Book Trib Reviews Lee Lindauer's New Novel The Sava Steps

Characters Find Themselves on Emotional Collision Course in Mountaintop Thriller

The Sava Steps by Lee Lindauer

What's It About?

Amidst desolate mountaintops, a cast of characters find their fates entwined in this pulse pounding thriller

“Where would one go to sell a kidney?” Hightower asked.

Vlad leaned back; his expression turned sour. “People get killed wanting to know.”

Author Lee Lindauer, an engineer by trade before turning to thriller novels, uses the tools and techniques of his original vocation to develop well-researched and tightly conceived stories and complex and well-defined characters, clearly evident in his most recent work, The Sava Steps.

Throw in a generous helping of history to get the narrative going. During the Bosnian War in 1995, in a period referred to as the Srebenica Genocide, a Dutch Battalion of the United Nations Protective Force, known as Dutchbat III, was charged with providing peacekeeping operations, protecting the “safe zone” and preventing the escalation of atrocities on local villagers. It is said that the Dutch did not live up to that responsibility.

The protagonist, Melika Zbanic, 17 at the time and one of those villagers, was forced into a long journey by foot with her younger brother against their will at the hands of armed soldiers. The battalion’s Dutch captain, Pieter Van Dere, made decisions and took actions that left lifelong scars on Melika – so hideous that she vows decades later to settle all scores and seek out revenge on Van Dere, regardless of the consequences.

Fast forward to present day, where Melika, a doctor, lives in a small village. On the grounds high above her clinic, there is a structure of a once-prominent hotel whose presence now is unclear. However, as she witnesses strange comings and goings, even the apparent nighttime burial of a body, she suspects something unsavory. Yet she is singularly focused to travel wherever she may to find Van Dere and bring about her personal justice.

THE PACE IS SWIFT, WRITING CRISP

Meanwhile, an analyst for Interpol in Lyon, France, is close to cracking a case and identifying a suspect in an apparent illegal kidney trafficking operation – the savage process of grabbing donors and taking vast sums from people in need of a transplant who can’t procure the organ through traditional means.

When the analyst is murdered, enter Thorne Hightower, a former disgraced FBI agent who happens to be the brother-in-law of the victim. Van Dere, whose current cover is a position at Interpol, now appears central to the kidney trafficking scheme.

Melika and Hightower, with seemingly different motives for seeking out Van Dere, become intertwined in the chase and subject to many dangerous twists, turns and circumstances in which they find themselves along the way.

The author introduces us to an intriguing cast of supporting characters representing both good and evil. Perhaps none is more curious than Melika’s daughter Valery, for the mere reason that she is stone deaf but also a virtuoso violinist. What role might she play close to home as her mother takes off in search of Van Dere and his accomplice?

INTRICATE PLOT WITH FINE DETAIL

Like many of the relationships, with that of Melika and Hightower at the forefront, the matter of trust is a constant theme. While some wavering confidences are apparent, even the two lead characters fail to easily establish what seems like a natural bond to work together. Perhaps Melika’s history, shrouded with shady characters and betrayal, forces her to question everything and anything.

Lindauer has truly taken to his new craft of writing thrillers: “They’re an easy way to escape, and someone is always in danger — it never is the reader. I was never a voracious reader growing up, but the books I did read were packed with adventure, thrills, and mayhem, with words and characters that got your blood flowing.”

The Sava Steps will indeed get readers’ blood flowing. The author has combined an intricate plot with fine detail and much to think about. He gives us complex, flawed characters for which we feel their anguish, fear, desperation and the focus on the specific objectives at hand.

Dare we say that Lindauer has “engineered” a masterful work with all the elements you’d hope for in a thriller. The pace is swift, the writing crisp, and the overall experience one that will encourage readers of this genre to proudly add this book to their shelves.

 

AUTHOR

Contrary to popular belief, Lee Lindauer, author of The Sava Steps and Irrational Fears, did not obtain an MFA in Creative Writing but did earn both BS and MS degrees in Architectural and Civil Engineering, respectively. From years of designing buildings and other structures, he now engineers fast-paced plots and creates intriguing characters in authentic technical and natural settings to produce emotional rollercoaster rides for the reader. A member of the International Thriller Writers, he and his wife, Teri, divide their time between Colorado and Nevada. Visit his website at www.leelindauer.com

Via Booktrib.

