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Kwan
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Kwan
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New Books Network Announcer
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- [02:04]
Kwan
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:09]
Rebecca Buchanan
Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network and today I'm here with Kwon to talk about his latest novel, House of the Ris. Quan, thanks for being here with me today.
- [02:18]
Kwan
Thank you for having me.
- [02:20]
Rebecca Buchanan
Could you start off by just giving a little bit of a synopsis about what your book's about?
- [02:25]
Kwan
Well, House of the Rising Sun Is my the first of the Brotherhood of Blood stories. The Brotherhood of Blood is actually a carryover sect from some of my previous books from the animal series. So this first installment is kind of. I like to sum it up as a small town murder mystery. So it's about the Howell family. Artie Howell and his wife Elise, they moved back to the town where she was raised, Sunny Cove, Pennsylvania, which is a completely fictionalized town. And so he's a crime writer and she's a surgeon. So she returns home to take a. Her mom was a surgeon at Sunny Cove General Hospital. So she moves back after her mom passes to take her position at the hospital. So it is pretty cool. A small town, a little slower than what he's used to. He's very quiet, shy. You know, he's a writer. He works from home. He volunteers his time at the youth detention center teaching creative writing to the inmates. So for all intents and purposes, they seem like the perfect couple almost. But not long after they move to Sunny Cove, people start dying. And the deaths are Seem to be tied to different novels that already the husband has written. So someone is trying to. So he. Someone is trying to make him the suspect in these murders, and so he has to figure out who and why, while also protecting a secret that he's been keeping.
- [03:51]
Rebecca Buchanan
So can you talk a little bit about kind of how this book came to be and why you decided to kind of start this series and start to talk about Artie?
- [04:01]
Kwan
Well, because people love, like I said, Brotherhood of Blood is like. They're like a subsect from different stories, and people always love the Brotherhood of Blood. Let me just give you some context as to what the Brotherhood of Blood is. The Brotherhood of Blood is a fraternal order of assassins that have been secretly manipulating world events for the past century. It is kind of like the Templar Knights, how they would work at the behest of the Vatican. And so. And people love, like, these little backstories so much. And I said, well, why not just bring them to the forefront and let's start with the Howell family and how they tie into the brotherhood.
- [04:39]
Rebecca Buchanan
So can you talk a little bit maybe about sort of your writing? Maybe let's start with your writing process and kind of how you kind of came to this story. Like, did you. Is your writing process one where you're like, all right, people are really into this, so I'm just gonna keep going in this world, Was this a story you really wanted to tell? Like, this is the part of this story you really wanted to Tell. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [05:04]
Kwan
I think I always known that I wanted to bring the Brotherhood to the forefront, but in my own way, I'm not one of those writers, like. And I find that a lot of writers fall into this hole. Like, they'll hit a niche and people will be like, more, more, more, more, more. It's popular, it's popular, it's popular, and they'll lean into it. But me, I'm the opposite. When you start that, I kind of lean away from it because I like to write what makes me feel good. I like to write what from the heart, what makes me happy, and not really so much as what's popular. But I've always had a thing for these characters from this Brotherhood of Blood subsect because they live very normal life for the most part. And so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. And a lot of times, the inspiration for these stories come from songs. So I'm a big fan of the Animals and especially the House of the Rising sun, the Song. And so I said, oh, this will be perfect. This would be perfect. This is a perfect introduction for the Brotherhood with this multimerder mystery. Because it's like, for people that have not read it, it's nothing like you would expect based on the synopsis and what you're thinking, like, oh, I'm going into this is kind of humdrum. It's a slow burn to build up, and it's like, boom. And then I just kind of pull you in. And I'm a writer who. I leave breadcrumbs in all of my books. So when people are done reading the Brotherhood of Blood, they're going to go back to other series. Like, wait a minute, this feels familiar. How does it fit? So it's like a puzzle. So you kind of have to go back to another story to find that piece of the puzzle, and then it'll make more sense.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Yes. And you also leave. This is like, sort of the first of your books that I've read, but also I'm like, oh, now I need the next one.
- [06:34]
Kwan
Right. And the thing, too, with these is because of these under Akashic with these Brotherhood of Bloodstead novellas, so you get kind of like, what was it? Like, 200 pages. And generally my books are like 400 pages, my whole novels. So it's kind of like these, like, little origin stories, and it's. They're all. And I'm trying to, like, talk in circles, so it's not to give it away. They all connect to what I like to call the Grand Design, which is these stories that all interconnect.
