We are delighted to welcome author Dean Mayes to Omnimystery News today.
Dean's new novel of psychological suspense is The Recipient (Central Avenue Publishing; May 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to talk more about the book with him.
— ♦ —
Omnimystery News: Tell us a little more about The Recipient.
Photo provided courtesy of
Dean Mayes
Dean Mayes: Casey Schillinge is the key protagonist in The Recipient. She is a 25 year old heart transplant recipient who is struggling to adapt to life after her life saving surgery. The chief reason for this is that she has begun experiencing violent nightmares where she is being brutally attacked and, as such, she has become withdrawn, agoraphobic and she employs any method she can to prevent herself from sleeping. She doesn't know why she is experiencing them but they are slowly driving her crazy. As a computer software engineer, she is used to dealing with pragmatic problems with verifiable solutions and the fact that she can't explain why she is having these nightmares is major problem for her. Casey makes a living contracting her services out to the highest bidder. That those bidders may come from either side of the cyber fence doesn't matter to her. She is purely about the contract and has learned not to ask questions.
The appeal of Casey to me is contrasting somebody who is so steeped in pragmatism and problem solving with a situation for which she has no control. It allowed me to explore the methods Casey uses to cope with the situation and it is interesting that, as the story develops, she is clearly unable to cope. Eventually she will have to confront her state of mind head on.
OMN: Is The Recipient part of a series?
DM: The Recipient is my first foray into a structured crime/mystery novel and while I have created an entirely unique cast for the story, I did choose to bring a character back from a previous novel, The Hambledown Dream. Lionel Broadbent is a retired police officer who turns out to be Casey Schillinge's grandfather and I elected to bring him into the story at a critical moment when Casey's sanity is at the absolute edge. Lionel is a much loved relative and he provides an important circuit breaker both in terms of arresting Casey's slide as well as becoming her "partner" in the subsequent mystery they take on. I am open to the idea of Casey Schillinge returning in a future novel. It's just that I don't write my novels with a definitive eye towards them being a series.
OMN: Why did you choose to have your lead character be female? Did you have any trouble finding the right voice for her?
DM: All of my novels to date have featured a strong female protagonist and I guess I'm drawn to creating these characters because I simply find them to be more interesting. This was especially the case with Casey Schillinge who is probably the most complex character I've created to date. It was challenging to find that female voice to begin with but, over time, I have found the process to be much easier. The key thing is to think about them as a human first — and populate them with all of the frailties that are unique to both sexes. Whether they are women or men becomes a natural progression from then on. I think my readers have come to expect strong well drawn characters from my writing so it's easy for them to tap into my style, my voice and my characters.
OMN: Into which genre would you place this book?
DM: All of my books to date have occupied different genre spaces however there has been a common paranormal element to all of them. In The Hambledown Dream I explored reincarnation in the context of a romantic narrative. In Gifts of The Peramangk it was a more spiritual "handing down" of a gift of music from grandmother to granddaughter in what was a more literary — coming of age — piece. In The Recipient, I've focused on the idea of cellular memory and how the memories and pre-diections of an organ donor might be transferred to an organ recipient and what the ramifications of that might be — especially if there was something unresolved in the life of the organ donor.
OMN: When starting a new book, which comes first: the characters or the storyline?
DM: For The Recipient, it began as the result of a nightmare I experienced where I, myself, was being violently attacked. At the time, I didn't have a specific idea for a story but the nightmare was so vivid and disturbing, I had to write it down before I forgot it. The very next day, I attended a lecture at work about organ transplantation and I remember at the time I completely ignored a large chunk of the lecture because I began having all these ideas which I madly wrote down. Before too long I found myself with the bare bones of a story. So, for me, it's ideas that then coalesce into a basic story and then characters come later.
OMN: That's an interesting story about your nightmare. Have any other elements of your personal or professional experience found their way into your books?
DM: For The Recipient, there was some medical information which I drew from my experience as an Intensive Care Nurse — that part was easy. I was able to view case studies and draw information from them that was subsequently included in situations in the novel. Some of the characters in the novel are based on real people and in the case of one, in particular, I was constantly talking with him, asking him questions and studying his mannerisms in order to create an accurate reproduction of him in the novel.
OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.