 

Jim Alkon

Jim Alkon is Editorial Director of BookTrib.com. Jim is a veteran of the business-to-business media and marketing worlds, with extensive experience in business development and content. Jim is a writer at heart – whether a book review, blog, white paper, corporate communication, marketing or sales piece, it really doesn’t matter as long as he is having fun and someone is benefitting from it.

Story Merchant E-Book Deal!

 AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Original, entertaining, deftly scripted with memorable characters and a roller-coaster of a plot…
--Midwest Book Review

Twenty-five years after the Srebrenica Massacre, the worst genocide in Europe since World War II, survivor Melika Žbanić encounters two vicious men from her past. Intent on revenge, her plans are derailed by disgraced FBI agent Thorne Hightower, who has personal reasons to involve himself in her affairs.

Melika escapes Hightower’s pursuit only to be kidnapped and taken somewhere in the Balkans where a grim fate looms. With the clock ticking, a persistent Hightower follows clues to her whereabouts—and by chance meets Melika’s daughter Valery, a physically impaired but gifted young woman determined to confront her own existence—and soft-spoken Victor Alvarez, whose sole purpose in life is to keep his wife alive. Amid the splendor of a desolate mountaintop nouveau riche hotel, they find themselves locked on an emotional collision course between brutality, and the GIFT OF LIFE.

DREAMWORKS: THE BROTHER IN VIETNAM Maxine Hong Kingston

THE BROTHER IN VIETNAM 

Maxine Hong Kingston 

When I went to Singapore, where I have maybe fifty relatives, I found part of the family that my mother left behind forty years ago, and never saw again, and will probably not see again. My newfound aunt told me she had dreamed that the ghost of her husband had escorted me to Singapore. "And what does your mother dream about?" she asked. I understood that if I am to know someone well, I have to know what she dreams about. Dreams are more telling than news about one's job or health. I told my mother's dreams, and so felt that I am a worthy connection between family members who are far apart.

To write thoroughly about people, tell not only what work they do but how they spend their days off, and tell what they dream. In the following excerpt, "The Brother in Vietnam," the brother has three nightmares as his ship sails to Asia. The on-scene killings that take place in this story occur in dreams.

From CHINA MEN 

My mother holding my hand, I went through a curtain into a dark, out of which came explosions and screams, voices shouting things I did not understand. In a rectangle of light—which grew and shrank according to how close or far away I thought it—men with scared eyes peered over the top of a big hole they were in. Helmets weighed down their skulls. Their cheekbones were black. The men ran, clutching guns, and fell, and crawled.

The explosions rolled them screaming on the ground. I saw the undersides of their boots. Their faces and hands were not flesh-color. Everyone wore the same outfits. The color had gone out of the world. I stumbled tanglelegged into my mother's skirt and the curtain and screamed with the soldiers. Suddenly they were all gone like a dream, and I was crying in the street. Years later I figured it had only been a movie, a war movie, an old sepia-tone. "Did you take me to an American movie when I was a baby?" I've asked. Usually my father took us to American movies, my mother to Chinese movies, where she could visit with friends during the boring parts, and children played and shouted without getting ejected. MaMa said, "You cried so much that the usher ghost threw me out of the theater." I worried about making her waste money on a ticket, and so she diverted me from the actual horror—I had seen a vision of war. . . . from her. 

So that was how babies were born. Our room turned white, and through the window flew a white Christmas card like a dove and landed on the floor. It had fluttered in the air. Forgetting about what we had seen through the cracks, my sister and I picked up the card. It was very beautiful with snow and sparkles. "There's no envelope," we said. "No stamp. No name. No mailman. How could it come through the window?" I checked the window; someone must have snuck up to the open window and thrown the card in. But screen and glass were shut tight against the winter. "You saw it too, didn't you?" my sister and I asked each other, our brother only about a year old and no help. "Yes, it flew through the glass near here." We pointed out the pane, one of the top ones. "How did this card come into the room?" we asked when an adult entered. "The baby's born," said the adult. That baby was my brother who was born on Christmas day. 

