Author Sam Berretti: How Doris Came To Be

I’m delighted today to welcome a ‘new-to-me’ author that originally hails from my second favorite state, Texas. Author Sam Berretti joins us to talk about the protagonist in his debut fiction release, DOUBLE MAYHEM, the first of a planned Seekers Mystery Series.

Before we learn how the protagonist came to be, let’s find out who she is in this brief synopsis of DOUBLE MAYHEM:

    They say for every person in the world there is a twin. For Doris Watson, that simple wisdom becomes a nightmare reality that threatens her and the ones she’s come to love. An ex-military engineer who leads a quiet life as an appliance designer, she is recruited to perform one uncomplicated task: take a handoff of secret plans from a Chinese agent who believes she is someone else.
    She accepts the assignment and the only person she can blame is herself. When the federal agent came calling she opened the door and invited him in. She said yes. Her lonely existence is shattered as headstrong men cross her path. Dangerous men with dangerous needs.  
  Suddenly embroiled in mob killings, espionage, and police investigations, she has become a billion-dollar target of sadistic crooks, the FBI, the NSA, and her psychotic look-alike. It is up to her to protect herself and the mysterious psychic child who has been thrust into her life.
    No one is who they appear to be. No one is telling the truth, because the truth can make you dead. Forced to use all her training and wits, she must find a way to survive. Forced to uncover the secrets of her childhood, she must face a new reality. Some days you just shouldn’t answer the door. 
  
Sam joins us now to talk about how Doris came to be:

I wanted a lead character that would be unique to the mystery thriller genre. A great majority of them are alpha males, so I decided to cast this one as a woman. 

That also allowed me to delve more into the romantic side of the story and add another dimension as well as making it appealing to people who love reading romance novels.
Mystery thriller romance definitely appealed to me. Having decided that, I knew the kind of person I wanted her to be. 

Doris Watson is a real person. Even her name suggests someone who is wrapped in the shroud of normality. And that is how we are introduced to her. She is a single woman with a cat and a nine-to-five job. But for her to fulfill her destiny inside this explosive story, I had to provide her with a believable resume. 

She is ex-military, but not the kind usually cast in spy dramas. Her military training like thousands of other women was standard. She was not part of any elite group, but she can shoot a gun, throw a punch and hold herself together in an emergency. Doris’s stint in the marines helped pay for her college degree, and she now designs high end microwave ovens. 

Doris is a modern woman, intelligent, creative and ingenious by nature. Loving and compassionate, she is also a skeptical suburbanite with a wry sense of humor. As it turns out, these traits become survival skills. 

I enjoy creating layers to my plots and characters that make the reading more enjoyable. Doris comes packaged with hidden histories and back stories that are revealed throughout the book. Life for Doris, like any real person, is full of closets, dusty memories, skeletons and trauma. 

And like any normal person I wanted her to have flaws and demons, things that would affect her and send her life sideways at times. For example, Doris is a woman with a bit of an anger management problem. But then again, that can be a plus during times of danger and confrontation. Doris is not a trained assassin or a super spy. She is someone more dangerous and unpredictable, a smart woman pushed into a corner. 

Sam, thanks for joining us and sharing how Doris came to be. I, like most readers, do enjoy protagonist that are realistic and have traits similar to people you know.

Now a bit of background on Sam. As I mentioned earlier, he originally hails from Texas. He was born and raised in the High Plains city of Lubbock, Texas. After finishing college at Texas Tech University, he moved to Florida to attend graduate school at the University of Florida and holds two Masters Degrees. 

Sam is an avid naturalist, photographer and artist, as well as a writer. Although writing started at an early age and took many forms, his first published book is DOUBLE MAYHEM. Married with two grown children, Sam presently lives in Florida.

Sam is busy working on new stories. Additional books are being planned and written not only in the Seekers Mystery Series, but a new Kavanaugh’s Law Mystery Series about an assistant state’s attorney in Florida. 

For more on Sam and his writing, check out his website and find him on Facebook and Twitter. 

DOUBLE MAYHEM is available in print and as an e-book from: Amazon, Barns&Noble, and Smashwords 

Available in e-book from:
iTunes and Diesel

Thanks for dropping by today. Do you believe everyone has a twin? Have you ever meet your look-alike?