Adam Blumer

I’m interviewing Adam Blumer, who lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his wife, Kim, and his daughters, Laura and Julia. Adam works full-time as a freelance writer and editor. A print journalism graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC), he served in editorial roles for fourteen years at Northland Baptist Bible College (Dunbar, WI) and Awana Clubs International Headquarters (Streamwood, IL). He has published numerous short stories and articles. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids, MI) plans to release his first novel, Fatal Illusions, on March 31, 2009.

Adam, This is your debut novel. Congratulations! What gave you the inspiration for this story?

Frank Peretti’s earliest supernatural thrillers taught me that Christian novels can do more than entertain. I wanted to write something not only suspenseful but also meaningful. My prayer is that the message will resonate with readers and maybe even challenge their spiritual thinking a little bit.

The novels of Mary Higgins Clark also inspired me. I studied the organization and plot lines of her novels and wondering if I could write something as good. I also like her shifting points of view and her short, numerous chapters. (Readers might notice a resemblance.) Her novel You Belong to Me especially inspired me to try my own hand at a serial killer, “female in jeopardy” suspense tale. Because most Christian readers are women, I decided to make my main protagonist female—in fact, a pastor’s wife, a protagonist you don’t read about very often. Add to that my love of true crime and forensic science, and I was on my way.

A past experience also provided a creative springboard. A church voted to remove from membership a believer who was sincerely repentant of immorality. I began to play the “what if” game in my mind. What if the person who was disciplined got really ticked? What if he or she became mad enough to kill? I thought a church discipline scenario created an unusual motive for murder—hence one of the subplots in Fatal Illusions. I also read Ruth Brandon’s The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini. This biography of the famous illusionist fascinated me and helped me develop the characterization of my serial killer. In fact, readers will discover an important plot clue connected to Houdini.

I remember getting my first contract on a western fiction story I wrote, and how elated I was at getting it. If they’d have only known, they could have gotten it for free!  There must have been a  giant sigh of relief from you to see that “accepted” from the publisher. How long did it take you to get your first book contract?

A long time. I spent about twenty years pursuing novel writing seriously (and experiencing some ups but mostly downs) before my book proposal for Fatal Illusions caught the eye of a literary agent. I completed five unpublished novels, mostly for youth, before I began Fatal Illusions, which I was calling Now You See Him, in the spring of 2002 in conjunction with a Writer’s Digest correspondence course on novel writing. I finished the first draft in the fall of 2005 and began contacting literary agents.

In January of 2006, literary agent Steve Laube, a well-known and respected voice in Christian fiction, responded enthusiastically to my book proposal and asked to see the entire manuscript. Of course, I was on cloud nine; the hard work and sacrifice were finally paying off. Though he ultimately declined to represent me, he didn’t merely send me a form letter so typical in the publishing industry. He sent me a two-page letter, pointing out how few manuscripts reach the stage that mine did, and gave me eight pointers on how to make the novel publishable. Energized, I followed his advice and got to work, but I still couldn’t find an agent or publisher. A year later, I contacted Kregel Publications, not about my novel but about opportunities to edit books from home. The managing editor noticed on my resume that I had written several unpublished novels and asked to see my latest project. In short, Kregel liked what they saw in Fatal Illusions and accepted it for publication in August 2007. God opened a door I never could have opened for myself.

How much of your own experiences influenced your characters? What aspects became traits that were theirs and theirs alone?

To some degree, my life experiences are always going to factor into how I create my characters. I made a special effort not to make the main protagonists just like me, though there are a few similarities. My female lead, Gillian Thayer, for example, works a part-time job as a calligrapher. In high school, I dabbled in calligraphy and won a few small awards. Gillian also loves solo piano music and Earl Grey tea—two of my favorite things. I’m also melancholy like Gillian. On the other hand, Gillian’s pastor husband, Marc, isn’t at all like me. He’s an aggressive extrovert and natural speaker who played professional basketball for the Chicago Bulls before God used a car accident to save his soul and change his life. I don’t play a lick of basketball and know next to nothing about professional basketball, so I had some research to do.