- [07:03]
Rebecca Buchanan
So do you, like. If someone were coming to this and read this. Are there. And I want to come back to, like, the title and all of that. But would you have an. If they're like, okay, I want to go to the previous novels to kind of see the. Some of the backstory or some of where this is coming from. Do you have a particular place you tell them to start or would you just say sort of pick up from the Brotherhood of Blood series or.
- [07:27]
Kwan
Yeah, you can pick up from the Brotherhood of Blood series. But if you want to do, like, a deep dive, if you're like, kind of like, like me, like, when I. When I. When I pick up on something and I want to learn more about it, I just do a deep dive. I want to know everything about it. So you can start and you can read the Brotherhood that. The House of the Rising sun, and you won't be lost. But if you want to do a deep dive, I would say go to Black Lotus. I would say go to Black Lotus 2. I would say go to animal 4, animal 5, and things of that nature. Because these are where the breadcrumbs. These are where the. I'm so why are people. These are where the. As my daughter. I'm sorry. These are where the Brotherhood of Blood stories start from. They kind of like, this is when you're first introduced to other characters in the grand arc of the whole Brotherhood of Blood storyline.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Can you talk a little bit about your pop culture references throughout? Like, you have references to, like, you talked about the animals and House of the Rising sun, you references to wire and different sort of popular culture references as well throughout this story. Can you talk a little bit about that?
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Kwan
What do they call my kids call me a walking bank of useless information because I'm someone who. I like to study and learn about the most random things. Old music, television shows. I'm like, when I find something that I'm into, I like to take it apart and see how it works and see how it was made. Same thing with the song, the Animals. Like, I had never heard of the animals until randomly I heard the House, the Rising sun, and I was like, oh, my God, this is so fascinating. So I did the deep dive into that. It's the same thing with the Wire. It's kind of like with everything. Like, I'm just. I'm a sponge for knowledge, and I think that it translates into my books. They're the most things that you wouldn't expect to find in my books based on the subject matter I put in there.
- [09:12]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah, that makes sense. Can you talk a bit about your sort of writing, like your daily kind of writing process? Like when you sit down to write, do you have. Is this something where you daily. Are you writing and are you writing your books from like sort of start to finish? Are you doing a little bit more piecemeal? Yeah. Can you talk about that process?
- [09:35]
Kwan
It's just kind of like whenever inspiration hits me, like I have times where I may sit and not write anything for weeks and then boom, it'll hit me and then I'm just sitting here for days. I mean literally days in the same clothes and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing. And I'm such a stickler. Like I made that I may find a paragraph that I don't like and I'll spend a month rewriting one paragraph in a book over and over and over, only to end up taking out or adding one word.
- [10:05]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah, it's like for. So for like this story for House of the Rising Sun. Was this something where you knew what direction you're heading in? Like, do you know, have you like mapped out this is where this, all of these little novellas are going? Or is this kind of a start and you are going to kind of write your way to the next book and write your way into sort of the next novella?
- [10:24]
Kwan
I never do. It's just like. It's just I'm just as surprised as the readers from one page to the next. So I found that. And my agent always tells me you should use outlines to keep you anchored. I can't. I try, but it doesn't work for me. I just have to kind of free flow. And every book that I've ever written has been a free flow and just like kind of like from one page to the next. And I decide there. So it's not. I'll have a general idea. Like, I knew with the House of the Rising Sun I wanted to make it a small town murder mystery. I definitely knew because it would because it's so far removed from where the original concept from the Brotherhood of Blood came from. So people that are familiar with the Brotherhood of Blood as they're reading it, they'll start saying some of these things out. But if you've never read it, it's going to just totally blow you away and fool you. You're going to be like, oh, wow, I didn't see that coming.
- [11:15]
Rebecca Buchanan
So, so do you. Did you do any kind of research for this. Like, I mean, you talked about with, you know, it's not without any spoilers. You talk about this sort of fraternal order of assassins and that kind of thing. Were there things that you had to research or you went and sort of did it. You talk about doing a deep dive. Were there things that you were like, okay, I need to go learn more about this? Or.
