Can you please share with us a little about yourself?

MB: Like a lot of writers, I’m a fairly quiet person who is never happier than when I’m out walking with my wife. I’ve spent 25 years as a project manager. I’ve built million-dollar computer systems, and designed and built houses. I’ve developed corporate training and bicycled around the world. I’ve written a dozen novels under three different names and I feel that I’m barely starting to hit my stride, yet I’m deeply humbled (and more than a little bit shocked) by the success of my writing.

Have you always wanted to be an author?
MB: Airline pilot. Dreamed about it. Planned on it. Earned my private pilot’s ticket right after college. When I finally discovered that I was just a bit to colorblind to ever make a career of it was one of the hardest days of my young life. I came to writing in my mid-thirties. I was on a plane from Korea to ride my bicycle across the Australian Outback during my mid-life crisis on wheels. I began writing a little vignette about a freshman roommate who killed alarm clocks (he really did). Though the character didn’t survive, that turned into my first novel and my first sale. I haven’t looked back since.

What is your most interesting writing quirk?
MB: My writing office is just a little rolling desk with a laptop and an IKEA chair? I listen to loud rock and roll when I write to shut down my editor brain (except Sundays are usually loud opera)?  Perhaps it’s as my wife says, apparently I chortle at my own writing when I feel I’ve been particularly clever. If I do, I’m too busy being totally absorbed by the world I’m creating to notice. Though more than once I’ve found my cheeks wet after a particularly harrowing scene.

Can you please tell us about your latest book(s)?
MB: Wait Until Dark is a stand-alone book that falls third in my “Night Stalkers” series. The real-life Night Stalkers are the Army’s 160th SOAR are the helicopter regiment of U.S. Special Forces. They fly primarily at night to place, if they do their job right, that we mostly will never hear of. The take down of bin Laden being an exception, though very few articles noted that SOAR did the flying.

Connie and John are both crew chiefs on one of SOAR’s most lethal helicopters. They work as mechanics and fly as gunners. They are responsible for the safety and well-being of one of the nastiest attack helicopters ever designed. And on the occasion of this book, their mission is uniquely fitted to their skills. But what I enjoy the most about this series, or any novel I write, is the complexities they must resolve in themselves so that their hearts have a chance of finding what they need most, each other.

Book #4 Take Over at Midnight will be out this fall. In between will see the launch of book #2 Where Dreams Reside in my contemporary romance series “Angelo’s Hearth,” a foodie romance about an Italian chef in Seattle and the best female lawyer in the city.

How did you come with the idea for this story?
MB: Wait Until Dark was actually born during book #2 in the series, I Own the Dawn. Connie showed up about two-thirds through the book. I didn’t ask for her. My hero and heroine went on leave and when they were called back, there she was. And no one knew what to do with her, least of all the #2 hero’s best friend and fellow crew chief, Big John Wallace. I always start from character, so that’s where I began. The discovery of their love story left the plot of the book almost a complete mystery for the longest time, it was definitely their book and I simply kept nudging the story along.

Can you share with us your current work(s) in progress?
MB: Book #4 of the SOAR series Take Over at Midnight (coming this fall) is just going through final edits. I’m polishing the first draft of a new series presently called “Firehawk” about aerial forest firefighters who fly a Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter rigged with firefighting tanks. It will include several crossover characters from “The Night Stalkers” as their mission isn’t just about the fires. I’ll be adding Where Dreams Reside to my “Angelo’s Hearth” series, a contemporary romance series set in Seattle. Then Matthew Lieber Buchman has a fantasy he’d been dying to write…

Who is the one author that you would love to meet someday and why?
MB: I want to have dinner with Eloisa James, Carl Haissan, and Lee Child. I think the humor and banter would be outrageous and wonderful. I like to think we’d all be sick from laughing so hard. I’d need someone else there to talk for me though as I’d be too busy being gobsmacked to actually speak.

What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone that wants to get into writing?
MB: I’ve heard it from dozens of professionals. BIC, Butt In Chair. Nothing makes up for writing. Not rewriting, but new writing. The second thing? My mentor told me repeatedly before I could begin to understand it, “It’s not about this one book, it’s about a body of work.” You very, very rarely get better by writing one book over and over. Write more, write new, better will come with the practice. Better writing is what consistently sells books.

Can you share with us something off your bucket list?
MB: I miss my sailboat (I rebuilt a fifty-foot ketch in my misbegotten youth) and I miss flying (my childhood dream that I couldn’t quite turn into a career). I want to own a small plane and I want to take my wife sailing somewhere warm like the Mediterranean and take a few months teaching her the joys of being in a craft powered by the world’s winds.

What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?
MB: Oh my gosh. I only recently discovered Eloisa James and I’m trying to read through everything she’s written, but she has a major head start on me. I’m also hooked on thrillers and have a stack of those. I have a pile of Kristine Kathryn Rusch science fiction stacked on my shelf that I’m barely half way through. And I spend about half of my reading time on non-fiction for next works, so I’m reading about aerial fire-fighting, unmanned aircraft, the tenets of a couple of now defunct religions, the inner workings of fashion design, and, uh, a bunch of other stuff.

Is there anything else you would like to add?
MB: Just my thanks for having me aboard and asking such great questions. And if anyone wants to charm me as a reader, make me laugh and make my heart sigh at the same time.

*****

WAIT UNTIL DARK

BY M.L. BUCHMAN 

IN STORES FEBRUARY 2013

 Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-a-Million | IndieBound | Chapters/Indigo | Sourcebooks | Discover a New Love

Name: Big John Wallace

Rank: Staff Sergeant, Chief Mechanic and Gunner

Mission: To serve and protect his crew and country.

 Name: Connie Davis

Rank: Sergeant, Flight Engineer, Mechanical Wizard

Mission: To be the best…and survive.

Two Crack Mechanics, One Impossible Mission…

Being in The Night Stalkers is Connie Davis’s way of facing her demons head-on, but mountain-strong John Wallace is a threat on all fronts. Their passion is explosive, but their conflicts are insurmountable. When duty calls them to a mission no one else could survive, they’ll fly into the night together—ready or not.

Praise for I Own the Dawn:

“A rousing mix of romance and military action thrills…Buchman blends tender feelings with military politics to keep readers riveted.”—Publishers Weekly

 “I can’t wait for the next book.”—RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars

 “Filled with action, adventure, and danger.”—Booklist Starred Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M. L. Buchman has worked in fast food, theater, computers, publishing, and light manufacturing. It’s amazing what you can do with a degree in geophysics. At one point he sold everything and spent 18-months riding a bicycle around the world. In 11,000 miles, he touched 15 countries and hundreds of amazing people. Since then, he has acquired a loving lady, the coolest kid on the planet, and lives in Portland, OR. For more information, please visit http://www.mlbuchman.com/.

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