Group Interview with Novelist, Tony Ross, His New Novel, Grendel and His Other Series.

I interviewed Tony Ross on 13/10/19 on another blog, now defunct.

Today, I have novelist, Tony Ross as my guest. I have changed the process with this interview, by inviting two friends of mine to interview him with me, Terry and Amy, who are fans of Tony's and avid readers of his novels.

So sit back and let’s investigate Tony's writing world and his Christian-based, supernatural, futuristic, suspense thrillers that are created to honor and glorify God. 

But first, here is a little about Tony. 

Tony Ross is an author who’s not afraid of the dark. He writes fast-paced thrillers that include elements of sci-fi and the supernatural and are filled with deep spiritual meaning. Tony considers his writing a ministry, and his books often look at the darkest places of the human heart, offering hope and encouragement to those who need it. None of that detracts from exciting, imaginative stories packed with tension, conflict, and plenty of twists and turns.

Tony has been part of the ministry team at Calvary Apostolic Church in Clintonville, Wisconsin since 2004. When he's not writing, he enjoys country living, backyard campfires, recreational reading and outdoor sports. Tony is happily married and has five children.

Welcome, Tony, thanks for stopping by! Let's start with you telling us about your writing journey. How did you get started?

I got the writing bug in my tenth grade English class. At the start of the school year, my teacher, Mrs Aprill, had the class start a creative journal as an exercise in storytelling. Each week we had a different assignment: introduce the main character, add a secondary character, introduce conflict, and so on. We were only required to write a few sentences or a paragraph at most. But I was having too much fun with it. I wrote pages each week, featuring a bounty hunter, an FBI agent, an assassin, and all kinds of conflict and adventure.

By the end of the school year, I’d finished the story in one hundred and forty handwritten pages or so, and I was off and running. I wouldn’t say that I’d written anything remotely good, but it stoked the fire for more writing. Mrs Aprill was kind enough to encourage me at the end of the year, writing in my yearbook, “Tony, you have one assignment for the summer: get published.” It took me twenty-one years to really get serious enough to try it, but I finally took that step. Best of all, Mrs Aprill didn’t dock my grade for completing my assignment late.

How has writing and being an author impacted your relationship with Jesus Christ or vice versa?

My relationship with Jesus has had a huge impact on my writing. That relationship didn’t really begin until I was twenty-two. I was depressed, angry and well on my way into alcoholism, and it took me hitting rock bottom to really make a decision about God, eternity and the condition of my soul. I did some writing before that point, nothing worth publishing, and it was pretty bleak stuff. When I did get serious with the Lord, He changed my life. He took away my desire for alcohol immediately, and He gave me new hope and purpose. Since that point, I’ve tried to give back to Him in some small way through writing, by telling stories that connect with people and hopefully encourage them to draw closer to the Lord. I ask Him for the theme and build the story around what I feel He’s given me, and I pray each time I sit down to write, asking for His anointing and direction. I write for Him and because of Him, and I hope every story I tell honors and glorifies Him.

What have you found to be the hardest part of your novels? How long does it typically take you to write a novel?

I am not a fan of editing. I’m a relentless perfectionist, and I push myself hard in the editing process. I’ll run through my manuscripts multiple times on the computer, followed by a few times in print. I find that I see things much better on a printed page. If I miss anything and a typo makes it into print, I tend to be hard on myself. I know there’s room for human error, but I always want to offer my very best, both to readers and the Lord.

As far as typical writing time, it varies. I have to fit writing time around family time, a full-time job, preaching once or twice a month at the local church, and everything else that goes on in my life. Writing can be intense or sporadic, depending on my schedule. Three random examples… Defender, the last book in Shadows of Sunlight City, went from blank file to publication in just under a year. Melody’s Memory, which was only seven chapters, was likely only a few months if that. Then you have Brimstone, which was not only interrupted by Melody’s Memory but Omega: The Bitter Pill. Brimstone took me three years to finish and publish, largely because I found myself writing Brimstone and Omega at the same time, depending on which one inspired me on a given day. That’s something I’ll never do again. (Laughs)

Why write predominantly in the genres of futuristic, mystery, suspense, thrillers, science fiction and fantasy?

