FALL RIVER: The military history of Halifax provides the perfect backdrop for Brad Kelln’s fourth novel, Tell Me More, one that keeps you yearning for more than just this one book.
Kelln, an author based out of St. Andrews Village in Fall River, hopes Tell Me More will have such success that a series can be made out of it. It’s his fourth published book, although he has written a few more books however they went unpublished.
“There’s always been big gaps in my books,” said Kelln. “With Tell Me More I was really desperate to get back to writing.
“There’s such a large gap from 2008 to 2018 because I was so heavily involved in coaching and my kids sports, so I coached basketball with the Rebels and LWF Baseball in the summer.”
Tell Me More begins based on a military base in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a top secret program assists personnel from around the world when they’re experiencing mental health problems. These people can’t be helped anywhere else because their jobs are extremely classified: their secrets really are top secret.
Dr. Blake Waiter, the program’s psychologist, is an ordinary man with an extraordinary job, based out Dartmouth, just like Kelln does. When a new patient from a research project in the Nevada desert comes to him with a fantastic story and fearing for his life, Dr. Waiter doesn’t know what he’s about to get involved with.He soon finds himself on a frightening roller coaster of events involving impossible floating balls, an evil entrepreneur, a giant damaged soldier, and a mysterious artificial intelligence.
One of Kelln’s previous books, In Tongues of the Dead which was the last book he did and released some 10 years ago. It was translated into several other languages.
For Kelln, his schedule consisted of basketball in the fall, winter, and spring, then baseball spring and summer and right back into basketball. He was the president of the Rebels organization for two of those years as well.
“I always promised myself that because writing is my passion that as soon as I could pass some of those duties on I would get back into it,” he recalled.
The clinical and forensic psychologist at the N.S. Forensic Hospital and with his own small practice, returned to writing in 2016.
He knew that for his first book back he wanted it to be something that if he read the back cover would make him want to read it. And Tell Me More, printed by Insomniac Press, does just that.
“I like a little bit of science, not a lot of science. Really strong characters that you either love or hate, but can relate to, and I wanted the story to be quick,” said Kelln. “I’m not a really patient person when I’m reading. I like things to move along at a pretty good clip. I don’t like a very slow story arch.”
Kelln brainstormed how he could include those in a story-line. He soon realized that is one of the more important things to writing.
“You need to understand what the story looks like from beginning to end, before you even write a chapter,” said Kelln. “For three months in 2016, I started doing all this brainstorming. It kept coming back to me that I needed to write what I know, which is psychology.”
He does a lot of interesting work with his job, working with the police and people who have been in trouble with the law. He hasn’t overlapped his fiction work into real life before. For Tell Me More he did.
“This time I thought ‘why not base this on everything that goes on for myself,” he said. “That’s where the characters came from, stuff that goes on for me.”
Kelln doesn’t want the book to be a one-off, and has already started drafts on book two and three with ideas percolating for the fourth book. That may include creating a character familiar to residents, that one would never suspect as being a villain.
“I want to turn this into a series, I don’t want it to be a stand-alone,” he said. “I want his to be an ongoing series without end. That will depend on my sales record, of course.”
Tell Me More is available for purchase at Chapters; Indigo; and online at Amazon Canada and other book outlets.
It’s a book that will leave you not wanting to put it down, and anxiously awaiting publications of the next books in the series.