- [11:37]
Kwan
I read a book years ago. It was called Jesus. It was a trilogy. There were vampires in service to the Templar Knights. And that was my first time before I knew what a Templar knight was. I discovered it like that. And I just always was fascinated with the Templar Knights and how the Vatican kind of had like this hit squad, you know? And I was like. And this was like, I don't know how many. This was before I was even a writer. And it was like, oh, my God, that is so cool. So that's something that I wanted to incorporate. So I. I don't like. I borrowed from that, but I didn't really do any research detail. I kind of like to create my. My own way with that. And it also came from. I'm not. I'm not sure if you're familiar with, like, the old kung fu movies. The Shaw Brothers, three o', clock, Saturday, you know. So you know the Five Deadly Venoms?
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Rebecca Buchanan
No, I don't know if I do.
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Kwan
The Five Deadly Venoms were the guys that wore these masks. There were five students that studied at this one school. They all wore masks, and no one knew the other's identity. So the sixth student was charged to go out and find the other five who extrapayed from the path. And this is where the Brotherhood of Blood concept came from. This is why it'd be brotherhood or wear masks. So it was kind of like, from that. So I just kind of made it my own thing. Made it my own thing. But I did it. I did. I did read a lot. Like, when I was a kid. I was a kid that, like, I'm supposed to be in school, but I would skip school in most cases. Skip school would, like, go to, like, house parties and drink Moonshawn. I would skip school and go to the library. And I know that's like such an oxymoron. Like, why would you, like. So you're skipping schools. Educational institution to go to a library. And I would hide in the back of the library. I would go early. No one knew I was in. I would hide in the back of the library and I would just read all day long until someone came and found me. Like, what are you doing in the intro? Just with me in school. So that was just kind of my thing.
- [13:30]
New Books Network Announcer
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Rebecca Buchanan
I mean, you probably get to read better books when you're skipping school than the books they give you to read in school.
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Kwan
Yes, I will.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Just as a teacher, I will say we do a bad job of giving kids books to read that they want to read. Right?
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Kwan
Because, like, when I was in school, I was like, I don't want to read this. I want to go back and finish reading when I started reading in the library.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Exactly, exactly. So. So what are some of. Like, just because you were talking about, are there certain kind of books or series or authors that you draw inspiration from or that you're pulling from when you're, as a writer with this particular
- [15:00]
Kwan
one, who would I say? No, I don't think so. I think that I do draw a lot of inspiration. Like, I was a big Anne Rice fan growing up, big Walter Mosley fan, big Jeffrey Deaver fan, big Laurel K. Hamilton fan, Kelly Armstrong. So the paranormal elements, I do draw from there, you know, but I kind of like just like. And now where I am now as a writer, I kind of just do my own thing. But they were definitely great inspirations to me, as in my development as a writer.
- [15:29]
Rebecca Buchanan
And do you say like that. I mean, you say this is kind of like this crime, murder mystery, but there is this other element to it. So how would you kind of classify your. Do you classify yourself as a writer, or are you just, like you said, just drawn from inspiration? Or do you say, like, I really am the sort of more not fan, not necessarily fantasy, but more sort of, you know, that kind of thing, or. Yeah. Where do you feel you lean?
- [15:58]
Kwan
I struggled with that for a long time. When I started writing, initially, the first book that I wrote was about vampires. That was my very first novel. It's never been published. I wrote it in 1996. It's still to this day, hasn't been published. The first published novel was Gangsta, which was an urban novel. So when I would always tell publishers this urban novel, it was a fluke for me. This is not what I write. I write about vampires and witches, and they're like, no, you write about gangsters. And I'm like, no. And so, like. And it took me a long time to kind of really be able to get my foot in the door to kind of veer off and do my own thing. So it's become a little bit of a hybrid. And I was reading the reviews, like, what people were saying, like, it feels almost supernatural to outside Rising Sun. So. And. And I think when editor I had. And she was editing one of my books, and I had been working with her for many, many, many years, and she was like, we don't even have a classification for what you are now. You don't fit into any genre anymore. You have just kind of just become this entity onto yourself. And I'm like, is that good or bad? She's like, that's amazing. Because it's something that you don't see people that transcend genres and become something that we don't have a word for.
- [17:10]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. So that. I mean, because it is. It's really hard to kind of define exactly what the book is, but you, you know, you read it and you want more. I'm like, okay, I want a little bit of the background story. I want to know these things.
- [17:25]
Kwan
You have a little bit of everything because it starts out with the nuns in the Covenant, and then it's like the writer. And then it feels a little urban, but then it kind of goes somewhere else. And then towards the end, it's like, wait a minute. What did I just. What happened? Like, you know what I mean? Excuse me. I never read, like, besides through the editing process, I never read my stories until, like, years later. But this one is one that I did read, and I was like, what were you thinking about when you did that?