Those are the kind of stories I’ve always personally enjoyed. The original Star Wars hit theaters when I was five and Star Trek was still popular on television at that time, so science fiction became a big part of my childhood. (For anyone wondering which of the two I prefer, I don’t take sides. Both franchises have strong points, both have flaws, and both gave me a lot of enjoyment in my youth.) I collected hundreds of comic books while growing up. In my teens, I saw most of the action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and so on, and those fueled a love for thrillers. My reading followed: in those days, I read a lot from Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle, Dale Brown, and especially Craig Thomas, whose style of narrating action scenes has influenced my own. Finally, my friends and I gathered for a number of role-playing games in my late teens to early twenties, all of which were fantasy or military science fiction, and the memories of those games were strong influences on my first few unpublished attempts at novels.

All that being said, my writing is largely a product of my childhood and youth, and I enjoy telling the kind of stories that I always liked to read.

What are you reading at the moment, and who are a few of your favorite authors and why?

At the moment, I’m revisiting my bookshelves, and I’m re-reading Saint by Ted Dekker. I’m also working my way through Radical by David Platt. Of course, daily Bible reading is an ongoing thing.

Favorite authors, in no particular order… I enjoy Ted Dekker, who writes very imaginative stories and knows how to keep them moving. I set his books down for a while when he took a weird turn and started bringing in profanity, vampires and other things I didn’t want to read about, but I’ve read some of his more recent work and it’s gotten better. Frank Peretti is one of the most engaging storytellers I’ve ever read. I love the way he weaves spiritual truths into exciting stories, and his style of writing, especially now in his later years, is a genuine pleasure to read. Steven James writes exceptional thrillers, edgy and definitely not for the squeamish, and he does a wonderful job of getting into his characters’ heads and taking them on exciting journeys that ultimately transform them.

I enjoy Robert Liparulo’s action-packed thrillers with their cutting-edge tech and sense of realism, and Mike Dellosso’s dark horror stories that inevitably lead to light and hope. Sigmund Brouwer tells interesting stories, and he can put a mystery in any setting from the Middle Ages to the Old West, which I think is great fun. I like Bryan Davis and his ever-imaginative tales of fantasy and his characters that epitomize Godly principles and high moral standards. There are plenty of other authors who I enjoy, but these are the first ones that come to mind.

What is the best part of your author’s life?

I could go a couple of ways on that. I really enjoy it when the inspiration is sparking and I’m sitting at the computer and I can’t type fast enough. There are times it feels like I’m just watching my characters as they act or interact, and I’m just taking notes as they drive the scene. Or I’ll be developing a spiritual concept in the story, and all at once, my own understanding opens up and I see something I hadn’t seen before, and I find myself learning right along with my characters.

I also find it very rewarding to touch base with readers. I’m honored that they would read my books in the first place, and I’m humbled when I hear that a particular story touched them or got them thinking. I’ve been blessed with some of the best readers in the world, and many of them have become friends who talk with me, encourage me and pray for me. That alone is a wonderful privilege that I don’t take for granted.

What’s one unusual fact about you?

I began school at four years old, which on its own isn’t unusual, but I entered kindergarten with a fourth-grade reading level. I thank my mother for that. She would read four, five, six books a night while rocking me, doing whatever she could to get me to stop crying and go to sleep. I know it was hard for her, but it did give me a huge boost in reading and comprehension, and it instilled in me a love for the written word. Thanks, Mom.

Where did the inspiration come for The Black Cat Chronicles?

The Black Cats are a team of assassins that I introduced in Victor, the first book in the Shadows of Sunlight City (SOSC) series. Victor focused mostly on the title character, with only one of the other four assassins getting more than a passing mention. I thought that someday it would be fun to write a series of prequels to SOSC, giving each of the Black Cats their own story, looking at who they were, what made them tick, and so on. On top of that, the Chronicles allow me to explore the earlier days of other characters who were connected to the Black Cats in Victor, and that’s been interesting too.

