James Lyon is an accidental Balkanologist, having spent the better part of 32 years studying and working with the lands of the former Yugoslavia. He has a Ph.D. in Modern Balkan History from UCLA and a B.A. in Russian from BYU. He has lived in Germany, Russia, England, Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Utah, and California, and spent the better part of 18 years living in the lands of the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, and has worked in Macedonia and Kosovo. He has traveled widely, from Africa to Latin America to the Middle East, and all over Europe. He currently works in Sarajevo and bounces back and forth to Belgrade. In his spare time he likes sailing through the Dalmatian islands and eating Sachertorte in Vienna at the old Habsburg Imperial Court’s Confectionary Bakery, Demel. He lost his cat in the forests of Bosnia and can’t find it. If you see a black and white cat that ignores you when you call the name “Cile II”, a reward is being offered…provided the cat hasn’t turned into a vampire.
Links:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kiss-of-the-Butterfly/203838056294407
https://twitter.com/KissoftheButter
Interview:
If
you could travel in a Time Machine would you go back to the past or into the
future?
I’d travel to the future, get hold of some gee-whiz futuristic
technology, take it back to the past, patent it, then travel back to the
present to live of the enormous fortune that will have accrued in the
intervening period.
If
you were stranded on a desert island what 3 things would you want with you?
A comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush.
What
is one book everyone should read?
Good Night Moon by
Margaret Wise Brown
If
you could have any superpower what would you choose?
X-ray vision. It lets you heat up food without a microwave,
and melt the mobile phones of annoying people who insist on texting in movie
theaters.
Please
tell us in one sentence only, why we should read your book.
“Kiss of the Butterfly”
is the best vampire book to come along since Anne Rice’s “Interview with the
Vampire”.
Any
other books in the works? Goals for future projects?
I have written the first chapter, and outlined, and
researched part of the continuation of “Kiss
of the Butterfly”. I have also written half (60,000 words) of a Financial
Espionage Thriller set in 2008 at the time of the Great Wall Street Crash.
What
is your dream cast for your book?
Andrew Garfield -- Steven;
Angelina Jolie --
Mrs. Lazarevic;
Ryan Gosling/Jude Law
-- Marko Slatina;
Ian McKellen -- Professor Nagy.
Rade Serbedzija -- Professor Ljubovic;
Hugh Laurie -- Professor Stojadinovic;
Ralph Fiennes -- Lynx.
The roles of Vesna, Katarina, Bear and Tamara should all be
played by actors and actresses from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. Who do I not
want in the movie? Kristin Stewart… Robert Pattinson… Tom Cruise… Shia LaBeouf…
Megan Fox… Kate Hudson… Matthew McConaughey, to name a few.
Is
there a song you could list as the theme song for your book or any of your
characters?
The Gypsy song Ederlezi would be a leitmotif for the entire book.
What's
one piece of advice you would give aspiring authors?
Rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit. Repeat. Repeat
again. Then get your friends to read your text. Don’t take their criticisms
personally. Maybe what you wrote really does need another rewrite.
If you
could be one of the Greek Gods, which would it be and why?
But I am a Greek God…or so I keep telling my wife. However,
the Code of the Gods prevents me from revealing my true identity.
What is
your favorite Quote?
“There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this
is not one of them".
-- Inspector
Clouseau”
What's the
best advice anyone has ever given you?
“Barnacle Shoes in the 4th…win, place, or show”.
Favorite
Food?
Garlic. It is a required eating for all vampire authors, so
I got to like it.
How do you
react to a bad review?
I send the reviewer’s name and address to the Taliban and
tell them the reviewer posted an anti-Islamic video on YouTube. J
Actually, a bad review doesn’t matter. Reading is a highly
individual activity, and what works for one reader may not work for another.
Thus, if a book is well-written, well-edited, and has a compelling story, then
a bad review is not a sign that the book is bad, but that the reviewer didn’t connect
with the book on a personal level.
Kiss of the Butterfly
"I sense it even now. People thirst for it; the entire
country is mad with desire for it...” A
dying man’s cryptic letter to an enigmatic professor launches student Steven
Roberts on an unwitting quest, shrouded in mystery, into the war-torn labyrinth
of a disintegrating Eastern European country. Steven plunges into the maelstrom
to unearth long-forgotten documents holding clues to an ancient Emperor’s deeply
buried secret, an inconceivable and long-forgotten evil that has slumbered for
centuries. Steven’s perilous journey stretches from Southern California’s sunny
beaches, to the exotically dystopian city-scapes of Budapest, Belgrade, and
Bosnia, as it plays out against a backdrop of events that occurred centuries
before in the Balkans.
Kirkus Reviews wrote: “In the glut of vampire-themed novels
now on the market, Lyon’s debut stands out… skillful… authentic… fascinating…
inspired… Lyon executes it perfectly... vivid... engaging... highly
promising... sophisticated...”
Meticulously researched, “Kiss of the Butterfly” weaves Balkan folklore together with
intricate historical threads from the 15th, 18th and 20th centuries to create a
rich phantasmagorical tapestry of allegory and reality. It is about passion and
betrayal, obsession and desire, the thirst for life and the hunger for death. And
vampires – which have formed an integral part of Balkan folklore for over a
thousand years – are portrayed in their original folkloric form, which differs dramatically
from today’s pop culture creations.
Giveaway Details
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