I am an avid kickboxer and train five times a week. My
trainer is Carlos Andrade, former WKA European
Light-Heavyweight Kick Boxing champion and every Friday
morning at eight he gets to kick me around in a full-on
sparring session.
My other great love is music. Without
it, I would not be able to write.
Music
I am passionate about music, so much so that I wrote a novel about it. Titled The Other Side of Silence, it tells the story of three friends trying to solve the riddle of The Pythagorean Comma – one of the oldest mysteries in the science of sound. But this is a mystery not meant to be solved...Read more about it on my website: www.natashamostert.com.
Who do I like? A few favourites:
Nina Simone: voluptuous sophistication and crystalline purity. Leonard Cohen: Super sexy poet. Shahin and Sepehr: My favourite background music when writing. David Hykes and The Harmonic Choir: They do things with their voices that is not humanly possible - every time I listen to Hearing Solar Winds it takes my breath away. Opera: My mother is a voice coach for opera singers and I was fed baby food while Casta Diva was playing in the background. That kind of indoctrination is hard to shake. I've fallen hard for Jonas Kaufmann but what girl wouldn't :) Loreena McKennit: She sings the way I wish I could write. Tori Amos: Strange (wonderful) little girl. Bruce Springsteen: He's the boss. Dragonforce = Metal poets. Borodin's second string quartet. Pachelbel's Canon – the Leppard/English Chamber Orchestra rendition. I'll take any Bach I can get. And any Mozart. Vanessa Mae playing Classical Gas. Ottmar Liebert Francis Cabrel The Killing Floor Seal'sKiss of a Rose.
Any Hans Zimmer soundtrack.
The soundtrack to the Inspector Morse series New Order. Crystal is best. Razorlight Incubus R.E.M Cengiz A personal friend. A cool guy making great music. Check out his new album Everwished.
When I'm homesick I listen to Splash, Patricia Majalisa and the Dalom Kids - all great performers of South African Mpantsula jive.
Movies
Too many to mention. Old favourites that relax me: Gattaca, Lawrence of Arabia, Stakeout, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Tootsie, Manon des Sources, When Harry met Sally, Children of a Lesser God, 84 Charing Cross Road, What's eating Gilbert Grape, Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightly). John Sayles movies. Alan Parker movies. Michael Mann movies. Kathryn Bigelow movies. Jackie Chan movies!
Television
Inspector Morse, Battlestar Galactica, Ultimate Fighting Championship (I'm a huge Randy Couture fan – his first fight with Lidell is one for the ages – and the fight against Sylvia - Randy, you beauty!), Simon Schama on Power of Art, Firefly, Numb3rs, Shark - if only for James Woods. Best timing of any actor around.
Books
Too many to list. A few favourites: Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Donna Tart's The Secret History (but not The Little Friend). I am fascinated by Cormac McCarthy's use of language, if sometimes perplexed by his narrative. Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris – how is it possible for any one to be this clever and erudite without being irritating? Neil Gaiman: imagination to the square Anything by Jorge Luis Borges. William Gibson's Neuromancer. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje. The Apothecary's Daughter by Patricia Schonstein. Sports books: Robert Twigger's Angry White Pyjamas. Dark Trade by Donald McRae. Suspense writers: Barry Eisler, Arthur Rosenfeld, The Cutting Season - the hero is a pony tailed neurosurgeon and martial arts master!PD James. Tana French.
Horror: Stephen King.
Heroes
People who manage to face up to everyday drudgery and routine with humour and determination. The nine-to-fivers whose lives may not have much heroic content but who stick it out for the sake of their families and still manage to see the funny side. The ones who, as the Neil Young song says, "never get to fall in love, never get to be cool," but who keep the faith.
Author of five suspense novels Brilliant, raven-haired psychic Saw her first ghost at age four Likes to take midnight rides on horseback and practices levitation twice a day
OK, the part about the levitation and the horses is made up. The 'raven-haired psychic' description might be slightly over the top as well. And I haven’t seen a ghost yet, but I plan to. The bit about the suspense novels is true.
I live in London and I write dark, psychological thrillers with a strong dash of mysticism and the paranormal.
My fourth book, Season of the Witch, is a modern gothic thriller about techgnosis and the Art of Memory and has won the Book to Talk About: World Book Day Award 2009.