Later the adults said that they found him naked under a pine tee, but I know what I had seen: blood and a flash of white flying, a flash of flying white. . . . . One brother got married a few months before the draft exemption for married men was canceled. But one brother enlisted in the Navy and the other was commissioned as an officer in the Air Force. I drove my youngest brother to the airport in the middle of the night. He didn't want the flowers I brought; he had already refused to carry the chickens and puddings that MaMa had cooked. He was in his uniform like the middy that he wore in his baby picture. He said not to wait for him to board or for the plane to take off. "Go on," he said. "Don't wait around." So I only got to see him check his luggage. As I drove past the terminal, I saw him sitting by himself on a cement bench under a light. . . . He was assigned to a ship, an aircraft carrier.

 The beams and cables of the Golden Gate Bridge swung overhead. A few people up there waved and gave the peace sign. The Bay was gray like the pewter-color rocket launchers bolted to the decks. For a frantic second the brother wanted to turn the ship around. It was like a moving island of planes and jeeps and tanks. Maybe those khaki torpedoes and silver rockets were H-bombs. Or they were flares. He didn't know what an H-bomb looked like, perhaps a cassette or a crystal chip. . . . As the ship moved toward Asia, he dreamed fiercely. 

The dreams came more and more quickly; the land sent them: An army enters a city to free it from an enemy. A soldier of the rescuing army, he walks through a castle into the dungeons. Going down the stairs, he sees at face level—bodies hanging, some upside down, some brown and dried up, black hair and arms swaying, feet turning this way, then that, bodies with black hair in their middles, corpses with sections missing and askew, but mercifully all dead, hanging by hooks and ropes. Laundry tubs drain beneath the bodies. 

The live women and children on the ironing tables, the last captured, are being dissected. It has to be a dream or a movie, he thinks, but he blinks his eyes, and the sights do not go away. He takes up his sword and hacks into the enemy, slicing them; they come apart in rings and rolls. He grits his teeth and goes into a frenzy, cutting whatever human meat comes within range. When he stops, he finds that he has cut up the victims too, who are his own relatives. The faces of the strung-up people are also those of his own family, Chinese faces, Chinese eyes, noses, and cheekbones. He woke terrified. The live bodies he had cut up had not screamed or wept because their mouths had been gagged and eyes blindfolded. Scared awake, he looked at the underside of the rack above him and at the sleeping man across the aisle; it was only the closeness in these berths that had made him dream like that. 

He went to sleep again, and another dream recurred: Armies crawl like alligators under barbed wire. They have been ordered to charge a beach like at Normandy—only the beach is as wide as the Sahara Desert or the Gobi or Death Valley. In a panic of attack all those miles, they crawl and charge for years. It is an army of burrowing animals, moles, groundhogs, prairie dogs, ostriches. Frightened by shadows and sounds, they dig deeper. Nursing cubs and kids wriggle beneath bigger animals. Turkeys burrow under one another and die in a pile. Administering first aid, he cuts open their chests and sees gross internal damage. He tries unstacking the animals, weaning them. The alligators, left arm and leg, then right arm and leg, crawl toward battle. Occasionally, a wild stallion rears up and is shot. He woke again, wondering why he should have such disorderly animal dreams when the ship was a machine. These dreams must have come from his years of poultry chores. 

When he slept again, he dreamed that he was a barkless dog tied to a table leg in a kitchen equipped with a sink, oven, and operating table. Families—mother, father, and one child—are in kitchens like this all over the world. A voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Children, take up your knives; women, forks; men, spoons." Then with their arms around one another, the wife picks up the fork, and the husband the spoon. The loudspeaker says for them to kill themselves by forking and scooping. "Spoon, knife, or fork?" the loudspeaker asks the barkless dog, who knows that if he took the sharpest instrument, he would deprive someone else of a quick death. 

He chooses the spoon, but is not willing to gouge himself to death. Because he is a dog and not watched as closely as human beings, he runs out of the kitchen-surgery, but outside, the shooting war has begun. He runs in and out the door, unable to decide whether it is better to commit suicide or to kill.

Kenneth Atchity. Dreamworks 3:3: 1983 (Dreamworks Magazine) . Story Merchant Books.  

