David Berens is a professional tennis player, teaching folks how to play tennis as well writing crime thrillers. He has traveled up and down the East Coast and has been a tourist at every beach from Key West to Pawleys Island.

Today he calls Knoxville, Tennessee home, where he lives with his family.

A constant reader of Florida Fiction, Dave has enjoyed the likes of Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, Randy Wayne White, Laurence Shames, and Elmore Leonard, just to name of few. So, when he decided to create a series of Island Thrillers, he did his best to capture that zany quality so many of these amazing writers use in their work.

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Show Notes

Other authors mentioned during the podcast: Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, James Rollins.

David picked up some great advice from book cover designer Stuart Bache who has designed covers for Mark Dawson, John Le Carre, Stephen King, and others. Note: Mark Dawson’s podcast has a great episode about book cover design with Stuart Bache.

Tools used: Scrivener to outline and organize his beats then he writes in Word. Vellum to format.

We discussed the great opening of David’s novel, Hat Check. I recommend you check it out to see how well he crafted the opening scene to really pull the reader in:

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