- [17:51]
Rebecca Buchanan
So, I mean, you were saying you're going to write. You know, this is the first in a series of books you're writing. So would you. You're not going to you for that, even for that process. You don't go back and like reread or go back. You just kind of and let the editor say, all right, this needs to follow this. Like, you know, you did this before.
- [18:09]
Kwan
They just let me do my thing. They were like, kawan, just write, just write. And so. And with the Brotherhood of Blood, there's a specific set of characters I had in mind with the first one being already out. And so I know where I want all of these stories to go already and which is a very rare for me. I don't know how I'm going to get them there, but I know where they need to go because the stories are all it's. I do time jumps in these stories and again, try not to give away spoilers. They all are connected to one grand event that my readers will be familiar with from one of my previous books. But this is how they kind of got to this point. It's like, what was that movie? I think it was Slow Burn where they, where there was like a bombing and the story was told from the perspective of everyone that was involved, from the police to the bombers and how they got to that point. But. But they all told from a different perspective. So that's what I'm doing with this.
- [19:05]
Rebecca Buchanan
So do you feel like this is part of like if you were saying, like this is taking place in present, like here in present day, you know, like it's a made up town in Pennsylvania. But do you feel like this is present day? Do you feel like this is part of a sort of an alternative sort of or place for you? And like where is this sort of situated then?
- [19:26]
Kwan
It's, it's. It's often the same universe leading up to a present day event. So it's like backtracking a few months prior to this one event. And as the stories start to come together, people that have that. Because the present day event, it's already occurred and it's already come and gone and people have read it and. But they don't know that this. They won't know because I've never said. I always allude to it being connected to an event from one of my books, but they don't know which one I've never told. So when the stories start to come together, they'll say, oh, wow.
- [20:00]
Rebecca Buchanan
So in your previous books, like you wanted to talk about Artie, did you did. Did people know about like Artie's wife, Artie's kid? Or they kind of like, oh, there's this fam. Like Because, I mean, that's not a spoiler. They're right at the beginning. Right? There's a family.
- [20:14]
Kwan
They have no idea about this part. They knew him as he was someone else, and they didn't know about. And they knew when they met him in these other books, and I can't say his other name. So when they met him in these other books, they were like, they loved him. They loved him. They said he was one of my greatest characters. So you would never associate this character with simple crime writer Artie Howell until you get to the part in the book when they call him by the other name. And then everyone will know by the other name. Readers that are familiar, and there's so many readers that are familiar, and. And I've been getting, like, these messages. Like, I got chills when they called him by that name and we realized who he was and, oh, my God, how did you do that?
- [20:56]
Rebecca Buchanan
So that's awesome. So they get to see all the backstory. Like, I love that. I love that idea of. It's like, I was just talking to a student today about, like, okay, they're talking about Attack on Titan. And I was like, okay, do you want. I know. I'm like, do you want to talk about it in the order that it unfolds in, like, when you read it or the actual, like, the order that it takes place place. Right. So it feels like it's that same kind of thing. Like it's going to unfold the. The universe. Everything unfolds in a different kind of order than how you read that. And that adds to some of the suspense and some of the, like, holy crap that happened.
- [21:30]
Kwan
Right? And then you can kind of go back later after you've consumed all the material. You can kind of fit it. Oh, like, okay, this goes here, this goes here. And it makes total sense.
- [21:40]
Rebecca Buchanan
So because, I mean, this just came out recently, but because it's a novella, are you. Do you have set tie? Are the other pieces? Are the other or yours? Your next one coming out sooner. Is it coming out in a sort of more rapid order or rapid. Like, more rapidly? I don't know if that's the right way to say it than they normally. Timeline.
- [22:00]
Kwan
Much as I would love to. I have so many other projects that I'm also. I have, like, books coming out back to back to back. But I was just telling my readers, like, and I'm just so. I'm invested. I'm so invested in the how the Brother, the Blood. Because I've been wanting to get these brotherhood Of Blood stories out since 2000, 2010, maybe. And it started with the Black Lotus and the Black Lotus 2. And then I finally got the avenue to open up the Brother of the Blood. So, like, when I wrap up some of these other projects, and it's gonna be really, really soon, I'm gonna jump right back into the next Brotherhood of Blood story. And the next Brotherhood of Blood story will feature someone, another someone who's been living his double life. Because the thing with the brotherhood, right, when you. The Brotherhood of Blood, when you commit to the Brotherhood of Blood, when you are named in the shadow of the mountain, which is, like, where they bleed you and give you your new name, and it kills your life. You're given a year to live as a normal person before you have to take on your responsibilities. The Brother of Blood. So it's kind of like I'm going to just tell the stories of different characters. Some of them will be in the process that they walk about. Some of them it will be right. I call it a walkabout. And someone will be after. So I'm going to just tell these stories and how they're going to connect, like, how the first one ends. And then you'll meet someone else who will connect to Artie in his quest moving forward to do what he needs to do. And it will tell this character's backstory and how it relates to the grand story that I've mentioned earlier.