Interview – Ken Atchity on Brae MacKenzie

 
Kenneth John Atchity Author of Homer’s Iliad: The Shield of Memory – Which was his Ph.D. Dissertation. The work was awarded Yale Graduate School’s Highest Academic Honor – The Porter Prize; and was later published by Southern Illinois University Press (Edited by John Gardner).  Mentors at Yale Included Thomas Ber.

Kenneth John Atchity Author of Homer’s Iliad: The Shield of Memory – Which was his Ph.D. Dissertation. The work was awarded Yale Graduate School’s Highest Academic Honor – The Porter Prize; and was later published by Southern Illinois University Press (Edited by John Gardner).  Mentors at Yale Included Thomas Bergin, Thomas Greene, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Richard Ellinger, Eric Segal and Lowry Nelson Jr.

His Twenty Books Include:

Homer: Critical Essays (G.K.Hall), The Renaissance Reader (HarperCollins), The Classical Greek Reader (Harper-Oxford University Press),Italian Literature: Roots & Branches (Yale University Press), A Writer’s Time (W.W. Norton) Seven Ways to Die (with William Diehl) (Story Merchant Books) The Classical Roman Reader (Harper-Oxford), The Messiah Matrix.

Kenneth represents writers of both fiction and nonfiction. He accounts for numerous bestsellers and movies both produced in television and on the big screen. In 2011 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Producing “The Kennedy Detail.”

We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his latest addition to storytelling which is called Brae MacKenzie.

Ken, Brae Mackenzie is a romance of Mythic Identity. What inspired her story?

I had it in the back of my mind for years, ever since I did a driving tour of Scotland and fell in love with the place and its mysterious past.

What made you decide to try out Romance?

Actually romance, for me, is a ‘return to the old neighborhood.’ My first film project after leaving academia was a series of sixteen romance movies (“Shades of Love”) that allowed me to explore romance from every angle. I’ve been in love with romantic literature since college when I read Denis de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World and realized the power of romantic love over our western imaginations. I conceived of Brae Mackenzie as the first of a series of romances about American women returning to the countries of their origins to discover their true selves in the myths of that country.

How has the audience received the book since its launch last week?

It’s too early to tell. It hasn’t been out long enough for anyone even to read it. I hope your followers will take a look—and write a review on amazon.com

What made you decide to give it a mythical underline?

It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I’ve always loved romance and when I wrote one I wanted to explore my equal fascination with local myths, which form such a strong part of our unconscious minds, our yearnings and questionings.

Can you tell us a bit more about your main character? What makes her relatable?

Like so many contemporary women Brae is juggling so many balls she doesn’t have time and space to question what she’s doing. Beneath it all, though, is that nagging feeling that she’s missing out on life—that there’s something in her depths that isn’t being satisfied.

Can you give us a bit more insight into what it takes for you to write your stories?

I realize, after readying this book for publication, that it takes courage among other things. What if no one likes the story? What if there’s no audience for it? At the end of the day, though, it’s a story that has haunted me for years and I felt it deserved to be out there to make its own way in the world.

Does it involve a lot of research and planning?
I tend to start with a bunch of facts that intrigue me, then find a story to incorporate them. As I write the story, I don’t stop to check out the veracity of the details—I just imagine what the story needs. Then, when I get stuck somewhere, I turn to serious research to get me unstuck and generally discover that the facts I imagined are more accurate than I could have predicted; I also discover facts that I had not imagined, and work them into the story as I go along. Finally when the first draft is done, I do the most serious checking and research which tends to enrich the story. That’s where the serendipity happens—when you discover facts you had no idea were out there and they somehow magically seem to work in your story.

How long does it take from an idea to a full book?

In this case it’s taken 30 years or so. I did the first draft when I was teaching mythology at Occidental College, shoved it in a drawer somewhere as other things took my attention. Found it, when cleaning out my drawers and asked my top editor to read it and tell me what she thought. She insisted I finish and publish it, so I spent a year revising it repeatedly until it was at the point where I needed to get it born and out there on its own to find its fate.

What’s next for Ken the author?

I just finished the first volume of my memoirs, A Story Merchant’s Story: Growing up Atchity. Now I’m working on the second “novel of mythic identity,” this one about a Sicilian-American woman, faced with a crisis in her career, who turns her back on it to go to Sicily for the first time and discover her origins. I love Sicily so much I couldn’t resist it.
What other romance novels are you thinking of?

