About Author

Thomas Fenske

Thomas Fenske
  • Genre:

    Mystery Action & Adventure Historical Fiction
  • Country: United States
  • Books: 4
  • Profession: Author
  • Born: 10 September
  • Member Since: Aug 2017
  • Profile Views: 13,295
  • Followers: 37
  • VISIT AUTHOR: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon,
BIOGRAPHY

Thomas Fenske currently lives in North Carolina but he was born and raised in Texas, and his native Texan roots run deep.

He's braved long stretches of endless Texas highways in search of the best Chicken-Fried Steak, Chili, Texas BBQ, and Tex-Mex food. He's hiked west Texas mountains, canoed rapids on the Guadalupe River, suffered through waves of mosquitoes in The Big Thicket, and rafted the Rio Grande. He's blistered in the heat of the long Texas summers, endured hurricanes, ice storms, hail, wind, and floods. He has even ridden across ranchland looking for a lost "little dogie" ... how many Texans can say they did that?

Why did he leave the Lone Star State? Well, one must do many strange things to better provide for a family.

He and his lovely wife of thirty-plus years currently share their home with a dog and nine cats. Somehow, he still manages to write amidst the chaos.


Web page: http://www.thefensk.com
Twitter: @thefensk
Instagram: @thefensk

Thomas Fenske's Books

Stay in the loop on books by Thomas Fenske. See upcoming and best-selling books by the author here. You'll also find the deals on books by Thomas Fenske.
** Please note that the information or price displayed here may not be the updated. Make sure to double-check the latest book price before buying books.
** Also, there might be other books by Thomas Fenske not listed on AllAuthor.

Book
The Hag Rider
$3.99 kindleeBook,
The Hag Riderby Thomas FenskePublish: Jun 01, 2020Historical Fiction Teen & Young Adult
Penumbra (Traces of Treasure Series Book 4)
$3.99 kindleeBook,
Penumbra (Traces of Treasure Series Book 4)by Thomas FenskePublish: Aug 01, 2020Crime Fiction Mystery Action & Adventure
The Fever (Traces of Treasure Book 1)
$3.99 kindleeBook,
The Fever (Traces of Treasure Book 1)by Thomas FenskePublish: Jul 02, 2015Series: Traces of TreasureMystery Action & Adventure
A Curse That Bites Deep (Traces of Treasure Book 2)
$0.99 kindleeBook,
A Curse That Bites Deep (Traces of Treasure Book 2)by Thomas FenskePublish: Oct 01, 2016Series: Traces of TreasureCrime Fiction Mystery Supernatural Suspense

Thomas Fenske's Series in Order

It's exciting to find a book series to follow! Discover the whole new world of book series created by Thomas Fenske.
** Also, there might be other book series by Thomas Fenske not listed on AllAuthor.

  • Traces of Treasure

    1 The Fever (Traces of Treasure Book 1) - Published on Jul, 20152 A Curse That Bites Deep (Traces of Treasure Book 2) - Published on Oct, 2016

Thomas Fenske Interview On 11, Aug 2020

"Author of the acclaimed Summer 2020 novels, THE HAG RIDER, and PENUMBRA, Thomas Fenske was born and raised in Texas. The author writes in a style that is respectful of his readers. Thomas Fenske does not disappoint weaving together an intriguing story full of suspense and mystery. He collects cookbooks and has several thousand. His primary goal is to entertain his readers."
Born and raised in Texas, which is your most cherished childhood memory?

I fondly remember playing for hours outside with neighborhood friends. I was a middle child, but before I was the middle child I was the youngest child, for a couple of years anyway, and some of those days at home with my mother are quite memorable.

Since how long have you been living in North Carolina? When did you first move in here?

I moved to North Carolina in 1989 and came here when I was recruited to work at Duke University. I worked in Information Technology before it was called that. I was just the “computer guy” and I was on the internet long before most people had even heard of it.

Where have you found the best Chicken-Fried Steak, Chili, Texas BBQ, and Tex-Mex food?

I’ve been out of Texas for so long, many places I used to frequent no longer exist. There was a small café in Austin, TX called Virginia’s … a lunch place with “Virginia” doing most of the cooking; she could be quite cranky to the customers. I’d have to say that her Chicken Fried Steak was the best. I’ve never had chili at a restaurant that matched my own, but the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin was close. For Tex-Mex there was a now-defunct old-school restaurant in Houston called Leo’s (also a favorite of the band ZZ Top). For BBQ, the best place I ever found was a hole in the wall on a back road somewhere near West Columbia, Texas. A friend and I were out driving aimlessly around and got hungry and saw this place that said BBQ. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot, which is always a good sign, so we walked into the place. We were the only two white people in the place and when we first walked in the place stopped cold for a moment, a real-life version of a similar scene in the movie Animal House. We sat and ordered and it was melt-in-your-mouth, wonderfully cooked BBQ.