Melody’s Memory is a standalone novel, not connected to these two series. Where did the idea for this come from?

Melody’s Memory is a very special book to me, and easily the most personal story I’ve told. It was important enough to me to stop right in the middle of writing Brimstone and switch stories, because I’d hit a moment in my life that was teaching me a lot about forgiveness, and I needed to share what I was learning.

I’d just been contacted by someone who had once been very important to me. The relationship went sour, and she and I had parted on bad terms. After twenty years (doesn’t that sound like something out of a movie?), she thought of me, looked me up and decided to contact me via email.

I was shocked. I’d always felt that we’d cross paths again, and lo and behold, it actually happened. What followed was a series of emails, which I was careful to keep my wife informed of, over the course of a week to a week-and-a-half. We conversed, shared our feelings, looked at both sides of our parting, and in the end made peace and went our separate ways again. It was a very healing time for both of us.

The characters and events in Melody’s Memory are fictionalized and have little basis in reality, but what is very real are the thoughts and emotions of my main character, Darien Wells. I wrote everything I was feeling into that book, trying to process my own emotions, and a lot of what you see Darien working through is literally how I was feeling. Melody’s Memory was a very vulnerable book for me, and definitely a departure from writing thrillers, but I hope it rings true to readers and helps them with the critical issue of forgiveness.

What kind of reaction are you hoping to receive from readers or have received from readers? Good question. I’d like readers to feel, once they’ve finished a book, that they were not only entertained, but ministered to. I hope they’ll appreciate that I write books with no profanity, bedroom scenes or overwhelming gore, and I hope those books still engage them emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. I hope I touch their hearts and get them thinking and challenge them to learn more about God and eternity and the things that really matter. If I were to hear from readers, “Your book really made me think about eternal life, or the high cost of bitterness, or the value of life, and I’m going to take some positive steps,” that would mean far more to me than any spot on a best-seller list.

You have just released Grendel: Fear of the Dark, book 3 in The Black Cat Chronicles. Tell us about this novel and what we can expect from it (if you can without giving away too many spoilers).

Grendel: Fear of the Dark sends a highly trained assassin who conceals himself behind cutting-edge armor into the snow and cold of northern Siberia. Grendel has been tasked with recovering the kidnapped wife of an influential politician and eliminating whoever is responsible for the abduction. But the kidnapper is no common criminal, and he is prepared to hold on to his prize, no matter who comes for her.

The story deals extensively with fear and how people deal with it, and I hope it offers some useful insights on facing and overcoming fear. Along the way, readers will find plenty of internal and external conflict and steadily climbing tension, building to an explosive climax at a once-abandoned Cold War facility and a final showdown that will push Grendel to his breaking point. It was a fun story to write, and I hope it’s fun for readers too.

While we are talking about Grendel, let's take a break from this interview and give readers a chance to read an excerpt, but before we do, explain why you chose this particular excerpt.

Great idea, Peter! I chose this excerpt for a couple of reasons. Number one, it provides a glimpse of Grendel, and we see a flawed and damaged character. Grendel is an assassin, and it would be very easy to write him as an unstoppable killing machine, but I enjoy writing characters with weaknesses and struggles that people can relate to. In this case, we get a hint of a traumatic memory and the deep-rooted fear it left Grendel with. Number two, we see how Grendel handles his fear: he shoves it deep down inside and hides behind a fearsome mask. Is that the right approach to fear? Is it wrong? That’s the kind of question I look at through the eyes of several characters in different situations, and I hope that, with the help of the Lord, I’ve offered some answers by the end of the book.