- [23:28]
Rebecca Buchanan
So I have to ask you, because you said you're working on a bunch of stuff as a writer. You are. You always, like, needing to write multiple things and then you can finish those. You know, like, some. Because some people are like, I need one thing, or, I'm gonna write a million things, but I can never finish them. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because it's fascinating.
- [23:48]
Kwan
I do that. I'm. My brain is always all over the place, so I write a bunch of stuff. And the story that speaks the loudest to me, the one that wakes me up in the middle of the night, is the one that I finish first.
- [24:00]
Rebecca Buchanan
That's fascinating. So you are fine having, like, a million stories going on at once, and then something hits you, and then you just kind of jump to it.
- [24:08]
Kwan
Control chaos. That's the way my brain works. Control chaos.
- [24:12]
Rebecca Buchanan
That's awesome. So the book just. I'm going to ask you, like, sort of a final question. Like, the book came out. So the book just came out. We're talking, like, a couple, like, last week, right? Or something. Yeah. So anything that self Promotion. So what's going on with this book, with other things you're working on? Anything else you want people to kind of. No.
- [24:33]
Kwan
Oh, of course. Yeah. Well, of course I have the House of the Rising sun, which is a small town murder mystery. And then I have. And I wish I had it down here with me. I would have showed you the COVID I have a book coming out. Quest Love from the Roots has an imprint and I have. I'm the first fiction crime writer that they're publishing and I have a book called Trouble man, which is about a former Philadelphia police detective who has just been recently released from prison and trying to get his life back together. So his nickname is Trouble. They called him the Trouble Man. And so he just wants to come home from prison after doing time. He did time for something that some people said was justified and some people said made him a disgrace. So he just wants to get his life back in order and just kind of figure out what the new normal is. Like he's no longer on the force. He's an ex con now. And literally within an hour of being released from prison, he's back in the mix. So he has to do a favor for a friend and solve a crime to. His friend's son has been arrested for a murder that no one believes he committed. And so it's up to the Trouble man, this disgraced cop, to figure out what really happened. And so it's just like. And that's why you call him Trouble, because trouble always finds him. No matter what he tries to do, trouble finds him. And so it's like. I don't know if you would call it hard boiled, but it's like a throwback. He was like a. He's just this really cool cat and it's. He's this really cool older black gentleman, former cop, but he's also a kung fu master. And so he has like these scenes and it's funny, it's serious, it's action packed. It's just very, very like. It's like if you read the House of the Rising sun and then you read it's night and Day. If you read some of my older stuff, it's all just so different. So it's like these stories, you'll think these stories were written by different writers.
- [26:23]
Rebecca Buchanan
So I have to ask, as someone who lived in Philly for a long time, where in Philly does it take place or is it sort of all over?
- [26:31]
Kwan
And the thing is, I've never lived in Philadelphia, but I had to, you know, kind of do that for that one, I did have to do a little bit of research, you know, all over. So it's like, it's primarily set in Chinatown, in Philadelphia's Chinatown, because when he's released from prison, his adoptive family, the Wei family, they own a Chinese restaurant, and he lives on top of the Chinese restaurant. So he's solving this murder on behalf of the. This murder investigation on behalf of his adopted family.
- [26:56]
Rebecca Buchanan
I love it.
- [26:56]
Kwan
Growing in. Like, they're like pimps. They're crooked cops. There's geishas. Like, it's a lot going on, and that's what I've learned. And I wish I. Like I said, I wish I had the book with me right now so I can show you. And there's so much going on on the COVID but it depicts perfectly everything that's going on in his life. Again, controlled chaos.
- [27:12]
Rebecca Buchanan
I love it. Well, thank you so much again, Kwan. Thanks for talking with me about House of the Rising sun for New Books Network.
- [27:19]
New Books Network Announcer
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