How has been your experience of canoeing rapids on the Guadalupe River?

I did this just one time, with a friend. I’d been in a canoe maybe two other times. It was an incredible two-day trip, camping in between trips. Some rapids were pretty tough but we only fell over once. Later that day we discovered that someone drowned at the same spot not long after we have fallen in. That is an indication of how dangerous it was that day. I also took a three-day rafting trip down the Rio Grande, a marvelous excursion in the middle of nowhere, Mexico on one side and the United States on the other.

What is the most rewarding thing about being a pet owner?

Pets each have their own personality, and they give you unconditional love.

How do you manage to write amidst the chaos? What keeps you going?

It is more than just writing. The original story simply takes commitment and perseverance. You need to push through and complete it. The real challenge is revision, hammering at the words day after day; I call it crafting the story. Many writers spend too little time on this stage but I generally do three to six revision passes, meaning starting at the beginning and going through the entire novel. I want to be absolutely sure I'm satisfied before I let any beta readers look it over. Some people spend vast amounts of time on the initial draft but when I used to do that, I never finished the story. I like to get that draft written as quickly as possible, in three to four weeks, working every day. This rapid writing allows the story to tell you where it wants you to go and I find this to be a very creative process.

How did you begin writing the Traces of Treasure series?

I had the first idea for Book 1, THE FEVER, almost thirty years before I got through the first draft. I started it three times, always stalling (see the question above). For a number of years, I spent a lot of time driving on the highway and I’d keep my mind occupied working through various elements I wanted to put in the story. Eventually, I discovered National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and decided to use that to work out the first draft. The methodology appealed to me and once I got going I saw the creative value in it as well. The plot is simple. There’s a gold mine out there somewhere, all the hero has to do is figure out how to find it based on the cryptic clues he received by chance. I never envisioned a series, but as I completed The Fever, the germ of an idea for A CURSE THAT BITES DEEP came into my mind and the series was born. I had never envisioned a series but the central topic of obsession in The Fever became in one way or another the central topic of every story in the series. Each new book has so far managed to give me some ideas for the next.

Who inspired the character of café owner Smidgeon Toll in the Traces of Treasure series?

She is a compilation of several women I’ve known through the years but most of the strong and funny core is from my wife. Initially, Smidgeon was meant to be a very minor character, but it turns out she is very popular with readers.

How did you come up with the idea of the final book, Lucky Strike in the Traces of Treasure series?

I wanted a story that gave Smidgeon a much greater role and I also wanted a part of the story to link up with North Carolina in some way. I saw an antique cigarette can for Lucky Strike cigarettes, and that was part of it, but the notion of “Lucky Strike” in the story is much more than just the cigarette brand. I also wanted to bring in some background to help fill out what we know about other characters in the stories. The WWII back story does that, and provides the catalyst for the antagonist in the story, merging the backstory with the more current story.

How was the idea for the best little fictional cafe in Texas, The Mossback Cafe born?

Like Smidgeon Toll, the café was originally just an interesting stop along the way. She owns it, so the two are completely tied together. Small business owners practically live at their businesses, so, of course, it has become a central locale in all of the stories. Several of the characters work there too, and it is locally well-known, so even the crooks seem to find their way there.

Which is your favorite dish from the menu in "The Mossback Cafe Cookbook"?

Most of the recipes are my own recipes. The Buttermilk Pie is tops. Smidgeon’s potato salad secret on the last page is good too. I put together the pimento cheese from various recipes but once I made it to test it, it became a favorite as well. But all of the recipes are real and I don’t think there is a bad one in the batch. The Mashed-Brown Potatoes is the only one I totally made up, and that was because it came to me in a dream. I vividly remember that in the dream this dish was the pride and joy of some restaurant I happened to work at. That recipe title stuck with me so I decided to include it although it was never clear in the dream exactly what it was.

What challenges did you face while setting "The Hag Rider" in the south during the Civil War?