Several traits belong only to my characters. Gillian has a habit of tracing imaginary calligraphy letters with her finger when she’s tense. Marc struggles with a basketball addiction, but refrains from playing the sport due to anger issues. His daughter, Crystal, has been taking voice lessons since she was six and gets the lead role in a small-town musical. My serial killer, who enjoys listening to Broadway musical soundtracks, drives his fingernails into his palms when he’s enraged. Chuck Riley, the retired homicide detective who helps the Thayers catch the killer, is addicted to Juicy Fruit gum.

Adam, every book has a theme of some sort. What themes exist in Fatal Illusions that you hope the reader sees? Are there any themes that weren’t overt but developed as the story progressed?

Mainly I probe the themes of secrets and deception (or “illusions” as my title suggests, though on a secondary level). As believers, how do we lie to ourselves and to others? Do we try to hide who we really are inside? What happens if we try to live a lie? Should spouses ever keep secrets from one another? What can happen if they do? I also encourage readers to think about how they would protect their families if they faced the same type of evil the Thayer family must confront. (My serial killer cyber-stalks his victims weeks before he makes his move.) Many of the novel’s themes are areas I’ve had to work through in my own thinking. When life doesn’t make sense, how do I respond? Do I trust God, even when His ways are difficult to understand?

One minor character, Stacey James, developed in unexpected ways during revisions. She’s obsessed with Marc Thayer, a married man, and can’t seem to let him go. At one point in the story, she recalls that her own father, a pastor, abandoned his family and the ministry for another woman. God opens her eyes to the fact that by pursuing Marc she is essentially repeating the past and taking on the role of this “other woman.” But with God’s help she can break the cycle and walk away. In many ways, all of us have past experiences that can lead us down the wrong path if we let them. This theme naturally emerged as the novel evolved toward its final form.

I did a western fiction novel a few years ago, and there was a part where it became very difficult for me because the character wanted to take the story in a different direction. I suspect every writer has some difficult parts in the writing of his or her story. What were your most difficult parts to write? And what’s your favorite?

Like a Mary Higgins Clark novel, I chose a female protagonist. I believe this was the right choice, but it created challenges in making Gillian a three-dimensional character who doesn’t think like me. Among several issues, she struggles with private grief and needs a godly female mentor in her life. Describing her struggles as a woman with unique emotional needs and insecurities was often challenging. Entering the killer’s head was also sometimes difficult because of the darkness he had welcomed into his soul. Hands down, my favorite parts to write were the creepy cat-and-mouse scenes at Whistler’s Point, a historic lighthouse where the Thayers live. When a snow storm cuts off the power, Gillian find herself being hunted by the killer in the dark without a weapon and miles from help. I loved writing that part.

Adam, I am a great believer in the use of fiction to reach out to others who may not share the Christian faith. Indeed, I’m currently working on a Christian  sci-fi novel that is designed, in part, to develop an interest by young people in the Bible, particularly the Revelation. What are your thoughts about fiction as a medium to reach those who either reject Christianity and thus, Christ, or who are just not really interested in it? Do you see, for example, your book perhaps one day falling into the hands of a person who is not particularly enamored of Christianity, and becoming interested as a result of reading your book?

I personally believe that Christian authors can use fiction to reach the lost. The Left Behind novels are a good example. I’ve read reports that some readers made lasting changes for Christ as a result of reading those novels. I guess the strongest evidence I have to support this argument is the example of Jesus Christ and His use of parables. He frequently used stories to illustrate biblical truths; I don’t see any reason why a Christian author can’t do the same thing. At the same time, I believe Christian authors need to be cautious when they are conveying a message, since fiction is intrinsically entertainment. The story needs to be the main thing, but I personally believe Christian novelists have a responsibility to say something redemptive in their fiction. That doesn’t mean the message needs to be overt in every book. For example, conveying the overt gospel message would be difficult in the context of a fantasy or allegory. My aim in writing my novel was to encourage believers, but I would be delighted if God used the novel to open the eyes of someone who doesn’t know Christ.

What kind of research did you need to do, if any, for the book?

