David R Leng is the award-winning author of the Echoes of Fortune historical conspiracy thriller series. His work has earned three PenCraft Awards, including Thriller of the Year and back-to-back Best Thriller honors, two Literary Titan Gold Awards, and a Kirkus Reviews “GET IT” Pick.
A lifelong resident of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Leng draws inspiration from the battlefields, rivers, and forgotten legends that surround his home. His passion for American history, exploration, and unsolved mysteries fuels the richly researched adventures that have become the hallmark of the Echoes of Fortune series. When he is not writing, he enjoys scuba diving, boating, woodworking, and spending time with his wife and family.
Author Q&A
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The book is Echoes of Fortune: Knights of the Golden Circle. It was released on August 18th.
It started with a real secret society. During the Civil War there was a group called the Knights of the Golden Circle. Confederate sympathizers, secret oaths, hidden caches. Most people assume it died when the war ended. I kept finding hints that it didn’t.
But the thing that hooked me wasn’t the society. It was their tactics. They understood something ugly and durable, that if you frighten people enough, they will hand over their freedom and feel safer for it. That is how a side that loses on the battlefield keeps fighting. And the more I dug, the more I realized the same tactic is still at work today. That is the part I couldn’t put down. The book grew out of that. A professor breaks a cipher from the last days of the war, and what he uncovers is something Jefferson Davis died trying to protect.
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, not far from where General Braddock was ambushed in 1755. My family has had a place on Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland for more than fifty years. I live in Pittsburgh now.
By day I work in risk management, which is a polite way of saying I spend a lot of time imagining how things go wrong. That turns out to be decent training for writing thrillers.
The fiction started on a river. Almost ten years ago I was kayaking the Youghiogheny and saw a man standing in the shallows with a metal detector. I paddled over. He told me he was looking for Braddock’s gold, a British Army payroll that disappeared in 1755. We stood on a gravel bar in the middle of the river and talked for twenty minutes, and he told me things I had never heard. I went home and started researching. I haven’t really stopped since.
What genre do you consider your book(s)?
Historical conspiracy thriller, with a strong political thread in this one. If you like Steve Berry or Clive Cussler, you’re in the right neighborhood.
People hear “historical” and sometimes picture a treasure hunt. That’s not really what these are. The history is real and the stakes are present-day. Old secrets, modern consequences. The series tagline is the honest version of it: the past refuses to stay buried.
How much of the book is realistic?
More than people expect. That’s the part I enjoy.
The Knights of the Golden Circle were real. The locations are real. A lot of the historical spine of these books comes straight from the record, and I get emails from readers who went and checked. Some have driven to the places in the books just to stand there. When I do make something up, I try to build it on top of something true, so the seams don’t show. Half the fun is that you’re never quite sure where the history stops and I start.
Is there a message in your novel you want readers to grasp?
I’m not really writing to deliver a message. My goal is to make you want to stay up too late.
But if something sits underneath these books, it’s this. Fear is the oldest tool there is for getting people to give things up, and it works as well now as it did a hundred and sixty years ago. We tell ourselves we would recognize it. I am not sure we would. We would call it safety and ask for more. That is fuel for a thriller.
What authors or books have influenced you?
Steve Berry and Clive Cussler, no question. Berry showed me you can build a real thriller on genuine history and never lose the pace. Cussler showed me how much fun the adventure side can be.
Outside of thrillers, I was the kid who read everything, and I grew up on stories told out loud on a front porch, my parents and the neighbors trading them back and forth. That probably shaped me more than any single book. It taught me the story is the thing, and everything else serves it.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Finish the thing. That sounds obvious, and it’s the hardest part. A lot of people have half a novel in a drawer.
The other piece nobody warns you about: writing the book is maybe half the job. The rest is everything after. Editing, covers, getting it in front of readers. I went into fiction on my own and had to learn all of it. If you love the story enough to sit with it through all that, you’re an author. If you’re waiting to feel like one first, you’ll be waiting a long time.
What are you working on now?
The next Echoes of Fortune novel is drafted. It takes the crew out west, to Devils Tower, and it might have the strongest opening I’ve written. I’m not putting a date on it yet.
I’m also starting a companion series called Lost Voices. Shorter books, quieter, a different feel, but the same idea underneath, that history surfaces when you least expect it. The first one is about the death of Blackbeard.
How can readers discover more about you and your work?
Everything lives at davidlengauthor.com. The books, the newsletter, and a free novella if you want to try the series without spending a dime.
I’m also on Facebook and Goodreads, and I answer readers who write in. That part I enjoy.
Connect with David online at http://davidlengauthor.com
Echoes of Fortune: Knights of the Golden Circle is available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Fortune-Knights-Golden-Circle-ebook/dp/B0H46XN5CG