I love to travel, to learn new things, to eat the local cuisine so I’m hoping to do a Japanese novel, as well as ones set in Ireland, England, France, Spain, Mongolia, maybe Brazil and Mexico.

Where can people look forward to meet you?

I’ll be meeting and assisting writers at the Dublin Writers Conference in June, hosted by Laurence O’Bryann of booksgosocial.com.  Sign up at http://thebookpromoter.com/conference/ I’d love to meet your readers there!

Where can readers find the books?

Brae MacKenzie Available on Amazon

Read More at Nadine Martiz's My Addiction-Novels

Story Merchant E-Book Deal

This week: The Twaesum Aik of Brae MacKenzie (A Romance of Mythic Identity Book 1) by Andrea Aguillard ⁠

 

Brae MacKenzie, a successful San Francisco painter, is a woman who seems to have it all but who's felt a sense of loss and longing since childhood. Her artistic passion hasn't filled that void, and with the untimely death of her charismatic husband, the old pain resurges.

Brae's father senses his daughter's pain and before she embarks for an exhibit in England he hands her a family heirloom hidden away for years...a letter: "Since you are still among the living, your heart is not broken...follow the map," Brae reads, "to Scotland."

The London exhibit, in its ultra-chic hollowness, prompts Brae into taking and advice of that bewildering letter. She hops a train for Glasgow.

When the train goes through a tunnel and emerges in a forest of "Christmas trees," Brae suddenly feels something. This is her stop; she just knows it.

She met at the station by Damon, a stranger, or perhaps not. He becomes her own personal tour guide to the myths and history of a past she never knew--and to a romance she never dreamed of having.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

9 Powerful Secrets That Will Supercharge Your Fiction

Secrets are the engine that keep a story moving forward.

by Ruth Harris

Shhh!

Secrets.

Everyone has them.

Every book must have at least one because secrets are the jet-powered engine that propels fiction forward. Ever notice how many blurbs in the daily BookBub email include the word secret?

Secrets provide motivation, plot, character, even a setting (a haunted house, anyone?) From Madame Bovary to Carrie, from Rebecca to Big Little Lies, from thrillers to romance, from mystery to women’s fiction to sci-fi, every story revolves around a secret.

Secrets ripple outward and can produce unexpected consequences a writer can take advantage of. Secrets need to be protected, denied, defended, and excused. This means they will have predictable (and unforeseen) consequences. These consequences will affect the people who guard them, excuse them, or wilfully blind themselves to their existence.

People with secrets are good at keeping them—until they’re not—or else until some external event spills the beans.

For example: a nuclear leak from a secret underground testing site that becomes a global headline. The slip up—the “tell”—will then become a major turning point in a novel.

In fiction, secrets must be revealed, and the tension secrets create must be resolved. As you plot, plan or pants your book, you will find that a well-chosen secret will provide you with a focus.

That focus will energize your writing—and your book.

1. Secrets With A Silver Lining
Silver lining secrets can work well in romance or cozy mysteries.

What if someone finds out that the Famous TV Chef thinks the local greasy spoon makes better french fries? Yes, better than than the ones FTC makes in her fancy, custom-designed, multimillion-dollar kitchen.

While that might be embarrassing, it won’t kill anyone unless someone adds poison. (That could work in a thriller or a mystery). Of course, that might not even necessarily end the FTC’s career. With shrewd PR, the Greasy Spoon Affair could make that chef even more famous. As long as the FTC doesn’t serve Greasy Spoon fries for $35 a pop in her pricey restaurant and pass them off as his/her own. Then someone might call fraud and costly lawsuits might ensue.

And a cute, sexy lawyer might appear to make all the bad stuff disappear and provide a HEA for our beleaguered heroine.

2. State Secrets

State Secrets are the meat and bones of thrillers from Eric Ambler and John Buchan to Charles McCarry, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré. The plots of spy novels revolve around characters adept at uncovering secrets, keeping secrets, stealing secrets and, in The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, secretly transformed by brainwashing into a deadly weapon—a sleeper assassin, programmed to kill without question or mercy.

