies become concerned about the stability of the Earth and send two of their own to risk eternal salvation in order to save the planet. The Contract achieved number one status in its genre. John’s next book is titled Eternal Road – The Final Stop and launched in September 2020. In search of their eternal home, Sam and James discover a threat to human existence. They also encounter the prince of darkness. The question is; can they save humankind and their eternal souls. All books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
Ms. Hedges has cleverly entwined two stories in this, the tenth outing of her Victorian mystery series. The setting is London in 1868, and the city itself quickly becomes a main character because of the colorful, detailed descriptions the author creates for the reader.
Carol Hedges is the successful UK writer of 11 books for teenagers/Young Adults. Her novel Jigsaw was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal. She is currently writing a series of Victorian Crime Fiction novels, set in 1860s London and published under her own imprint: Little G Books: Diamonds & Dust, Honour & Obey, Death & Dominion and now Murder & Mayhem.
I have so many fellow bloggers who post about their walks in their beautiful environs (England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain) that I am almost embarrassed to tell you that mine are largely in church parking lots and on sidewalks. We do have a trail in our vicinity (the American Tobacco Trail) but getting to it is a problem, and I hate having to drive to get someplace to walk.
The first is a pattern I spotted in the sod of an area in our development. Sod turns brown in the fall – at least ours does, and also soaks up water so walking on it is like sinking into a wet sponge – but in this part, it browned in an interesting pattern. Not sure what caused it.
grass in the field as ‘nature paths.”
and the creek that runs through the eastern part of the property.
Foxe and the Black Beast is the tenth in the Ashmole Foxe series, and I’ve read every one of them and reviewed most because I find the central character, Ashmole Foxe, so compelling. I’ve enjoyed the way he has evolved from a dandified, hedonistic, man-about-town to a settled, newly married man with a beautiful and very intelligent wife. In this latest adventure, the Dean of Norwich calls on Foxe, a rare bookseller and now recognized as the premier investigator in the city, to find the killer of a member of the clergy. The man, Reverend Bing, who insists on being called Prebendary Bing (a type of canon who has a role in the administration of a cathedral), is found dead at the base of the front steps, his head bashed in.
William Savage grew up in Hereford, on the border with Wales and took his degree at Cambridge. After a working life largely spent teaching and coaching managers and leaders in Britain, Europe and the USA, he retired to Norfolk, where he volunteers at a National Trust property and started to write fiction as a way of keeping his mind active in retirement. He had read and enjoyed hundreds of detective stories and mystery novels and another of his loves was history, so it seemed natural to put the two together and try his hand at producing an historical mystery. To date, he has focused on two series of murder-mystery books, both set in Norfolk between 1760 and around 1800; a period of turmoil in Britain, with constant wars, the revolutions in America and France and finally the titanic, 22-year struggle with France and Napoleon.
I truly believe Thorne Moore could write a five-star book about a paper bag. She has challenged herself by writing in books of different genres and her readers (including myself) have found them all compelling. I did not read the first book in this series (Inside Out) but no matter, this book qualifies as a stand-alone. I chose it because I wanted to see how the author fared with science fiction, and she fares very well indeed.
Thorne Moore grew up in Luton, near London, but has lived in Pembrokeshire in West Wales for the last 35 years. Her father was a Labor councilor and her mother once got the sack for calling her boss a male chauvinist pig, so she developed strong views about the way the world works. Her headmaster advised her to study law, but that implied a career in law, and the only career she wanted was as a writer. So she studied history instead, and nine years later, after a spell working in a library, she returned to Wales to run a restaurant with her sister. She did finally get her law degree, but these days, she writes. When she’s not writing, she makes miniature furniture, through her craft business, Pear Tree Miniatures.
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