We are delighted to welcome CN Bring to Omnimystery News today.
CN the author of The Celia Kelly Mystery Series Collection (Bad Day Books; December 2014 ebook format — the three books in the collection are also available individually as trade paperbacks and ebooks) and we recently had the opportunity to talk with her about the series.
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Omnimystery News: Tell us a little more about the lead characters in this mystery series.
Photo provided courtesy of
CN Bring
CN Bring: The thing I work on with my characters as a writer is chemistry and compatibility. It is fun developing the personalities with action versus reaction as the mystery unfolds. The main characters are:
Commander Celia Kelly, a strong woman of faith and valor, highly educated from a Navy family. Her number one mystery? What really happened to her husband?
Gwen Sherwood, Celia's secretary and number one side-kick. Often tries to solve a mystery behind Celia's back.
LT Commander Georgie Round, Celia's right hand, formerly from Camp Delta and with abilities that suggest her previous experience was outside of the norm.
The Navy SEALS: Team Leader, James Elliot, Playboy Jack McDonald, Sniper Henry Jeffers, Corpsman Chris Perry and Tech Specialist Daniel Ryan.
The CIA: Operative William Dixon and Agent Tammy Johnson.
Lieutenant Tom Kelly, Fighter pilot and husband to Celia Kelly, mysteriously MIA for four years.
OMN: How have these characters developed over the course of the series?
CNB: I develop them over time, because all of us evolve and change over time with every situation life throws at us. My series is a cliffhanger series. As one mystery ends another begins in the last chapter of each book. This means I have to know what my characters are going to do in my next book before I write it. That tends to steer to character development as well.
OMN: Into which genre would you place this series?
CNB: Christian/Military Mystery/Suspense/Thriller. My series is a cross-over so it's hard to know how to categorize it at times. It is mainly a clean mystery. The advantages and disadvantages is some categories have less books in them than others. It all plays to the numbers game.
OMN: Tell us something about the series that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
CNB: No profanity or sex.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of the series?
CNB: A bombing a captured SEAL a long forgotten prisoner the ultimate betrayal #fridayreads #suspense Mysteries in Action
OMN: How much of your own personal experience have you included in the books?
CNB: Some is my experience or I pull from personalities I've met that interest me and I take some of my ideas from the news.
OMN: Describe your writing process.
CNB: The best way I can describe it is that there is a constant movie playing in my head and I write it down. I have an idea and I begin to write and it develops as I go. I know my characters well and it comes easily. My cast of characters has both expanded and gone away …
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
CNB: I fact check by asking family or people I know who are in the military or in particular jobs I write about. I have books on various subjects and/or weapons, I research areas of the world where I send my characters. Some aspects of the military are challenging to research because you want to be authentic but you don't want to give away secrets. I have members of my family who are serving right now and so I know how important this balance can be. I love researching the different jobs of in the military and how one agency works with another, (CIA, FBI, etc.).
OMN: How true are you to the various settings in the books?
CNB: I try to stay true to the environment wherever it may be located around the world. The setting does take an important role in the plot. There are things you would have to do or not do in a desert that you wouldn't in an inner city in the United States, for example.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
CNB: Europe and the Middle East because there is so much more I could understand about cultures versus politics if I could witness it firsthand.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests?
CNB: I am a big mystery thriller fan myself. I also volunteer for the USO with my husband, Glen. I try to spend time with my grandchildren whenever I can. Our granddaughter lives in Portland, Oregon and our grandsons are Army brats so we travel to a lot of Army bases. Time with family is always the best!
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author?
CNB: The best advice I ever received is never give up. The harshest criticism is every "no" I got from a publisher until my publisher finally said "yes". No without an explanation is hard because it's hard to know what you need to be working on. I have learned, and would advise, that you must work hard, listen to everyone and pull from it what works for you because everyone's journey is different. Don't give up!
OMN: Do you use a pen name?
CNB: My husband wanted me to use our married name, Bring, and my mother wanted me to use my maiden name, Nelson. My first name is Cindy. After some negotiation we came up with CN Bring. I have never really noticed any advantages or disadvantages to be honest.
OMN: How involved were you with the cover designs?
CNB: The cover was designed by the cover designer at Assent Publishing. I had asked for a couple of changes before all was said and done. The designer was great to work with and listened to my vision as well.
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?
CNB: I have received great feedback. There are some who contact me and want to know what is going to happen to a character in my next book, for example. I've even met a few people who me how a character is doing, as if they are real. That is always fun. The number one personal question is: Were you in the Navy? I wasn't and my family is primarily Army.
I have a page on my website to field the questions and I love getting them, always happy to answer them!