Now here is the excerpt:

Grendel blinked and looked down through red-tinted lenses at the forest floor: disturbed snow and larch needles and flecks of bark and dirt, only half a meter away. Back in the present. Finally. He’d dropped to his hands and knees while reliving the memory. He pushed himself up slowly, watching the data flashing across Gurenderu’s internal display. Accelerated respiration and heart rate. Chest pain, not too different from his memory of the lake. He felt unsettled, on the way to losing control. The beginnings of a panic attack, maybe. Beginnings? Or was he coming out of one? Either way, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d experienced this. No. He was an assassin. He couldn’t afford anything like that. Fear was going to get him killed if he didn’t control it. And Josef, interestingly enough, had insisted on using him in a cold-weather mission, near a lake. He had to know that would trigger these memories. Maybe that was the point. Alright. Fine. He would overcome this. Lock away his deepest fears. Forever. He reached up, against his better judgment, and unlocked his mask, breaking its seal to the suit with a soft hiss. He pulled the mask away, turned it around, and stared for a long moment at the red eyes and bared teeth of Gurenderu. This was who he was. This was who he had to be. Gurenderu. Grendel. The adversary. The solitary walker. The hellish monster. Death’s shadow. Gurenderu, a demon whom knew no fear. Not like Jin. He repositioned the mask, raised it to his face and sealed it back into place. He was focused now. He’d banished the memory and the fear that accompanied it, locking them away behind black armor and the identity it gave him. All that mattered now was the mission. Not fear. Not memories. Not a little boy who still found himself searching for the loved ones he’d lost. The loved ones he’d killed. He was Grendel, and nothing more.

That has further piqued my interest in this novel, Tony! I hope it has as well for those reading this interview! Now back to our discussion! Is there a reading order for both series?

Yes, there is. Shadows of Sunlight City goes as follows: Victor, Orion, Brimstone and Defender. That series should be read before The Black Cat Chronicles. The Chronicles are prequels to SOSC, but they’ll make much more sense if read later.

The Chronicles should be read in this order: Omega: The Bitter Pill, Ares: The Gates of Hell, and Grendel: Fear of the Dark. Two more books will follow in the series (I’m not settled on the titles yet), and the conclusion of the Chronicles will come just before the beginning of Victor. At that point, readers will still not be able to read the two series interchangeably, like Ted Dekker did in turning his Circle series into an endless loop, but they will have a good idea what happened before SOSC. When reading the two series, Shadows of Sunlight City should always come first.

Now Tony, one of your fans, Terry Conrad, who is also a friend of mine, wants to ask you a few questions!

Over to you Terry!

Thanks Peter!

Tony, I am so glad to have an opportunity to ask you some questions. My first one is, The Sunlight City series is my favorite genre. Any plans to write another book in this genre?

      Hi, Terry. At the moment, I don’t have any concrete plans to revisit Sunlight City, unless I find a need for it to appear in the upcoming books in The Black Cat Chronicles. However, I’ll never rule out the possibility. There’s just too much to work within a city where the rule of law is “Give the people what they want.” I do think it would be fun to look at David Johansen, before the events of Shadows of Sunlight City, maybe even in his first steps as a Christian, in his role as an occult investigator in the police department. He could work some interesting cases that would really challenge him and his faith. For now, though, that’s only an idea.

How did you come up with the idea of Sunlight City? Did you see a movie or something on the news that started you thinking or did the creativity just start coming to you?

Fun fact: I was never going to use the name “Sunlight City.” The original plan was to call it Sun City, contrasting the light implied in the name with the moral and spiritual darkness of the city. WestBow Press, with whom I originally published Victor, advised me against it, pointing out that Sun City was a retirement community in Arizona and I might not want to suggest immorality and violence there. I came up with a few options, and Sunlight City sounded a little corny to me, but I could live with it.

