Although writing fiction is her first
love, Roxanne has a Ph.D. in engineering, and an MBA from the State University
of New York. She received awards for her work from companies such as GE. In
addition, she is an inventor with three patents. She served as an executive and
senior manager for high-level operations and quality design in the aerospace,
defense, industrial, and energy sectors.
Roxanne and her family live in New
York State. She wakes up every day with a sense of gratitude for the country
that welcomed her, and pride for her two adult sons and their accomplishments.
IAN: Please tell us about your latest
book.
Roxanne Von
Andrian: My book
DECEPTION is about a team of four European
These four men, OSCAR, FERENCZ, ADI
and CORNEL, under the Ceausescu’s Romania, had powerful roles in the political
apparatchik. During the 1989 revolution, they turned against the communist
regime. They meet again, as members of the Miklos Fund Board, in Bucharest
Romania.
MIKLOS, an American multi-millionaire
with Eastern European roots, opens the Miklos Fund to help the emergence of a
civil society.
The team diverts money from the Miklos
Fund to finance their plan of stealing enriched plutonium from the Russia-owned
military base of Ukraine’s Sebastopol.
The team is acting under the guidance
of a French op team who, with help from Italian assassins, plot to kill an
ex-KGB officer in London by poisoning him. They make the assassination appear
to be executed by the KGB.
While working at MIKLOS Fund, Ingrid
has several brushes with death.
The theft is orchestrated by a
Ukrainian officer, LISA, who wanted to escape from Ukraine to start a new life
in Romania’s Transylvania. The plutonium is hidden in three decoy tombstones
made of cement.
IAN: Is Deception published in
print, e-book or both?
Roxanne Von
Andrian: DECEPTION is
published in print, hardcover and paperback, and e-book. I recommend all
versions; the quality of the print is very good, thanks to my well organized
and perfectionist publisher Angela Hoy, and the cover illustration is
wonderfully creative and representative of the content. I was lucky to have an
amazing artist like Todd Engel to illustrate the cover!
IAN: Where can we go to buy Deception?
Roxanne Von
Andrian: DECEPTION is
available for purchase at:
IAN: What
inspired you to write Deception?
Roxanne Von Andrian: My inner knowledge of life under the
communists and later on, in France, before arriving to the United States,
inspired me to write this spy thriller.
I am descending from a well-connected European family. While my family
at large was victimized by the communist party and the KGB, part of my close
family had the privileged life of those serving the communist regime, in the
pattern of the victims embracing its tormentors. Such that, through family and
friends, I was privy to deep state secrets that were occasionally spilled in my
parents’ house.
I joined the Revolution of December 1989, which ended with the ousting
of the dictator, Ceausescu, the collapse of communism, and the rebirth of
democracy. My change of allegiance wasn’t left unnoticed. In 1992, I was
working for the Soros Foundation for an Open Society when I asked for political
asylum in Paris, France, because my life was in danger. My family and I moved
from France to United States shortly after that.
I was an ocean away when European events made the news, like the
assassination of Ipsinenko in London, Russia’s grab of Crimea, enriched
plutonium popping up on the European black market, and the emancipation of the
Eastern European countries out of Moscow’s communist control. I immediately
connected these and other events to people I personally knew, the organizations
they were part of, and to their years-long strife and hate of the Soviet Union
and the KGB, the ideology enforcer. I realized that the public would never unlock
the deepest secrets and the tenebrous characters that were behind these events.
Why? – because the people I knew in my youth were so secretive and masters of
deception and conspiracy, nothing in the world, neither riches or fame, would
drag them out in the open.
IAN: How long
did it take to write Deception?
Roxanne Von Andrian: I started writing the manuscript in
2017 and had it published in 2020. I wrote it during evenings, after a full-day
work, and on weekends.
IAN: How did
you come up with the title?
Roxanne Von Andrian: Its original title was “The Last
Take”. I changed the title in 2018, after I had several discussions with Rhonda
Roaring, an amazing personality and editor who peppered my manuscript with
critiques of style and content, and ended up giving me a lot of titbits on
writing and publishing advice. She told me the title sounded like a financial
transaction, and I should consider a different one.
IAN: What do you hope your readers come away with after reading Deception?
Roxanne Von Andrian: My hope is that the readers will
connect the dots between the real events the book is based on, and they will
see the hidden truths behind each history lesson. What is more fascinating than having a
glimpse of the secrets under a history shakedown? – it’s like trying to see the
entire iceberg when they show you the tip of it only.
My literary agent, Mary Ellen Gavin, who I trust and love, says that
my book gives the readers insight into what it would be like to work at CIA
Headquarters and what it was like at the end of the COLD WAR.
IAN: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own
life?
Roxanne Von Andrian: My book Deception is based on
characters I knew and on events in my own life. Most of the dialogues are
documenting conversations I witnessed, while I was in the company of strongly
minded, driven men and women, in my youth and childhood, who remained memorable
over time, in my head.
While writing the manuscript, I cried many times, because of
remembering the emotions, the suffering, or the risks taken by people who were
so close to me. When the manuscript was complete, it felt therapeutic. Reliving
the vivid memories, which I associated with the fictional deflections of the
story, healed me somehow of the fears and terrors of my life in a dictatorship.
IAN: Tell us about your next book or a
work in progress. Is it a sequel or a stand-alone?
Roxanne Von
Andrian: My next book is
in a different genre than spy thrillers, and yes it is a stand-alone. I am
planning to write a story of the paranormal. About the personal dilemma and
tribulations of a woman who believes in God and develops supernatural powers,
which give her gratification when accomplishing good deeds or “miracles” for
unknowing people, but sometimes put her at odds with herself when people want
to harm her.
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