It received a starred review in Kirkus, which describes it as a 'brain-squeezing thriller' and another starred review in Publishers Weekly, which calls it 'goth SF at its finest'.
Receiving the 2009 World Book Day Award for Season of the Witch
My fifth book, Keeper of Light and Dust,(UK edition, The Keeper) is now available and is a story about chi, martial arts, tattoos, quantum physics and the strongest desire of all: to live forever.
Keeper has garnered praise from Robert Twigger, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award (Angry White Pyjamas): "Brilliantly original and compelling. I read this book in one sitting." Harper's Bazaar has chosen Keeper for their Hot List as a Must-Read-Book.
I grew up in South Africa and have also lived in New York City. Previous jobs include selling shoes, teaching Afrikaans at a South African university and moonlighting as a project coordinator in the publishing department of a public television station in New York City. I now write full-time.
To read an excerpt from Keeper of Light and Dust, click here.
The Keeper Launch party in London.
I have added a discussion board on my website and would love to hear your ideas. This is a free-wheeling discussion board, which is not just about my books but is open to anything that excites your imagination. You are welcome to start your own topic
or add your voice to some of the other threads. Please join us!
If you'd like to know more about me and my work, please visit my website:
www.natashamostert.com
The Keeper Game: Try it out!
To promote my new novel Keeper of Light and Dust, my website includes a game, which I designed and which is based on the book. It is in the form of a fun personality quizz. Discover if you are a Warrior, a Healer or a Thief! You can also win some cool stuff: book vouchers from Amazon, Borders, or Barnes and Noble, pink or black boxing gloves and signed copies of my book. Hope to see you there!
The site also features a synopsis of the novel and I have posted notes that will give you a behind-the-scenes peek at how I plotted this book. Click here to visit the site: www.thekeepergame.com.
Why mysticism?
My interest in mysticism started in early childhood when I was growing up in South Africa. My aia (nanny) was a Zulu woman who introduced me to African legends and the world of the insangoma (witch doctors). For many years I thought she was the coolest person on the planet and tried to emulate her in every way. I remember exasperating my mother by insisting on stacking several bricks below each corner of the bed to keep out of reach of the tokkelosh – an evil gnome with an enormous head but very short legs! Years later I would write about this in The Midnight Side. The concept of witches and witchcraft would surface again in Season of the Witch.
A different kind of woo woo
Even though I write about subjects, which many people consider far-fetched and fey, I always embed them firmly within a realistic, every-day framework. The ghost in The Midnight Side does not drag chains or howl outside windows - she finds it more amusing to manipulate the stock exchange. My witches in Season of the Witch do not use boiling cauldrons as their tools, but computers and code. By carefully blending hard fact with paranormal conjecture, I hope to seduce my reader not into a 'willing suspension of disbelief' but into accepting unquestionably the veracity of the world I build in my books. My research for my novels is intensive and rigorous.
Praise for Natasha Mostert's novels
'Bedtime reading for the brave' The Times (London)
'Renders suspense, an atmosphere fraught with eroticism, and compelling characters. Fans of Anne Rice and Joyce Carol Oates should appreciate Mostert's take on mysticism, magic and the ancient art of memory.' Booklist
'A unique, wild imagination' Bangor Chronicle
'Classy psychic thriller...original, unsettling...
kicks the usual preconceptions into shape' The Literary Review
'absorbing psychological detail...
climactic surprise, a humdinger' Kirkus Reviews
'hauntingly elegant' Booklist
'Highly accomplished' Toronto Globe and Mail
Who I'd like to meet:
Oscar Pistorius: fastest man on no legs Aung San Suu Kiy Thomas Friedman Neil Gaiman Joyce Carol Oates Archie Moore if he were still alive (imagine still being the world light heavy weightboxing champion at age 49.) NASA's Voyager 1
Put together the first music video for one of the songs, that being for the song "Eel Marsh House", which is based on the movie "The Woman In Black". Wasn't sure to name it that instead of 'Eel Marsh..." ...Eel Marsh House being where the woman in black 'lived', and now haunts it. Though, she seems to haunt the general area of the village as well as the House. If anyone catches her gaze, looks into her eyes....a child will die, usually from the family of the person unfortunate to look at her. As you see what happens to the story's main character at the end.
