Indie Author Spotlight – Chantal Bellehumeur and “Just Another Common Killer”

I’ve got yet another fantastic indie author to tell you about today.  She’s Chantal Bellehumeur.

 

Here’s what she’s got to say about herself:

I always loved to write but never thought about publishing anything until a friend of mine told me I should.

Before that, I was more interested in acting. I performed in a couple of amateur stage showed and joined a Youth run Theatre Company. I was also an extra in a few commercials, TV shows and movies.

My love for acting soon got replaced with the love for my son. I made him my number one priority. I found it easier to write on my spare time than to work around other people’s schedules to act. I found that I had to use some of my acting training to write since I had to put myself in the shoes of the characters I created.

I write a bit of everything; Horror is more ME, but I wrote a series of soap operas/romance books for female readers as well as a fantasy book for my pre-teen son. I have been receiving a lot of positive feedback and am hoping that others will help me pass the word along about my books, even if I simply write as a hobby.

I started writing short stories for The Suburban Online Magazine.

While I continue to come up with stories, I encourage my son to so some writing of his own since he is full of good ideas and has a big imagination. He reminds me of myself as a child.

I am a single mom and feel very lucky to have my son in my life.

You can follow Chantal at her website, Facebook, Goodreads, Authorgraph and Twitter.  You can also learn more about her if you keep on reading – I’ve got an interview with her, right after I tell you about her new book…

It’s called: “Just Another Common Killer”

 

Under hypnosis, six-year-old Jack Huntington tells his psychiatrist the dark unsolved tale of Jack the Ripper’s 19th century murders. Such details are given, that Dr. Philips begins to believe that his patient might be the Ripper himself in another life. When the boy fails to give him any information that would reveal the identity of the White Chapel killer, Dr. Philips ridicules himself for having thought the impossible.

Years after killing his sisters in a sleepwalking state, Jack is claimed normal and able to re-enter the real world. He is released from the mental institution to start a new life, but slowly starts to act upon his killer instincts and begins to remember events that happened over one hundred years ago.

Jack is ready for new games!

You can buy it at Amazon, Amazon.ca (for those readers of the Canadian persuasion) and Amazon UK.  You can also find it at RoseDog Bookstore.  You can find all of Chantal’s other books at all those links as well.

As promised, I’ve got a great interview with Chantal…

Does travel play in the writing of your books?  My best friend gave me a travel journal as a birthday present when I came to visit her in London, England and the notes I took during that trip as well as many others that followed came in very handy for several of my stories.

Do you use a pen name? If so, how did you come up with it?  I thought about using a pen name, but then pride took over.  If I had a pen name though, it would probably be Persephone (Queen of the underworld in Greek Mythology).

How do you develop your plots and your characters? Do you use any set formula? When I get an idea, I write the basics down and form a general outline.  New ideas start to form as I write the story itself.  Sometimes my characters end up surprising me.  Lol  After I write my first drafts I read it over and add new things and start the process over again with the second draft.  This goes on until I am completely satisfied.

What would we find under your bed?  If I told you, I would have to kill you.  Lol Okay.  Fine.  You would find part of my shoe collection. I have three shoe storage units under one side of my bed.  The rest of my shoes are in a closet and shoe rack.   Some are under my desk at the office, and others by my front door.  I love my shoes!  So if anyone tries to take them from me… New York or LA? Why?  At the risk of sounding cheesy, I love NY.  I like going to see Broadways and my past experience seeing a show in the city was a pleasant one.  I have never been to LA so I can’t compare.

Say your publisher has offered to fly you anywhere in the world to do research on an upcoming book, where would you most likely want to go?  Anywhere in Europe where I could sleep in an old castle; especially if it was claimed to be haunted. 

Have any of your characters been modeled after yourself? Most of my main characters, including Jack, start off as me and then I modify them to fit the story.  Don’t worry, I don’t have any killer instincts, torture people in secret, or have any desire to eat human flesh.  My character is artistic, enjoys the theatre, likes the dark… That part of Jack’s personality is me; not all the disturbing parts.  I may be a little weird at times and a Halloween freak but…

You just won a huge lottery what is the first thing you’ll buy?  I would buy a small lot, then get started on the design of a house; it would have stone walls like a castle, at least one big fireplace, a large balcony outside of the master bedroom, a secret passage or two, a deck that goes all the way around the house, a backyard were my son could have a clubhouse (perhaps one made of legos)… I can dream can’t I?

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?  Please take the time to rate books and post reviews.

