Q&A with Bruce Borgos

From my Q&A with Bruce Borgos, author of The Bitter Past: A Mystery:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

It's funny because I didn't pick the title. I had a working title for what ultimately became The Bitter Past, but it wasn't until my editor and the team at Minotaur started kicking around some alternatives that we were able to find a title that did exactly that - it took readers into the story. My novel is about a time in our history when we were racing to stay ahead of the Soviet Union and "win" a nuclear war, if necessary. We were literally blowing up the Nevada desert, sending poisonous clouds of radiation downwind and, eventually, across the globe. In many ways, we didn't understand or appreciate the consequences of those actions. It is a bitter past.

What's in a name?

I used to pull character names out of a phone book. Of course, we don't have those now. For this novel, I...[read on]

Visit Bruce Borgos's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bitter Past.

My Book, The Movie: The Bitter Past.

Q&A with Bruce Borgos.

--Marshal Zeringue