Tuesday, February 12, 2019

#GIVEAWAY Any Means Necessary Interview with author Jenny Rogneby

Those who are frequent visitors know I'm loving working with the wonderful indie publishing house, Other Press. Their offerings are very diverse and interesting both fiction and non-fiction. Today I'm featuring Any Means Necessary by Swedish author Jenny Rogneby. Other Press is sponsoring a #giveaway for this novel and if you love your crime drama driven by a flawed star character then this is the read for you. Giveaway deets below.
Enjoy!


ISBN-13: 978-1590518847
Publisher: Other Press
Release Date: 2-12-2019
Length: 448pp
Leona Lindberg #2
Buy It: Amazon/B&N/Kobo/IndieBound


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Overview:

In the highly anticipated sequel to Leona: The Die Is Cast, a corrupt detective deals with the emotional fallout of her actions while investigating a terrorist attack in the heart of Stockholm.
A man blows himself up outside the Parliament House in Stockholm, but miraculously survives. Was he a lone wolf, or are there more heinous acts to follow? Leona Lindberg is put on the case. But Leona, who has barely escaped her trials from the last case, is focused on other things. Her family is shattered, she is living under threat, and desperately needs liquid assets. It’s lucky then, that she can think outside the box like no other detective. With one foot on each side of the law, she mounts a special operation of grand proportions. And the higher the risk, the higher the rewards


Giveaway is for one print copy of
Any Means Necessary US ONLY
Please Use Rafflecopter form to enter
Good Luck!

Read an excerpt:

Naturally, I hadn’t planned on losing all my money to a blackmailer. When I tried to explain the situation to Armand, he gave me a look that chilled me to the bone. He squinted and asked me in his formal, French-accented English to repeat what I had just said about the money I owed him. Said he thought it had sounded as though I no longer had the money, but that he was certain he must have heard me wrong.
That man had the ability to make even me nervous.
Not until I told him I was planning a big new job did his eyes soften. As an experienced banker, he understood my thinking immediately. Very large sums in several different currencies. Which meant I would be in even greater need of his services to handle the conversion and laundering. I had been careful, however, not to be too specific about the timing and method.
After that he had left me alone for a while. But now he was back, demanding his money.
I rubbed my temples in an attempt to ease my headache while I waited for the elevator. As if that wasn’t bad enough, another problem had now been dropped in my lap.
The bomber.
Alexandra and the entire senior management would be all over me, querying my work. As would a number of foreign security services and Europol. Swedish and international media would hound me with questions. I slumped against the elevator wall. Exhaled.
I had to try to get out of this assignment.

Interview with Jenny Rogneby:


Jenny welcome to The Reading Frenzy
Tell my readers about your new novel, Any Means Necessary.
Thank you for having me. This novel starts with a suicide bomber blowing himself up in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. His plan doesn’t fall out as he expects, he survives but is very seriously injured. No one knows if he’s a part of a terrorist organization or if he is a lone wolf. The police are eager to question him, but he refuses to speak to anyone except for the detective, Leona Lindberg. Leona on the other hand is in very bad shape after what happened in the last book, Leona: The Die is Cast. Her family is broken, her son has died, and she is not in the mood for speaking to a crazy suicide bomber. She needs to get herself in shape so that she can continue her journey towards a new life. Luckily, she has the ability like no one else to think outside the box, and she starts a very unique business using her knowledge in police work to make great profit involving a bunch of criminals.


Your protagonist sounds really complicated and very flawed.
What about this kind of anti-heroine protagonist appeals to the writer in you?

It’s very important to me that Leona breaks the norms of society, that’s the whole point of the series. Her whole life she’s been trying to fit in, and she has managed to do that to perfection by observing others and memorizing how they behave and act in different situations. When the series starts off she lives the perfect life with two children, a loving husband, and a good job as a detective in central Stockholm. That’s when she starts to question it all. Is this how I really want to live, she wonders? It’s stressful, and according to her, a “robot-like” life. She can’t do it anymore and decides to break free.

That’s when she begins to walk a very dangerous path, committing crimes to become economically independent so that she can change her life for the better. So, there she is, a police officer and at the same time a criminal.

To me it’s very interesting to write about a character that has this kind of duality inside and lives a complete double life. Leona is a very complex character with a dark past and a very complicated relationship with her parents who treated her badly in her childhood. That has influenced her a lot. Also, it’s very interesting and fun to write about a character that is very different from myself.



Reading your bio my jaw dropped when I saw that your first career had you opening for Michael Jackson as a pop-star and in your present job you’re a criminologist for The Stockholm Police Department.
Do you still sing professionally?
I still love to sing, but right now I put all my energy and focus on writing. But who knows what happens in the future - never say never, right :)?


Did you always want to write, or are you an accidental writer, what led you to becoming an author?
I never actually thought about being an author. I discovered writing very late in life. As you mentioned before, I was a singer for a long time, but I’ve always been interested in human behavior. I was born in Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, and grew up in Sweden, one of the richest countries in the world, but still there are people on the streets with no home, people with different kind of problems, drug addictions, criminals etc. I wanted to learn more about that and started studying at the Stockholm University, where I later became a Criminologist.

I started working as a criminal investigator at the Swedish Police Force, and that’s when the idea about this unusual character Leona came to me. It wouldn’t let go, and I decided to write it down. Now, a few years later, my book series is released in 14 countries and Hollywood has bought the film rights. I could never have imagined that would happen. It’s funny, I’ve lived my whole life without writing novels, and I’m now a full-time author and can’t even think about a life without it.


t’s very exciting that the film rights have been sold.
Any news on that front?

I’m very excited about that. The producers are Acadamy Award-/ and Golden Globe Award winners, and we also have an Acadamy Award Nominated screenwriter. That makes me very confident. I can’t even imagine how it will feel to see Leona on the big screen.

Jenny are you a reader?
If so who and what do you read?
Yes, except for fiction I also read nonfiction books, for example about crime, social science, psychology, and biographies.


Thanks for answering my questions and good luck on the new novel!
Thank you! There is more information about me and my books on Instagram, Facebook and on my website.
Website: http://www.jennyrogneby.com/
Instagram: @jennyrogneby
Facebook: @jenny.rogneby

Leona Book #1 Available now


About the author:
Jenny Rogneby was born in Ethiopia, but was given away for adoption when she was one year old. She grew up in northern Sweden, studied criminology at Stockholm University, and became an investigator in the Stockholm City Police Department. Her work inspired her to create the character of Leona and write this best-selling crime novel, the first in the Leona series. Before her career in law enforcement, Rogneby was a singer and member of the pop group Cosmo4


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14 comments:

  1. An intriguing novel and unique. A very talented author whose success is wonderful.

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  2. How cool! This sounds like a lot of fun.

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  3. An utterly fascinating author, what a career and now writing. Go her. Lovely interview as always.

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  4. Sounds like an interesting book! Also I love that the author used to be a pop singer and worked for the Stockholm police.

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    1. I know Amy I really want to read this. Thanks for visiting the blog!

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  5. How awesome it will go to film. This sounds like a page-turner!

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    1. The Swedes sure know how to write thrillers that's for sure

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