Author R&R with Roberta Gately

 

Author Roberta Gately has served as a nurse and humanitarian aid worker in third-world war zones, ranging from Afghanistan to Africa, and prepared a series of articles on the subject of refugees for the Journal of Emergency Nursing and the BBC World News Online. Her first novel, Lipstick in Afghanistan, dealt with the plight of women in the male-dominated culture of the Taliban.

Roberta's follow-up novel, The Bracelet, tells the story of Abby Monroe, a young nurse determined to make her mark as a UN worker in one of the world's most unstable cities, Peshawar, Pakistan. But her plans are disrupted when she witnesses the brutal murder of a woman thrown from a building in Geneva. Haunted by the memory of an intricate and sparkling bracelet that adorned the victim's wrist, Abby struggles to make a difference for the refugees and trafficking victims she meets. When the mysterious bracelet reappears, she and New York Times reporter Nick Sinclair must work together to unravel the mystery that threatens them both.

Roberta stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" (Reference and Research) about her preparations for writing The Bracelet, supplementing her own first-hand experiences with real-life accounts from people around the globe via the Internet:

Both of my novels, Lipstick in Afghanistan and The Bracelet, were created from my own experiences as a nurse and aid worker, and my often vivid imagination. But research was still a necessary ingredient to be sure that my facts and figures supported the fabric of my stories.

The backstory of The Bracelet involved the gritty real life drama of human trafficking, a hideous and little known business that required intensive and sometimes strange research into the dark world of trafficking in India. I turned to PBS, CNN and even YouTube to get a feel for the victims' experiences, and through their documentaries and videos, I was able to look into a victim's eyes without blurring the lines of myth and reality.

Once I'd seen the stories and gained a tentative understanding of the ordeals the victims had suffered, I turn to Google to investigate the sex trades in India, another integral part of my story. I vaguely wondered if my search using phrases like buying sex in Mumbai, murder in Delhi and a prostitute's life in India might not trigger some kind of red flag somewhere, and I half expected to get a notice barring me from Google. But undaunted, I persisted and my research, bizarre though it might have seemed to anyone who keeps an eye on those things, provided me with a wealth of hideous facts and figures, numbers that numbed my brain, but enriched my story. And, I'm happy to report, that even if there is a red flag hovering over my name on some internet watch-dog site, I'm still researching away.

My third novel, Next Of Kin, is set in Chicago, and though I've visited the windy city, I have nowhere near the experience there that my characters do, and I've turned to the Internet to supplement my story with authentic locations, events and traditions.  I've even found the brand new lakefront condo for one of my characters and I've chosen his apartment, complete with floor plan and layout. I've plotted another character's walk from the courthouse to her car, and I've consulted on-line menus to choose possible evening out meals.

I can't imagine trying to research a novel without the immediacy of the Internet, and my admiration goes to all of those authors who labored for years collecting their facts and backgrounds the old fashioned way, by pounding the pavement. And though I intend to pound a little pavement myself in Chicago, I'll have the benefit of Google maps and Internet searches to guide me along.

© 2013 Roberta Gately, author of The Bracelet

 

The Bracelet is available in paperback and digital versions, and you can follow Roberta via her website, Facebook page and Twitter.