OMN: Suppose someone approached you to work on adapting your series for television or film. How do you envision that playing out?
CNB: Because it is a series, I think I could stay pretty true to the plot lines and just cliffhanger each week the same way I do the books. Instead of cliffhanging a whole book, you would just do it a couple of chapters at a time. I would love to try to find new actors for the parts, it wouldn't have to be well know actors. I have family who are in media, my son Kyle owns Bring Media in LA, and my daughter Melissa, (who is a photographer), is married to comedian Dave Coulier (of Full House and Fuller House). I have been advised by a few people about how it all works. My preference would be to do a TV series. I think it would be a lot of fun. I would want to write the script along side a seasoned script writer and do it right.
OMN: What kinds of books do you read, or films do you watch, for entertainment?
CNB: Mystery thrillers with lots of suspense in both book and movies. From John Grisham to Alfred Hitchcock. I love the classics. The f-word more than once in a sentence or every other sentence will cause me to close a book or walk out of the movie. I don't want to pay to be swore at for two hours. I don't like graphic sex either. I just want a mystery that someone took the time to cleverly craft. The best two writers in my opinion at this are Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock. They have inspired me to keep it clean, simple and twisted. Some of my favorites in movies were The Rear Window with Grace Kelly, and I loved The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, to name a couple.
OMN: What's next for you?
CNB: The next book out October 1, 2015 is The Disappearance and it is book four in The Celia Kelly Series. Will be doing a fund raiser with the USO this month and traveling to some libraries in Oregon.
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CN Bring gravitated toward military intrigue and suspense with family members serving in the Army, Navy and Air Force and a mother who reads nothing but mysteries. CN Bring was born and grew up in Helena, Montana. Her father was an E-4 Specialist who served in the United States Army. After serving he then went to work as an editor for Helena, Montana's newspaper The Independent Record. Her mother was a homemaker. CN married a logger, and they raised four children and now have four grandchildren. Bring spent several years as a Motocross mom and is a big Green Bay Packers fan. She was a homemaker until the children were in High School and then she was a Dispatcher for the local PD and also worked in Central Sterile in the local Hospital's O.R. In 1998 she went back to school and received an Associate's Degree in Criminal Investigation as well as hand gun training. When Bring is not writing she is visiting children and grandchildren which takes her to various Army Bases around the world and across the US. CN Bring and her husband now make their home in Oregon.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at CNBring.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Celia Kelly Mystery Series Collection by CN Bring
Publisher: Bad Day Books
Where is the Pact?
It began with a question. Christian Navy Commander Celia Kelly is a strong woman of faith and valor who lost her husband but not her faith. As she sought to unravel the mystery of his disappearance — is he dead? missing? abducted? — her connections in the military start facing danger.
Celia, if you are reading this, I am in trouble or dead.
As she rebuilt her life after the tragic loss of her husband on a newly assigned a mission planning Intel for a SEAL team, the suspicious suicide of a fellow officer has Kelly questioning everything. Kelly discovers she's been set up. Through it all, she looks to the Lord for strength and guidance.
The Lie
Everything starts somewhere. An idea, a time, or a lie. A single lie from which everything else is constructed or is motivated. A lie that generates more lies, until it creates fear even in those who cause it to exist.
Kelly finds herself caught up in political intrigue as the next mystery has her questioning everything. The president's inexplicable past brings deception and danger into the White House. Death hits close to home as Celia directs a mission that collapses with the loss of a SEAL. After returning home, she discovers the new president may have had something to do with the mission's failure. As secrets begin to unravel, they run over everyone in their path. The price will be high as Kelly and her team finally uncover the truth. And just when you think that it's over … it's not!
Where am I?
Old wounds surrounding the mysterious disappearance of Commander Kelly's husband resurface as terrorism hits close to home killing the president's wife, youngest daughter, and leaving his oldest daughter paralyzed when a bomb goes off in Washington, D.C.
Commander Celia Kelly and the SEAL team are off on a wild goose chase trying to negotiate with terrorist Amar Nycoffi in order to find a second target before it is too late.
Everyone is at risk as the hunt begins for the second target … When a Navy SEAL becomes a prisoner, during the rescue, another long forgotten prisoner is discovered in a Middle Eastern prison. Celia finally finds the answers about her husband … Is he alive or was he part of the Pact? In the meantime, the Pact resurfaces and the truth finally comes out. No one is whom Kelly suspected as the suspenseful action unfolds. Where will the truth lead them? Will this mission prove to be too much even for Commander Celia Kelly? Will her faith endure?
— The Celia Kelly Mystery Series Collection by CN Bring
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