As far as the idea behind the city… it’s hard to say. I can’t look back with any certainty and say for sure what inspired it. I do know that, in Victor, I wanted to look closely at questions of tolerance and freedom of choice. I thought it would be interesting to stretch those concepts to their logical end and see what it looked like. Do we, as the human race, really want to tolerate everything, extend freedom of choice to everything, or should a line be drawn where this is right and that is wrong? If we agree that a line is needed, what defines that line? I thought this question was best looked at in a fictional city, set on an island, where those in power governed by a code that may or may not influence the rest of humanity. It needed to present itself as beautiful, enticing others to come and enjoy a truly liberal lifestyle, but there would be no missing the spiritual undertone that this city was on a dangerous, self-destructive path.

I think what troubles me the most in the years since writing Victor is following the news and seeing what’s happening in the world these days, what people are saying and doing and thinking. I feel like I’m watching Sunlight City come to life before my eyes. It’s definitely incentive to watch and pray.

Does it get frustrating that so few people read Speculative Christian Fiction, especially women?

Honestly, I don’t worry about it. It’s out of my control. I remember, going into the turn of the century when the hottest Christian novels had to do with the last days and the coming of the Lord. There was a stretch in there when everything was about spiritual warfare. Everything goes in cycles. I wish more people would read speculative Christian fiction because I’ve seen some very unique stories told in that genre that would bless them. But again, that’s out of my hands. I just write the stories that I’m given, and I trust the Lord with the rest. Speculative Christian fiction will have its time again, and I hope more readers, both men and women, will find my books when that time comes. In the meantime, if nothing else, I’m having a good time writing them.

Do you prefer to extensively plot your stories from beginning to end or do you write them as they come to you?

It varies. For shorter books like those in The Black Cat Chronicles, I’ll type up notes on characters so I know who I’m writing about, and then I just dive into the story and let it develop. Full-length novels take a little more work. I’ll create a file called “Notes,” then type up a few sentences or paragraphs on what I expect to happen in the first ten to fifteen chapters. What I expect to happen doesn’t always happen; I let the story develop organically, and if my characters come up with something more interesting than what I had planned, I adjust. I’ll write through those ten or fifteen chapters, plan out the next stretch, and repeat the process. But nothing is ever set in stone. I have an idea where I want to go, and the spiritual theme is non-negotiable, but otherwise, I let the characters figure out the best way to get to the end.

This isn't really a question, but I love how you wrote Victor. The book keeps the question of salvation from a specific perspective, that keeps a person thinking for weeks.

Thanks, Terry. I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Eternal life and salvation are definitely subjects every one of us should think about, and I hope that Victor and my other books challenge readers to ask questions on those and other subjects… and to open up the Word of God for themselves to find the answers.

Another one of your fans, Amy Faust Machita, is with me too and also wants to ask you some questions:

Over to you, Amy!

Thanks Peter!

Tony, Glad to have this opportunity to be part of this interview with you!

My first question is, Do you base any of your characters on real people? I know most of them are not “good people,” but could any part of a person have been an inspiration?

Hi, Amy. Yes, I do find traits in people that inspire me in characters, though I try to avoid lifting people directly from reality and placing them in fiction, just in case they don’t care for my depiction of them. I’ve got this thing against lawsuits. (Laughs) The closest I’ve ever come was in Ares: The Gates of Hell, where I modeled Ares somewhat after my younger son, who stood in as Ares for the cover photo. He got credit on the copyright page for it, as did my daughter, who actually took the photo and did the initial computer work on it. Other than that, there might be bits and pieces of real people in Victor, David, Mona and the rest, but I try not to do too much of that unless it fits the character.

Does your family read your books and are they fans of this type of book?

My family does read my books, and my sons have read most of what’s on my bookshelves, so I’d count them as thriller fans. My wife and daughters won’t go out of their way to pull a thriller off the shelf, but they sure do enjoy it if I read those books to them. I do voices and everything. It’s fun. We read Robert Liparulo’s Dreamhouse Kings series a while ago as part of homeschooling, and I’ve been asked repeatedly to do it again. I’m currently reading Ted Dekker’s Circle books to them (not including Green, which I didn’t care for), and they love it. Add in my mom, my brother and my sisters, all of whom read my books, and I do enjoy considerable support from my family.

