An interview with Breakfield and Burkey
By Guy Boulianne | On 31/03/2018 | Comments (0)
Breakfield, a 25+ year technology expert in security, networking, voice and anything with bits and bytes. He enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. He’s also a fan of wine tastings, wine-making, Harley riding, cooking extravaganzas, and woodworking.
Burkey, a 25+ years applied technology professional excels at optimizing technology and business investments for customers all over the world. She writes technology white papers and documents, but has a marked preference for fiction. Currently she is focused on learning humor.
Together they create compelling stories that resonate with males and females, young and experience adults, and bring a fresh new view to the possibilities of technology today www.EnigmaBookSeries.com.
The Enigma Series – The Enigma Dragon
Do the vast amounts of information and technology available hold humans hostage? Does analog communication create a vulnerability?
The political climate in the world is unnerving. North Korea is running missile tests, but where are they getting their deadly supplies? Meanwhile, terrorists are hiding in plain sight, using American technology that is out on display in libraries and museums for the world to see, but are using analog methods to gather and assemble their information. No internet searches equal no red flags which lets the bad guys believe they are operating undetected. But the Cyber Assassin Technology Services (CATS) team is on the job. As Juan and Julie Rodríguez send their operatives out across the globe to track down these foot soldiers also known as Analog Information Mules, they’ll discover the horrible potential treats, and learn about each other along the way.
Mike and Marge control ePETRO, an oil shipping business with offices in London and New York, but they don’t have the same business goals in mind. Marge intends to sell the North Koreans uranium in addition to oil obtained illegally from the government sanctioned Middle East. But Mike may have other plans, mainly, keeping the profits of these sales for himself. Then there is the mysterious Steven Christopher, who oversees the AIMs, and is working several angles behind the scenes. Steven is the only one trusted by both Marge and Mike, but why?
The CATs team has feet on the ground, with Ernesto and Tyler following two women through Washington, D.C. as they visit the Smithsonian looking for nuclear fusion processes and down the Texas coast where a dangerous package makes its way onto a ship bound for Asia. Jamie, an Irish man with a heartbreaking past, joins the team in Texas and finds not only a new job, but acceptance. George and Summit travel across Asia following the oil and some suspiciously mislabeled furniture. After a rocky start at being paired up, Mercedes and Brayson head to Panama and are watching a previously known Dark Net data center, but Mercedes is soon extracted to help out in D.C. She quickly becomes embroiled in Steven Christopher’s world. Brayson is left behind alone in Panama and, still recovering from a lost love, learns that he can’t truly be a part of the team until he has forgiven himself.
While Juan stays with Quip and his supercomputer ICABOD, tracking his team members and relaying constantly updated information at the team’s nerve center, Julie heads to London. Julie finds herself in the center of all the trouble as she goes undercover in the ePETRO offices. When Julie disappears, Juan drops everything to find her. Quip loops his wife EZ, a Unified Communications expert, to help monitor and control the CATS team movements so that operatives can find the culprits in their different theaters of operation.
Award winning authors, Breakfield and Burkey, take readers on a new techno thriller adventure with their 9th book in The Enigma Series. The Enigma Dragon is chilling journey across four continents, and twelve cities that uncovers terrifying possibilities of what is to become of our world if the CATS team cannot defeat our enemies.
What inspired you to start writing, and when?
Breakfield and Burkey started writing at different times and in different places. Breakfield delved into the world of editorial and POV writing for a school newspaper with a liberal advisor. It was a huge hit and circulation grew. Burkey wrote poetry in her youth and then decided to write technology white papers in college. When the two ended up working for the same technology company they worked on technical manuals, certification testing curriculum, and ended up writing 2 non-fiction technical books. They found this avenue not too satisfying and moved to writing fictional stories after lots of discussion. Finding they could co-author well even being remote, they have published 9 books in the series, won awards for the series and short stories, and are collaborating on Book 10 in the series.
What is your preferred genre?
Our series is TechnoThriller. With years of experience in the field as well as travel and some outlandish characters, we decided this worked best for us. We recently worked on 3 short stories which were submitted for contests in different genres. Stay tuned for more. Follow us on Facebook @EnigmaSeries or subscribe to our email and download a free coloring book. Lots of fun
How many books have you written? If more than one, are any a series…or trilogy?
We have published 9 in the series and are working on Book 10 (The Enigma Source). At this point we do not see an end to the series and the changes and evolution of technology is wonderful subject matter. Our professional careers allow us to travel and still meet some crazy interesting people.
Tell us a little about your book.
The Enigma Dragon, like the other stories in the series, has a focus or theme. In this case it is how criminals could behave by taking advantage of analog methods to reach their true cyber intentions. In other words they are hiding their nefarious deeds from the all-seeing eyes of the digital world. It is a different view of flying under the radar. Our stories include locations all over the world, some romance, thrills and spills, and a bit of humor to provide better definitions of our characters.
Do you have plans for a new book?
The new story in the works is planned for release during the summer of 2018. It has a theme of crypto-currency and the adoption methods different countries are considering. Of course, like the rest of our stories, they have technology facts baked into them, but our imagination of the possibilities is part of why we like writing fiction.
Is there an Author that you would really like to meet?
There are several fabulous authors that would be interesting. Certainly the likes of Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, Dan Brown, Clive Custer, and of course Kevin J. Anderson.
Was there an Author that inspired your writing?
We are both voracious readers so there are several authors. J.R.R. Tolkien is one as he thinks outside the box. Another would be Winston Churchill.
Do you plot or write by the seat of your pants?
As co-authors we have to outline and work on our plot, but we keep it flexible and open to change as we uncover or research new areas. To be honest, we keep track of all our stories on a spreadsheet to make certain we interact with our character universe. We have over 160 characters who we move in and out of stories depending upon the plot. We also have fun eliminating the really bad guys. In general we take our stories in the direction that makes sense for the subject.
Did you have an editor edit your books?
We are very fortunate to have our editor close at hand. Sandy is Breakfield’s wife and does help us turn out a better product. Our beta readers also help and are valuable resources we are grateful to know and work with.
Do you prefer ebooks, paperbacks or hardcover?
We are a bit old school and prefer paperback for the most part. Each of us have personal libraries. Breakfield is a fan of World War II books and Burkey has a wide variety including all of J.R.R. Tolkien. We know readers like all kinds of media so we provide our stories in ebook, paperback, and we are creating audio versions with the first 4 available now and the 5th one in production. Ebooks can be found on Audible US, Audible UK and itunes.
Where do you prefer to buy your books?
We buy where the stories we want are available. We like to look in book stores more than just on-line.
Are you a self- published (Indie) Author?
We are self-published and publish under ICABOD Press. Ingram Spark has our stories available for book stores and libraries and all the usual suspects for ebooks. We have an author’s page on Amazon and of course our website for additional information.
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