The cast of characters holding state secrets also include—

    The spy who can’t be trusted: the treacherous double agent.
    The scientist—mad or otherwise—who has created—by accident or on purpose—the formula for a new, population-decimating chemical weapon.
    A powerful world leader—a paragon of enlightened leadership or a Stalin-esque dictator—suffering from a fatal disease or destructive neurological condition that must be concealed—or else!
    An secret international conspiracy—ever hear of a well-publicized conspiracy?—whose goal is world domination.
    A top-secret assassination plot the hero must uncover and stop.
    A fatherly-looking but secretly demented, power-crazed lunatic who threatens the stability of international financial markets and, thus, world peace itself.

3. Secret Baby

A classic trope, the secret baby often—but not always—occurs as a romance subgenre. To mention only a few, there are SEAL’s Secret Babies, Vampire Secret Babies, and Billionaire’s Secret Babies. You will find lists of secret baby romance novels at FictionDB, at GoodReads and at SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.

In my novel, Love And Money,  (Get it free with the link below…Anne) , the mistress and the wife of a wealthy man deliver babies at almost the same time. The half-sisters, who do not know of each other’s existence, grow up in different worlds, one a beautiful, indulged heiress, the other a wrong-side-of-the-tracks neglected child, a dramatic disparity that allowed me to write about class, envy, privilege, resentment and ambition.

4. Family Secrets

Family secrets take a starring role in sagas and women’s fiction—and in memoirs.

    An upstanding citizen who is in reality a deadbeat dad who might—or might not—reconcile with his children.
    A PTA shining star but secretly neglectful mom who might—or might not—see the error of her ways.
    The sibling who stealthily cheats his brother/sister out of his/her inheritance
    The rich/powerful/vindictive/creepy relative no one wants to cross.
    A family fortune created through hard work and persistence—or was it?
    The alcoholic/mentally ill relative whose erratic, unpredictable behavior affects several generations.
    An accidental death that wasn’t so “accidental”
    The blurb for Alan Cumming’s #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, Not My Father’s Son, refers to “deeply buried family secrets that shaped his life and career.”

5. Dark Secrets

These are the secrets that form the spine of mysteries.

    Who-dun-it?
    Why’d-they-do-it?
    How’d they do it?
    How can the MC track down the bad guy or gal?

When someone shoots aging bad-girl rocker Morgan Le Fay and threatens to finish the job in Anne’s The Lady of the Lakewood Diner, people assume the perp’s a fan of Morgan’s legendary dead rock-god husband. However, the real reason for the attack may be a secret buried in Morgan’s hometown where her childhood best friend may be the only person who knows the dark secret that can save Morgan’s life.

Anne uses that one secret to propel the plot forward throughout the book.

6. Open Secrets

Open secrets are the emperor-has-no-clothes, Harvey Weinstein, Jerry Sandusky, women’s gymnastics’ category of secrets. These are the secrets that can be used to ensnare numerous connected characters who might or might not be related.

Open secrets create a Potemkin Village faux reality in which characters who need to protect themselves from exposure—and consequences—pretend not to know what they actually do know. Lost in a web of confusion, deceit, evasion and denial, these characters are forced by circumstances over which they have no control to become liars, hypocrites, and classic unreliable narrators.

“Everyone knows” but no one says anything—until someone does—at which point your plot attains jet speed velocity.
Open secrets can be played for drama—or even for humor.

    The Big Boss is a predatory sexual abuser so people who must work with or for him keep their distance, whisper warnings to others, know better than to share an elevator or after-work drink with him, go to great lengths to make sure they are never trapped alone in his office/hotel room with him.
    No one admits that Uncle Jim is an incompetent screw-up who can’t keep a job. However, when he wears a suit and tie, he looks like he belongs in a boardroom—until he insults a powerful CEO. At which point, the company’s stock takes off and everyone gets rich by mistake and Uncle Jim is forced to straighten up and fly right.
    Aunt Susie has a shoplifting problem but the family pays off stores to keep her out of jail and her “problem” is never mentioned—until she lifts a hundred-thousand dollar diamond ring and, this time, the family can’t afford to pay and all hell breaks loose.
    Cousin Bill, captain of the football team, has tried suicide several times, but the family refuses to admit/confront his mental health issues—until he is photographed pointing a gun to his head on the sidelines at the Big Game.
    Niece Eileen is about to marry her long-time girlfriend but none of the family will help her pick out her dress or plan her wedding because “everyone knows no one in our family is gay.” Drama, tears, laughter, and hugs ensue.