Hope you like it, that's about all for now, Cheers! Rob
Call to me and I will come. I am not hard to find I am always with you, deep inside the shadows of your mind The bond of blood is strong, impossible to break But souls entwined are stronger still and that is what we make I came to you to taste your blood, that was my only goal Somehow you changed the game on me. You stole my heart and soul I am a creature of the night. That much will always be Yet I am changed as much as you. You have done that to me. We fit together perfectly, our bodies join as one It matters not that I must leave with every rising sun The taste of you is always there, your sweet and musky scent It brings me thoughts of paradise though my soul be hell-bent So hell can wait and heaven too. Hold tight and leave me never Eternity is mine to give. And a vampire loves forever.
yeah thank you...just had a copy of season of the witch and im so enthralled by it.,planning on completing your books before the year ends..much love..jao
Thanks for accepting the request and stopping by my page! I bid you the same well wishes...although it looks like you are well beyond well wishes. Lolol. I am excited to check out your writing. I love the names of your novels. They sound fascinating. Have a lovely week and I will be back by, soon. :)
just swooping by to say hi! I read the thrillerfest blog a bit late to add anything that hadnt already been said..... Got my copies of keeper (not my special one) and windwalker back today...... Another couple of souls hooked ;)
I saw a copy of Season of the Witch at Barnes and Noble. I saw your name and said to myself.,"hey, she's a friend of mine on Myspace!" so bought it. ;) Let ya know how I liked it after I finish A Bridge of Sighs by Russo.
Natasha. I'm thrilled with you and yr Verb. Thanks for news. That you had a good days in South Africa. I believe in You & follow yr dreams. Kisses and Blessed Be¡
Hello Natasha. I do thank you yr grace for writing to me. I'm looking for yr bookplate and going to buy yr Estación de la Bruja. I'll tell You & don't forget that here you have yr house when do you want. I Enjoy yr Verb. Kisses & Blessed Be¡
Hello, Natasha. You're Yes.I adoreYou and enjoy yr Space and Verb. Yr Prose is a Delight.Thanks for to be Friends, before Nature dies¡ Come and visit me. Meanwhile send to me yr news and a signed book to: Ama-Pobox 3039-09080-Burgos (Spain) I really feel You, more than You coul dpossibly imagine. In the meantime, Every Best Wish, and Blessed Be. I am a free lance writer & poet & photographer. Here's a Poem:
SNOW DANCER
I am azamed at switch the goods Before so apostolic And now so different To one’s mind. Are you, my milk tooth A passion-flower nun Or an old maid Married with god With might & main? Are you making use of decoy “Snow Dancer” As an appropiated graphic Without mincing words As other persons do? Show Dancer You’re a Sweet Nothing A Cold Nothing As the Mildewed Show But pretty when the Earth Is in White¡ I remember that when snowing It was to the liking of You Girlfriend & Me To piss on the Snow And to do cartoons, ha, ha. You drawed with my Dick And me with Your Tongue-lips. And we together singing laughing Dancing, singing All around: “Snow Dancer Is the same to say “Peace is a Piss””. Do you know Do You see: I like Women too much, Mimosa More than another Cheeky-Monkey Of our Specie. Yr waps’ nest Make me to take flowers And have one’s fling. I taste Your female orgasm Melting into snowing tears. To kiss the Angel’ s Lips Is my Eucharistic Made to measure.
But now, oh¡ oh dear¡ poor me¡ My toucher-balls Doctor Uric Says that for the blame of age I have to do An operation for prostate And just in due curse I’ll don’t be able To bring to light My brilliant point Measured one’s lenght: It will break The liquorice root The sweet breads. But yet, still Being so fucked I’ll see how well You dance in the snow My Snow Dancer.
Hi. Thanks for adding me as a friend. I just wanted to let you know that my vampire book, That Which Bites, was recently released to rave reviews (including reader reviews on Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com sites). Thank you for your time.
Natasha! Hey sweetz! Just hittin u back from the cool ass comment u sent me. So you're an author I see. I was thinking of writing a book someday but wouldn't even know where to start from. hahaha! I hope you're enjoying your weekend and I'm charmed to meet ya! Just a wild guess by your name here...are u Russian? If u are....Privet! I'm enjoyin the weekend and I'm about to take a dip in the pool when I get done with these comments. So hit me up anytime u want...I always hit everybody back who respond to me in comment or email, at least for now while my list is still small, hahaha! So.....don't be a stranger my dear and don't let nobody get u down. Your bud, Rocko. xoxoxo
Author of five suspense novels
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