I did quite a bit of research. Calligraphy didn’t require much research because I had dabbled in it in high school and won a few awards. Information about magicians wasn’t tough to find either because I had already been researching Houdini on the Internet after reading a biography about him. For serial killers, I watched a lot of Forensic Files and Body of Evidence on TV and read Mary Higgins Clark and other crime/suspense authors. One big area I had to research was police procedure since a retired homicide detective helps the Thayers catch the Magician Murderer. I researched crime scene investigation, forensic science, computer crimes (since my villain is a cyber-stalker), and other related areas. But these have always been areas of interest, so I hardly thought of the research as work. Because Gillian is a professional calligrapher of famous quotations, Bible verses, and love poems, I also had to research her literary side since that’s her lens for viewing the world.

Do you think an author has an obligation to express his or her personal theological perspective in a book, or is it permissible to allow the protagonist to be a member of a church that you, personally, would not belong?

In my opinion, this depends on the book. In a fantasy novel, for example, I probably wouldn’t convey any overt theological perspective, though I may convey some general message about God through allegory. I could see myself creating a protagonist who is an unbeliever, but by the end of the novel I would want him to see the light and experience change somehow. (I strongly believe that Christian fiction should be redemptive fiction. It should be meaningful just as our lives should be meaningful. God has clearly given believers a message; therefore, I do believe that Christian novelists are remiss not to convey some type of redemptive truth.) If the protagonist is a believer, I probably wouldn’t place the character in a church that holds to beliefs that are contrary to Scripture unless the character realized the error of his way and changed. Usually the protagonist would be confined to certain churches simply because some churches, sad to say, do not teach Bible truth.

When is your next book coming out and what is the story?

I work on the sequel, tentatively called Plagues, after my day job as a freelance editor. I can’t say for sure when the novel will be coming out. I’ll just work on it as the Lord leads and leave the rest in His hands. Readers may not realize that publication of a second novel often depends on how well the first novel does first.

In Plagues, the main characters from Fatal Illusions are reunited, this time at a Christian conference center in Michigan’s north woods, which is where all novels in my hoped-for series will be set. Marc and Gillian Thayer think they are getting away for some much-needed R&R, but protestors with placards and bullhorns shatter the otherwise-peaceful surroundings. A Bible translation committee is holding its regional meeting, and a mob is protesting the committee’s efforts to create a new and controversial parallel Bible. While God displeased with the committee? Are the protestors somehow to blame? When a committee member turns up dead in a pile of frogs, Marc and Gillian put their vacation on hold, enlist the help of retired homicide detective Chuck Riley, and take a closer look at the bizarre plagues as they escalate in intensity.

I’m having fun planning and writing the sequel’s twists and turns, and I hope readers will enjoy reading it, too.

Thanks, Voyle, for the interview. I enjoyed chatting with you.

Thanks for the excellent book, Adam. I am looking forward to reading it and reviewing it.

For those interested, here’s a link to Adam’s web site, a brief blurb from the book, and a link to where you can buy the book on Amazon.

Book excerpt:


Gillian Thayer’s calligraphy business helps to keep her mind off two small headstones in the cemetery. Still healing from the death of her twins during birth, Gillian absorbs another emotional blow when she finds a love letter addressed to her husband Marc, a pastor and counselor. But before Gillian can confront him, a gunshot shatters her already fragile world. Gillian’s family is forced to leave Chicago to escape the eye of the media. Together they seek refuge in Whistler’s Point, a historic lighthouse on Lake Superior near the tiny town of Newberry, Michigan. But they are not the only new arrivals looking for a place to lay low. Haydon Owens, an amateur magician and accomplished killer, has also come to Newberry hoping to start a new life, but he isn’t there long before he spots another potential victim.

Publisher: Kregel Publications

Web site: http://www.adamblumerbooks.com/

ISBN-10: 0825420989

Link to Adam’s Book at Amazon.com (Click here)

Copyright 2009 Voyle A. Glover

For example, most almost all Western fiction novels take place completely in what is commonly known as the Old West. When I did a novel, Bloody Wes Teague, a few years ago,  although it began in the West, the story quickly moved  to New York City. I looked for some unusual facts that I could  incorporate into the story.  I disovered two facts that  were unusual, in that they were not commonly known. One was that New York City, at one time, had a disposal system which consisted of pigs roaming loose in the streets. This was New York’s bizarre garbage collection system. Another fact was that on hot, dry summer days, there would be huge clouds of manure dust hanging in the air. This was caused by the many horses and carriages in the city driving over dried piles of manure.

