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 new book, Keeper of Light and Dust, is a suspense novel about chi, tattoos, quantum physics and martial arts.
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, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, 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, Flashforward, 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, 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.
Natasha Mostert's Details
Status:
Married
Here for:
Networking
Hometown:
Johannesburg
Body type:
5' 3"
Zodiac Sign:
Capricorn
Education:
Grad / professional school
Occupation:
Novelist
Natasha Mostert has posted a new blog about her talk at The Richmond Literature Festival! Posted at 3:55 PM Nov 14 view more
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) will be available in April 2009 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
Well I am almost through The Keeper, loving it. I love your style of writing very much and love that you add so much "real stuff" in your books. Its great stories but also new things to learn. You're very inspiring and I appreciate that. I fear the end because it will be over and nothing to read. Peace-Tim
Hello from Italy! I like your page and we have some common interests in music, books, movies... I'll soon start reading your book Season of the Witch, it sounds pretty intriguing! :)
Hey, just swooping by to say hi! and the thank you for the inspiration and to tell you that I think now might be a good time for me to break out the witches again..... there is something about the late summer/autumn that will kinda remind me of them forever :)
Greetıngs from Turkey Couldn,t get to The Blue Mosque as flood water ımmense!! Hot and sunny here though,but man named Noah headıng north west...hope the talk went well.
Got the gift you suggested with beating the Aussies! So pleased!! So who do we play this winter...? mmm Heading to South Africa,could be a bit different.Hope you are well.
hey there, I said i'd come by and let ya know how I liked Season of the Witch, but I also said I had to read A Bridge of Sighs first. Well, I could just NOT finish that book so picked up yours instead. Season of a Witch was MUCH more interesting! I had a good time reading it and lent it to one of my friends who in turn will lend it to one of hers, so on and so forth. I'll have to check out Keeper of Light and Dust., you do have cool titles. ;) Peace, CJ
Thank you so much for contributing to our cause. I look forward to receiving your autographed book and using it to auction towards one of our projects.
Author of five suspense novels
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