Bestselling thriller author Steve Berry is returning to Gainesville on Sunday.
At 2 p.m., the author will make his second appearance at the Millhopper Library, 3145 NW 43rd St., to discuss his new book, answer questions and sign novels.
He was asked to come back to discuss his new books and answer questions about what inspires him, said Nickie Kortus, the marketing and public relations manager for the Alachua County Library District.
Berry’s novels have been on The New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and BookSense bestseller lists.
He writes fiction-thriller novels that reflect historical events.
“All of my books have history in them,” Berry said. “Something lost, something forgotten, something you may not know a lot about but you wanna know more — and that’s what my novels do.”
His new book, “The Patriot Threat,” was released March 31. It’s the 10th book he published in a series about a character named Cotton Malone, a retired, top operative for the U.S. Department of Justice who can’t seem to stay away from the job.
Before becoming an author, he was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years.
Learning to write fiction novels took him years, Berry said.
“It’s an acquired skill, and you have to teach yourself that craft,” he said. “I try to write like a lawyer but that’s not the way you write novels so I had to re-teach myself.”
The author was rejected 85 times before publishing his first book in 2003. Since then, he has published 14 books.
Berry said his books reflect the topics he loves: action, history, secrets and conspiracies in an international setting.
But writing what he loves doesn’t come easily. Each novel he writes requires about 18 months of research from 300 to 400 different sources and 12 months of writing, Berry said.
“You write what you love,” he said. “You don’t necessarily write what you know. If what you know and what you love are the same thing that’s great, but for me it wasn’t.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 6/4/15]