Every writers ought to look to incorporate  some unusual facts in your stories. These facts ought to be based on historical facts. It will make you a more interesting writer and will definitely make your novels more interesting to your reader.

In my new Christian Sci-fi book, Millennium Soldier, I tried out some techniques that I’d never employed before in my writing. First of all, I had to have some exotic words. These words needed to be nearly impossible to speak, but not entirely. They had to be words that did not exist, or needed to exist for a meaning we do not have a word to describe. That was not an easy task, but I reasoned that if humans speaking English had a word, a very strange word not found in their language, what would we do? Well, we’d adjust it somewhat to enable us to pronounce the word, and we might even use the phonetic sound of the word to create the word in our language; or, in some instances, we may just render a word that we cannot say, into something we can say that has nothing to do with phonetics, but just meaning.

In later portions of the book, Millennium Soldier, the main character, Cubal, meets an alien race. They are strange in many ways (including their love for human flesh). I had to have an unusual name for them, so I invented the name A’rkji.  This would be a name that could have come from the complete inability to say the real name of this species, phonetically speaking, “Abjt-ssha-katta-malibk-jlissi.” Thus, the shorthand version, A’rkji.

Here is a short scene from that section of the book:

Cubal moved closer, watching curiously as a small band of A’rkji, flesh-eating man hunters he’d come to despise on Kroys’nan, began removing  a prisoner from a cage. His eyes swept the group quickly, then focused on the uniformed soldiers. He knew the man he was looking for was not here. The black-clad warrior began moving back slowly, blending himself into the crowd. He had long ago learned the art of blending, of making his life force diminish so as not to alert those who might seek him as prey or sense him as competition. It was not that he feared anyone in the room. But, he still had that sense of danger, that sense that told him someone or something waited here for him, probably to harm him.  Therefore, it would be wise for him to be as the Putsha, invisible to his unknown enemies.

Suddenly, as he was moving toward the outer edges of the room, he heard the prisoner of the A’rkji cry out. He stopped suddenly.

I know that voice!

He knew the identity of the prisoner of the A’rkji! And, he also knew that his desire to remain invisible was now going to be impossible. The incident with the slavers had been of little notice. The policeman did not care one way or another. But here, there were too many who would know of him and some who might actually know him. Those who sought him would now be alerted.

He moved with the quick glide of a big cat moving swiftly across an open field to take down its prey. Cubal kept the extension of his life force at a level that would not be noticeable to the A’rkji. He saw them hurl the prisoner onto the diamond plate. The man slid across the polished surface on his back, spinning around until he came to rest in the center. He again cried out in pain, and Cubal saw streaks of blood across his stomach.  He’d been beaten, probably with a Kylanian whip. It was a favorite of the A’rkji.

Cubal moved near the A’rkji and watched as one of them began punching at a pad controlling the mechanism in the ceiling. He knew that if he did not move quickly, his friend would be instantly transported, probably to the home of the A’rkji, for food. This was only the second interstellar transporter of this kind he’d ever seen. They were very expensive and their use prohibited on most other worlds. While the ordinary portals could move a person into another world, it did it with the use of an extensive array of jump sites, usually located in ships. Although the leap through a portal would seem instantaneous to the one moving through it, in actuality, the person was moving through several, sometimes dozens, of linked portals.

These were different. They moved through time and space itself. It was said that if the right settings were made, one could move forward or backward in time. Cubal did not know. He did know that this device would transport his friend instantly to the world of the A’rkji, and that his end would be as the main course in a frenzied feeding by some of the elite on that world.

He leaped over the light-bezel and grabbed his friend from the floor. But, he’d barely begun to lift him when the brilliance of a thousand suns swept through his body, and in a millisecond of thought, he knew that the A’rkji would not have a one-course meal, but would have two coming for dinner. In the next second, he was there, standing on a plate of polished diamond. But, little else was the same. Instead, he was in a room filled with A’rkji warriors, each armed with their deadly light guns.