The changing view of the south in the Civil War is the biggest challenge. I have a degree in History and have studied this period extensively and know that prevailing attitudes in the south about the war are just plain wrong and these all boil down to what we learned in school, something that has been influenced by "the lost cause narrative." In my view, slavery was abhorrent but deeply embedded in the American social and economic systems. It was never going to go away without something like a bitter war. So, to me, the war was necessary and when you think about it, abolition was achieved in four years because of the war. It would have certainly taken decades without secession and the war. People who want to totally turn away from all things "Civil War" should realize, like I do, that the south had to fight a war they could never hope to win in order to shed itself of that awful tradition. Sadly, the aftermath wasn't much better for blacks or for the "defeated" whites, and that is what our society has never successfully addressed. As mind-blowingly awful as that war was for all sides, the real loss was in the peace that followed. We didn't learn a thing. All that said, the war is still, militarily, a fascinating thing to study.

This story works on several levels and through those levels I tried to present a more realistic appraisal of the south and their reasons for the war, AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF A TEEN. He doesn’t understand all of the political implications of slavery although he is closer to slavery than most whites of that era. His best friend and mentor, almost a father figure, is a slave. The boy Jack straddles the line between being a white person in the antebellum south and understanding the lives of these people who are in bondage. He also knows there is nothing he can do about it, except treat people with decency and respect.

Another level is the understanding that, for the most part, a person was a citizen of a state first, and a citizen of the entire country second. If your state moved in a certain direction, you moved along with it and secessionist fever indeed swept many people along with it. War was almost certain, and it was natural and normal for a young man to allow himself to be swept along with the riptide. As fate would have it, those who didn’t enlist were eventually conscripted.

Then there is the supernatural aspect. In researching hoodoo practices, I became convinced these practices were a coping mechanism for slaves, simple enough to bemuse the whites as something quaint, and mysterious enough for the whites to keep such practices at arm’s length. So I take it another step and make it real, or as real as something paranormal can be. In doing this, I also make the so-called slave Vanita the most powerful person in the book. The reader can tell from many passages that even her owner is afraid of her. And her power extends across hundreds of miles to protect Jack. He never knows when her “help” will surface, but he survives the war with this help, and with the help of the individuals, usually blacks, she recruits through her magic.

The last level is that of a civil war memoir. First and foremost I strove to present the tale as an account of one person’s journey. I mimicked other similar memoirs as best as I could, and I read a lot of them. A mid-nineteenth century soldier’s life was fairly boring, so only a few standout events are presented, as someone might tell their tale a few years later. It also shows that a soldier’s loyalty lies ultimately with his comrades, not his army or his supposed country. He makes this very clear to union captors and to confederate officers he encounters as he tries to return to Texas.

One other thing about this story: the main character, Jack Benson, is based upon my great-great-grandfather; I should add, very loosely based on him because I know very little about him except his dates of service and his unit, all presented in the book. One of the biggest events in the novel, his capture and subsequent imprisonment in a federal prison near Brooklyn NY, was based on an entry in the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, where a "John Benson, origin unknown" was released from this prison, for exchange, in the spring of 1863. It was almost certainly not my ancestor, but this is what gave me the idea for the story: if it was him, how could I put him at that place, at that time. My study of the events of the war provided a plausible series of events that achieves that very thing in the story. My readings of other memoirs also provided source materials for envisioning a transit across the war-torn south, back to Texas.

What is the toughest criticism you've ever received as an author and how did you take it?

I was told that The Fever was too dependent on narrative. In rewriting sections of the story to remedy this, I hit upon plot changes that greatly enhanced the story. Ever since then, I've presented dialogue-driven stories.

Any word of inspiration for budding authors of today and your avid readers?

Do not be afraid of working through your manuscript a number of times. It is tedious, I know, but it is a valuable experience. To readers, give each story a chance for the exposition to develop. I lay a thick base of plot and story in The Fever, so I encourage people to give it 40-50 pages. I’ve tried to be a little quicker on the draw in my other books.

How has your experience of being associated with AllAuthor been?

I’m still new to ALLAuthor but so far I have been enjoying the tweet exposure and excellent and inventive graphics.

Ask Thomas Fenske a Question

Have brimming questions to ask author Thomas Fenske? Ask whatever you like, but keep it appropriate.
** Please note that unanswered questions will not appear on the page. Refrain from posting promotional messages.

    • Error:

      Warning:

Contact Thomas Fenske

The author, a good book and you! Contact Thomas Fenske here.
** Please refrain from spamming and don’t bombard the author with promotional mails/messages. Your IP/Email address may be blocked if found doing so.

Contact Author on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

By using this form, you agree with the storage and handling of your data by AllAuthor.