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Showing posts with label Vincent Zandri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vincent Zandri. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Book Review and Giveaway: The Remains by Vincent Zandri

Can the "remains" of a childhood trauma contribute to a new nightmare??
The Remains by Vincent Zandri
  • Paperback: 375 pages
  • Publisher: StoneHouse Ink; 1 edition (November 30, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0982770502
  • ISBN-13: 978-0982770504
  • Price: Print $14.99; Kindle $2.99
    Genre: Thriller
    My Rating:  4.25 of 5.0

Product Description
Thirty years ago, teenager Rebecca Underhill and her twin sister Molly were abducted by a man who lived in a house in the woods behind their upstate New York farm. They were held inside that house for three horrifying hours, until making their daring escape. Vowing to keep their terrifying experience a secret in order to protect their mother and father, the girls tried to put the past behind them. And when their attacker was hunted down by police and sent to prison, they believed he was as good as dead. Now, it s 30 years later, and with Molly having passed away from cancer, Rebecca, a painter and art teacher, is left alone to bear the burden of a secret that has only gotten heavier and more painful with each passing year. But when Rebecca begins receiving some strange anonymous text messages, she begins to realize that the monster who attacked her all those years ago is not dead after all. He s back, and this time, he wants to do more than just haunt her. He wants her dead.

Review: Very well done! This mystery thriller kept my attention from beginning to end. I liked how the story is told by Rebecca describing current day events and in flash backs slowly revealing her childhood memories  when she and her twin sister were young teens and attacked by the monster in the woods.  The author skillfully builds the tension step by step.  He sets the stage for the villain, while presenting a full picture of Rebecca’s life through the secondary characters: her ex-husband, Michael, her best friend Robyn, an autistic savant art student, Franny, and even her sister, Molly, who gives her strength through memories.

Although each character adds to the story, Franny has a key role in racheting up the suspense as he paints images from Rebecca’s past that she thinks no one could know about.  Franny presents a new painting each day with a hidden word that initially only Rebecca can see. The first word is “listen” and this becomes alarming when Rebecca begins to get unexplained text messages, hears her name whispered and her cell phone ringing in the middle of the night. Each painting ads another edge to the chill of the story.

I liked the renewal of the relationship between Michael and Rebecca which gives the story a sense of hope and growth even in the midst of fear and evil.  There is sadness after the fear but then there is joy and new life too.  The story moves at a consistently engaging pace toward Rebecca’s inescapable confrontation with the child abductor. The story twists are more anticipated than unexpected - you just don’t know quite what they will be. Even though you know there will be an attack, the story keeps your attention as you wonder how and when it will happen.

I also liked the information supplied on savant autistic people.  I can easily recommend this as an enjoyable thriller read.

A phrase I liked:  "Fear warped time, bent it the same way it crippled my insides."


Thank you to the author and Pump Up Your Book Promotions for the book to read and review and for providing TWO copies for Giveaway!  Watch the trailer and read an excerpt at the Pump Up Your Book link.

TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY  - TWO COPIES:

1. Visit the author's website or blog and tell me something of interest you find there - Required for entry.
Please leave your e-mail!

2.  Comment on the Author's Guest Post for TWO entries.

3. For an extra entry, become a follower or tell me if you are already a follower.

4. For three extra entries, blog, facebook, tweet (any of those networks!) about this giveaway and tell me where you did.

(Seven total entries possible.)
It isn't necessary to use separate entries unless you want them in different chronological order.

* This contest is open to US and Canada only.
* No P.O. Boxes Please - for shipping reasons.
* This contest will close 10:00 PM (Central) on December 22, 2010. The winners will be randomly selected from all entries.  TWO WINNERS!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Guest Post - Writing Advice for Newbies by Author Vincent Zandri

Writing Advice for Newbies
By Vincent Zandri

Lately, a lot of interviewers have been asking me to lend some advice to newbie writers, especially young people just starting out. So for better or worse, here it is:

1. Stay in school. No writer who has to work three jobs as a dishwasher just to pay his rent ever managed to write the great American novel. Course I could be wrong here.

2. Read everything you can, starting with the classics, the Hemingways, the Faulkners, the Fitzgeralds, the Mailers, the Conrads, the Tolstoys…Skip the Dickens except for Tale of Two Cities. Especially read novels in your favorite genre. If you love noir, read all the Parker, Hammett, Spillane, Huston, and Zandri you can get your hands on. Then read some more.

3. Write like crazy, even if its just character sketches. Learn to pack the biggest punch using the least amount of words possible. And always keep a notebook with you at all times.

4. Be a newspaper reporter first. Write for an editor who demands timely, terse, 100-300 words pieces twice a day. Pieces that require a beginning, a middle and a resolution in the smallest amount of space possible. The job should be extremely low paying, and extremely high pressure. But do it anyway. Not only will you build up clips, but you will learn to work under pressure, when you don’t feel like it, when you’re hung over, when you’ve just found out your girlfriend is sleeping with your best friend behind your back, when an asteroid is approaching planet earth… Trust me, even Hemingway will tell you there is no better training for a would-be novelist.

5. Don’t be a newspaper reporter for too long. 3 to 5 years max. Then become a freelance writer and split your creative time between articles for magazines and newspapers, both online and paper (by 2020 it will be all online), and writing fiction. Write some short stories and try and get them published. Then start your novel. Don’t stop writing the novel until you have a complete draft, even if it’s crap. You can always edit or start another one.

6. Don’t get married or have children. You won’t be able to afford it. Also, for ten years or so, your writing will be both spouse and mistress. You're legal sig other won't be able to compete. have a boyfriend/girlfriend instead.

7. Share an apartment with friends if you can and don’t buy a new car. By a beater.

8. Get a passport and travel to as many destinations as you can. Never stay home for more than a couple of months at a time.

9. Live in Europe for a year. Europeans are different from Americans. They don’t place as a high value on making money the way we do.

10. Persevere, even when the dream seems impossible. Never give up!
To order the bestselling The Remains and The Innocent...just click on the titles!!!!!

 


Learn more about Vincent during Pump up Your Book Blog tour

You can also visit his website at www.vincentzandri.com or his blog at www.vincentzandri.blogspot.com.
 

The Remains

Watch for my review of The Remains on December 8.

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