He lifted his friend, who groaned softly. His mind was calculating the odds. A Wearer of the Black did not fear an enemy and did not fear death. It was never about death for such a one. It was about life force and protecting it, and about measuring the life force of an enemy and determining its vulnerabilities, its weaknesses, and its strengths. Now, it was about protecting two life forces: his and his friend’s. He knew that the time was not right. His friend would die if he chose to resist. He slowly lowered his energy level and shrank inside his dark cloak.

Three warriors came up to them, one chortling, “It is good. Two there are for the feeding. It is reward.” Roughly, they seized both men and dragged them off the diamond plate, then shoved them down a long, unlit, narrow hall. The dampness of the whole place carried foul odors.  After a few moments, the two were propelled into a large room. It was a room of almost complete darkness. Cubal knew that the A’rkji preferred the dark and always fed in the night hours. He could not tell whether it was nightfall or not. But, perhaps they did not need light. Perhaps they only needed the dark.

But, the blackness was his friend, too.

This book required a large number of “alien” sounding words. The cloned humans, for example, are called Crystings. The planet where Cubal goes and finds strange beings who claim to be resurrected humans who are indestructible is called Glale. Finding words that will give the alien quality to the book was not always easy. Sometimes, it was extremely difficult, as was the case for the planet in which Cubal’s story begins. Here is a short excerpt about that planet:

The trio slipped into the dense crowd, melting into the myriad of strange faces and shapes. Man-like creatures dominated, outnumbering those whose appearance was so strikingly dissimilar that one knew instantly that its origins were non-human, that no human lineage would ever be found in such beings. Some were clearly reptilian, with a disposition to match their repulsiveness. Others were merely different, strange beings from strange worlds, all living or visiting on the planet Na’ha, or as called in the Mecadorian tongue, Lag’hangu te ra’sna.

Humans had long ago reduced the name to a more pronounceable sound, and it had stuck, and, excepting for some of the aged inhabitants of the planet, it was Na’ha to all. Na’ha was a trading planet. It hung central to the Meridos system, had a radiant gravity that was acceptable to all but the largest of species, and its atmosphere was rich in oxygen and several gases that, while not harmful to humans, was essential to some of the other alien forms of life. It was this gas mixture that made the planet attractive as a trading planet. It also attracted the evil of the galaxy for it was a place to find slaves, a place to trade slaves—a place to buy and sell anything in the universe, including weapons of virtually any kind and description. The law on Na’ha was a simple one, written by the Neimic government thousands of years ago and maintained by those who’d come after them. The law, roughly translated, said: “Unseat not the government by force, but by natural causes it shall abate, and the citizens shall be free to do as they please. A force shall police the land for the good of the government and the good of the land in a manner that shall be approved by the government.”

Inventing a language is just one of the fun parts of writing a science fiction novel.

For me, that was not as difficult as staying within biblical boundaries, to wit, staying within the boundaries clearly deliniated in Scripture. One may speculate where it is permitted, but there are some lines a writer ought not cross. For example, while it is permitted to invent a language, it would be crossing one of those biblical boundary lines if a writer was to have, as part of his story line, that the Hebrew people and language came from a race of people who were demonic creations. All indications in the Bible strongly indicate that is false.

So, inventing a language was the easy part, in comparison, because one must have a fairly good understanding of the Bible in order to stay within those boundaries.

Jules stood hidden in the small grove of trees just at the edge of a clearing, observing one of the strangest sights he’d ever seen. He’d spotted a strange man clad in a black cloak early in the day and had followed him from the river to this clearing. He’d watched as the man had performed what appeared to be rituals unlike anything Jules had ever seen, for several hours. The stranger had made curious movements with his hands and had made steps that appeared to be a kind of dance. At one point, the stranger had come to a complete stop to all movements, freezing in place for nearly a half hour, without so much as a muscle quivering. Finally, the figure had sank to the ground cross‑legged and sat unmoving, his hands on his knees, his head looking down at the ground. Jules looked at the moons and knew the time had been four hours for the twins had passed in the sky twice.

[next time: continuing with openings and dealing with the action]