Stephen Meier, Mail Order Brides and KATKA

Katka by Stephen Meier is a gritty, edgy novel of greed, love, and swindles gone very wrong. When Gavin and his girlfriend team with her best friend Simona to pull a phony mail order bride scam in the Czech Republic, Gavin gets in way over his head in the high-stakes and dangerous business of selling wives. When Gavin talks Katka, his girlfriend, into becoming part of the merchandise, planning to bait-n-switch the client in the end, things go awry and Katka disappears with the client. Partnering with the jealous and volatile Simona, Gavin begins to lament this risky life he has chosen, but finds the money is something he can’t walk away from. Gavin’s doubts grow; the con begins to consume him, and he finds himself thinking of Katka, the fate he dealt her, and whether he can undo the biggest mistake of his life.

Written with staccato grit and streetwise savvy, Katka reads like a Quentin Tarantino movie.

As our guest blogger, Stephen discusses the type of research he did for Katka:

The truth is the research I did for my book, KATKA, was talking with girls who were willing to be mail order brides or who were mail order brides. To hear their first-hand accounts or reasons for doing it was truly amazing, and all I needed to know. I wanted the emotion behind the story, as this book is an emotional roller coaster, fueled by love, greed, and the desire for a better life. Talking with people who have lived through this is all the research you need.

Yet, I am also lucky enough to know someone, a guy, who actually purchased a young woman from the Phillipines. So I asked why he did it. He's a very nice man,very religious. So to hear him tell me how much he just wanted a companion, and then to see how happy he was when she finally came over, just brought it all home for me.

You can go online and type in mail order brides and find about a million hits. There are some sleazy sites, as well as some very professional ones. I mean, Facebook even advertises for an agency. So that tells you right there, that it's big business! And it's not going away!

Stephen Ross Meier was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the first of many places he would live worldwide. He received his Bachelors in English from Arizona State University. He currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada

Inspired by music, films, books, and the world around him, he is currently working on several projects, with his next book, Teaching Pandas to Swim, ready to be released soon. A huge fan of such writers as Charles Bukowski, Milan Kundera, Irving Welsch, Irving Stone, Chuck Palahniuk, and Brett Easton Ellis, Stephen has always been drawn to writing and story telling.

Having been diagnosed with Heart Disease on May 10th, 2006, Stephen has been reminded that life void of passion is really not a life at all.

For more information please visit www.stephenrossmeier.com.