Interview: D. B. Rook, Author of Callus & Crow

Today I’m pleased to bring you an interview with D. B. Rook, author of Callus & Crow. This interview is part of my stop on the blog tour organized by Escapist Book Co. Thank you for allowing me to participate, and thank you to D. B. Rook for answering my questions.

Do you read reviews of your books? If so, how do you handle bad or good reviews?

I can’t help myself, I do read all reviews, or at least I do at the moment as I’m so new to the community. I believe all reviews have benefits, even if they are simply there to toughen your skin! What I will say is that any poor reviews I have read so far have not been based on things I expected. I guess there’s a lesson in there somewhere about believing in yourself!

What do you think is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?

I guess right now that’s an easy one. The use of AI programs to write novels is so very wrong. I understand the use and evolution of technology but I also understand how much must be poured into a novel, the love, energy and sheer determination needed to sculpt each word to eventually form the authors vision should never be under valued.

What was your favorite book as a child? Did it influence you to become a writer?

The first books I read of my own accord were the Conan books by the legendary and troubled Robert E Howard. Whether he influenced my writing is almost irrelevant. Did he encourage me to poke my head into other worlds? Hell yes!!

What is your favorite thing to listen to while you write?

I may be alone in this but I actually write in silence. I’m a huge music fan and a musician myself but I find music and writing quite distracting. I quite often have to hear my own thoughts to make sense of what they’re telling me and music can drown them out! At a push I could write to a classic soundtrack or incidental stuff but nothing too engaging.

Do you think it helps authors to have a big ego or hurts them?

That’s a really hard question. As a fairly introverted person I find it quite uncomfortable to shout about my work but it’s a necessity in this age where there are so many people creating. On the other hand, too much ego does put me off an author but will it stop me reading there books if they all to me? Probably not.

Do you ever have reader’s block or reading slumps? How do you get yourself out of
them?

I’m actually a very fussy reader! I find I can’t read a book unless it’s the right time for THAT book. This makes things very difficult when trying to keep abreast of the books coming out and the authors writing them. Sometimes I need a particular setting or concept to motivate me and then I’ll see it through but often that changes and I jump books. It’s a terrible habit but I can’t seem to shake it.

Can a path of blood lead to redemption?

Is redemption enough to amend a wayward world?

Morality and reality have shifted from their natural axis. Technology and ideology derive from the remnants of a world long dead and segregated by the monsters that now rule the seas.

Crow, a young ranch hand, is swept into an odyssey of redemption and revenge as he strives to hold back the ravages of fate and the urges born of a curse shared with his new mentor.

Callus, an exile struggling to find redemption whilst keeping his vampiric curse from tainting his new ward, pursues his prey across the sea.

The new world they discover reveals a tyrannical society fixated on their council’s ascension to godhood.

Content Warning: routine death and rebirth, drinking of human blood, death and mourning, being buried alive, gore, incarceration/mistreatment, mild drug use, mild occasional swearing/cursing, religious piety and discrimination, cannibalism, slavery, dementia

About D. B. Rook

DB Rook lives in the North of England with his wife and two beautiful children. He is a drummer, a gamer, and a dreamer who loves to spend time in other worlds, as well as this one. He has spent recent years working in the charity sector whilst occasionally visiting the Wayward World to stretch his legs and feed his soul.

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