DM: I go with a combination of structuring a basic storyline and letting the story develop as I write. For me, those two strategies together reduce the chance of writer's block. They're not fool proof of course but, for me, they have proven to be the most successful methods of story construction. With character development, I'll have a core cast that remains in flux right to the very end. It might be that I'll end up combining (or separating) characters even after I've finished a draft.
OMN: How true are you to the setting of the story?
DM: The Recipient is set in the Australian city of Melbourne, a city that I am familiar with and have spent a lot of time in. I'm familiar with much of it and the settings by and large are real. I did fictionalize a couple of places — Casey's beachfront warehouse apartment and the Blue Heeler Bar. I did this because I envisioned Casey's apartment as a converted granary warehouse. That idea appealed to me and it allowed me to play around with the description of it which gave it a lot of texture and character. The Blue Heeler Bar is based on a beachside pub that I used to frequent during my University days but I wanted it to have a roof top bar and entertaining area which the real "Bar" didn't have.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
DM: I always keep a notebook with me to jot down any ideas I might have when they come to me. That was the best piece of advice I've received and I have kept true to that. And I'll always write down everything that I feel has some kind of potential — even if it seems to be completely random. It might be the pattern of the breeze through a tree or it might be an observation of how someone is gesturing with their hands during a conversation. If it catches my attention, I can use it — and more often than not, I do end up using it.
OMN: Was The Recipient your working title as you wrote the book?
DM: I adopted The Recipient as a title almost from the very beginning. Usually I'll assign a working title to a project with the intention of changing it later but that didn't happen with The Recipient. As soon as I knew that my key protagonist was going to be a transplant recipient and that this was going to be her story, I couldn't think of a better title for it. When we began working on the cover design for the novel and The Recipient actually appeared in that beautiful and sinister flowing font, it was like "Bam!" — that's it.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
DM: I grew up as a child of the Star Wars generation so my personal library is replete with many titles from that franchise — as well as Indiana Jones and any one of a number of other pop culture titles from that era. While the genre does not feature heavily in my own writing, the influence of those story tellers and their adherence to story telling conventions — like Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces — is. George Lucas once said that Star Wars should inspire you to want to go out there and tell your own stories and that is a piece of advice that I have taken on board — and I have applied it.
OMN: And what kinds of books do you look for today to read for pleasure?
DM: There are specific genres I favor so I'll tend to head towards them as a first step but I'm open to many subjects and genres. It could be that I've been thrown a good tip from a friend and I'll read something based on that. Generally though, if there is something that I think might challenge me as a reader, I'll go for it.
Image provided courtesy of
Dean Mayes
OMN: Suppose The Recipient were to be adapted for television or film. Who did you see playing the lead?
DM: I do select physical representations for my characters and, more often than not, they'll be drawn from actors I've enjoyed on television and in film. I will say here that the physical representation of Casey came from a stock image I found rather than a celebrity and I actually thought about using that for the cover. I'll often print out pictures of these favoured people from the web and pin them on a board in my office to remind myself of their look or their mannerisms and that is a really helpful and satisfying thing to do.
OMN: What's next for you?
DM: I've begun tentative work on a new project that carries the working title Walhalla.
— ♦ —
Dean Mayes is an Intensive Care Nurse and author from Adelaide in Australia where he lives with his wife Emily, his two children Xavier and Lucy and a spaniel puppy called Sam. Dean loves everything pop culture — especially Star Wars and he enjoys a wicked sense of humor.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DeanFromAustralia.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
— ♦ —
The Recipient by Dean Mayes
A Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Casey Schillinge is a vivacious young woman on the verge of making her mark on the world. While backpacking, she is struck down by a tropical disease and suffers cardiac failure. But at the eleventh hour, Casey receives a life-saving heart transplant and a rare second chance to begin again. Three years later, Casey has become a withdrawn shell of her former self: she is estranged from her loved ones, afraid of open spaces and rides the line between legitimate and criminal work. The worst of her troubles come in the form of violent night terrors; so frightening that she resorts to extreme measures to keep herself from sleeping. When she can take no more, she embarks on a desperate search for the source of her dreams. In so doing, she makes a shocking discovery surrounding the tragic fate of the donor whose heart now beats inside her chest.
As she delves deeper into the mystery of her donor, she realizes her dreams are not a figment of her imagination, but a real life nightmare.
— The Recipient by Dean Mayes. Click here to take a Look Inside the book.