What book are you reading now? Dead Medium, by Peter John.  Peter is one of the many authors I befriended recently.  I told him I would review his book and so far I give his ghost story 5 stars out of 5. 

What hobbies do you actively pursue?  Aside from writing, I like to read and watch movies.  I am a very artistic person so I also like to paint, do crafts, decorate…

What are your favorite TV shows? Dexter, Criminal Minds, Murdock Mysteries, Walking Dead…

What is your favorite meal?  I always loved pasta, steaks, and roasts.  As a child I would not ask for things like, chicken nuggets, hot dogs or KD for dinner; I would ask for my mother’s home made spaghetti sauce or roast beef.  lol     

And, last but certainly not least, here’s an excerpt from Just Another Common Killer.  Enjoy!

Here is the first part of the introduction:

 (London, England-1988)

 

   Jacqueline Huntington was woken up in the middle of the night by her six year old son’s diabolical laugh. 

   As she walked along the narrow hallway towards his voice, she heard him whispering incomprehensible words and was startled by his sudden echoing shout.

   It was not unusual to find Jack sleepwalking at random hours of the night.  On several occasions, he had silently mutilated his sister’s dolls by either removing parts of their fluffy white stuffing from a tear he had made on the so-called stomachs with the blade of a kitchen knife or cutting off plastic body parts with the same sharp cutlery.  Pretty porcelain girls were smashed and left in dozens of pieces around the old Victorian house. 

   Jack could never remember his psychotic actions in the morning.  All his memory would summon were the names he had chosen for the dolls he broke; Emma, Martha, Polly, Annie, Mary, Miss Farmer, Rose, Miss Jackson, Alice and Lydia. He once pointed towards new dolls and called them Francis and Carrie.  This was right after pointing his left bony index finger at his younger sisters and verbalizing their names, Elizabeth and Catherine, which he had proudly chosen himself on the days of their births. 

   Jack was a very sweet boy when he was awake, so nobody understood why he acted out such horrors in his sleep.  He was not allowed to watch scary shows, including any cartoons that had monsters, ghosts, mummies, zombies, vampires, werewolves or other creepy characters in them.  Books of the same type were not permitted either.  Childish war games that included imaginary weapons were frowned upon and Jack always respected the non-violence rule.  

   When Mrs. Huntington entered her beloved son’s bedroom on the rainy night of September 30th, she saw that he was holding his father’s silver dissection knife in his right hand.  Jack had always given the impression that he was left-handed.  The rest of Dr. Huntington’s old dissection tools were still in the hard metal case beside him. 

   Jack’s three year old sister, Catherine, lay lifeless right in front of him.  Her throat had been cut open, leaving a thin horizontal red line from left to right.  The young girl’s stomach had been sliced open vertically and torn open on each side.  It appeared that some of her internal organs were by her side, in a light pool of blood.

   A piece of the dead girl’s pinkish nightgown was left a few feet away.  On the painted blue wall above the bloody torn fabric, the words “The Juwes are The Men That Will not be Blamed for nothing” were written in powdery white chalk. 

   It took a few seconds for Mrs. Huntington to understand that she was not having a terrible nightmare.  As Jacqueline’s shaking right hand rose towards her mouth to hide the hint of a squeal, Jack’s head slowly turned towards his mother.  “You’re next” , he told her in his sleep. 

   Shortly after Mrs. Huntington’s discovery, her husband came home from his surgical job at the general hospital to find his five-year-old daughter Elizabeth dead on the kitchen floor.

    Her throat had been cut from the right side to the left. Unlike her sister, the rest of her body remained untouched. 

   Although the experienced doctor was used to seeing open wounds and massive quantities of blood on a daily basis, he became sick at the sight of the darkened ceramic tiles and of his precious daughter’s small murdered body.  Her blank staring eyes seemed to tell him that he was too late to save her.  Nothing could bring her back.

   Dr. Huntington discreetly dialled the emergency phone number, 9-9-9, before searching his house for the rest of his family.  He was careful and silent, keeping in mind that the killer might still be inside his home.

   As he walked up the stairs, he saw the moving shadow of a short human being trying to bring down a surgical knife into a taller form.  The tall shape managed to grab her attacker’s wrist before he could hurt her, but could not take away his weapon.  The doctor ran to the scene as fast as he could and was shocked to see his own son trying to wiggle his way out of Mrs. Huntington’s tight grasp.  The boy grunted furiously while his mother remained speechless and in tears. 

   The worst was yet to come.

 

 

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