You always put the gospel message very clearly in your books. Do you know of any specific instances when someone has become saved through this, and if not, don’t let that discourage you because God uses it every time you or any Christian puts it out there. I was just wondering if you had any stories about God using your books.

In Victor, I include a scene where two of the characters, one a Christian and the other with minimal spiritual knowledge, find themselves the targets of spiritual warfare. The Christian keeps getting distracted from prayer, the other has troubling dreams, both are dealing with strong emotions and temptations with no clear source… I’m trying to describe it without spoilers, but it’s one of my favorite scenes in the book. In that scene, the reader is introduced to spiritual warfare, learns how to recognize it, and in the end learns how to handle it through prayer.

I spoke with a young man at one point after he’d read Victor. He told me of an occasion where he’d found himself struggling with some things. He asked himself: “What is this? Why am I thinking these things? Where is this coming from?” And he remembered that scene, and it clicked. He prayed, and the struggle ended.

I thank God that a work of fiction gave that young man something he could use when he needed it, and I pray that God will continue to minister in other ways to other people through my books.

Were you always a creative person? Is there any other outlet for your creativity other than writing?

I’ve always enjoyed drawing. I’m most comfortable with pencil and paper. I’ve been doing that most of my life. I don’t have the time for it that I used to, but I’m starting to work it into the covers for my books. The cover for Defender was a hand drawing that I inked, colored in Photoshop and placed over a photo I took. It’s not quite what I wanted, but it was a learning experience, and I can always revise it in the future. I did the same thing with the cover for Grendel: Fear of the Dark, putting original art over a photo of my backwoods. There are still things I could improve, but I’m learning.

I’ve always dreamed of doing my own graphic novel; I actually have rough notes stored in my office, along with thumbnail sketches of how each page should be laid out. I haven’t seen a lot out there for Christian comic fans, and I’d like to offer something. Maybe someday I’ll do it, but it’ll have to wait for now.

Will you continue on in your current series or do you have other ideas that you are going to work on?

I have two more books scheduled for The Black Cat Chronicles, featuring characters readers will have met already. Book four will center on Orion, and book five will be the final Victor story. At that point, I’ll end the series. If nothing changes in what I have planned, the last book in the Chronicles would open the door for a whole new series, if I decide to pursue it. I do have other ideas. That graphic novel, for one. I’ve drawn up a map of a fantasy world and rough notes on characters, politics, what have you, so I might one day try my hand at epic fantasy. I’ve considered a non-fiction work dealing with grief, anxiety, depression and other silent battles that we fight, but I have yet to receive clear direction on it. So yes, I do have ideas, but for now my focus is on The Black Cat Chronicles, and we’ll see where God leads me from there.

Any closing comments?

It’s been an honor and a privilege to take part in this interview, Peter! Thank you very much for the opportunity to share a bit about myself and my books, and for bringing Terry and Amy on board as well. It’s been fun. I really do enjoy connecting with readers, and I’m grateful for the chance to do so here. God bless you all.

If you would like to connect with Tony, you can do so on his social networking platforms:

Facebook  -  Amazon author page 

Well, Tony, I agree, this interview has been fun! You have given us an insight into the worlds of your series and I pray this has piqued our visitor's interest to read them. You are welcome any time! Just let me know! And I agree with you, it has been great having Terry and Amy on board too! Thank you both for being part of this with Tony and I.

To preview or buy any of Tony's novels, all the novel titles are clickable links to Amazon.  

Readers and reviews are an author’s best asset, so I encourage any reader, to consider reading Tony's series and submit a review on Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest (or any other social media you subscribe to).

Reviews help promote an author’s novel to potential readers and encourage the author to keep writing. Reviews also help get the author’s message (and God’s message) to the reader, whether Christian or not, who may need encouragement and support in their lives while being entertained by the story.

Please note: As an Amazon Associate, I am required to disclose that book cover images or titles of novels in this post are paid links if they are linked to Amazon and result in a sale.