7. Secrets We Keep from Ourselves

These are the character-driven secrets. In We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver unveils a bleak reality as the MC reveals feelings about motherhood, marriage, and family kept secret until her young son murders classmates and she is forced to confront her own possible responsibility.

Other examples:

Your MC is an addiction expert who doesn’t realize his/her own kid is an addict. S/he misses the signs: the switch to long sleeve shirts or blouses, the constant need for money, the requests for “loans” that don’t get repaid, the frequent questions about “when will you be home?” so your MC never sees his/her kid high.

The wife who doesn’t see tip-offs to her husband’s affair although the clues are in plain sight.

In my NYT bestseller, Decades, Evelyn Bain sees signs of her husband’s affair all around her. The unexplained late nights at the office. The way he disappears for weekends for “business.” His provocative banter with his friends about their extra-marital sexual exploits. But she denies their meaning to herself. Until the secret is dramatically revealed and Evelyn’s life is turned upside down.

8. Secret Dreams

Secret dreams provide the skeleton of Cinderella stories. They often lie at the heart of romance in which the couple need to unlock each others’ secrets in order to achieve their HEA.

    The girl (or guy) jilted/left at the altar who has vowed never to fall in love again—until s/he meets Ms. or Mr. Right. But they must resolve the injury of the past.
    The couple who break up but meet again and must work through the secret anger/misunderstanding that has kept them apart.
    The gorgeous guy who has women falling all over him, but who secretly yearns to find The One.
    The beautiful, successful entrepreneur who doesn’t have time for romance—but secretly longs to be swept off her feet.

9. Secret Super Power?

Fabulous, fantastic, incredible, killer first drafts.




Read more at Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris

This a wonderfully informative and entertaining blog.  I recommend checking it out.

Love is blooming

By Alexandra Alter I cover the literary world and the publishing business. There’s a boom in romance bookstores. More than 20 of them have sprung up around the United States in the past few years — up from just two in 2020 — and more are on the way. They have quirky names like the Ripped Bodice, Tropes & Trifles, Love’s Sweet Arrow, and Kiss & Tale. They’re sprinkled across the country, from Alaska to Maine. They’re largely owned and operated by women, and have become vibrant community hubs for romance fans. As a reporter who covers publishing, I’ve been following the soaring sales for romance, which is by far the top-selling fiction genre. But the arrival of brick-and-mortar romance stores struck me as something new, and surprising. For a story in The Times, I visited romance stores in South Florida and Brooklyn, and talked to booksellers, publishers and fans of the genre, to find out why romance bookstores are suddenly thriving. How readers fell for romance Romance writers and their fans point out that, about a decade ago, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the genre in independent bookstores. Even though romance has long been a major moneymaker for publishers, the literary world tended to look down on it as frothy and unserious, or worse, as smut. Rebecca Zanetti told me that after she started publishing paranormal romance in 2011, it was hard for her to book a signing at a store, even though her novels were best sellers. “Back when I started out, you’d go into a small local bookstore and they might not even have a romance section, and if I said I wrote romance, they weren’t interested,” Zanetti said. The current romance craze traces to the early days of the pandemic, when millions of people were stuck at home, bored and anxious, and rediscovered their love of reading. Book sales spiked in 2020 and 2021, and romance in particular saw a steep and sustained rise. Its appeal during times of turmoil and uncertainty is obvious: Romance novels offer comfort and escape, and the stories often land on what fans call an “H.E.A.” — a Happily Ever After. Many who turned to romance during the pandemic seem to have kept up the habit. Print sales of romance books more than doubled in the last few years, from 18 million copies in 2020 to 39 million in 2023. On her most recent tour, Zanetti had events at three different romance bookstores in Southern California. And she said a new one — called It’s A Love Story — had just opened in her hometown, Hayden, Idaho. Looking for love stories. Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times Judgment-free zones The new crop of romance bookstores look and feel different from your typical local independent shop. They carry thousands of books in every conceivable romantic subgenre — historical, L.G.B.T.Q., young adult, romantic suspense, supernatural, romantasy, sports-themed romance — and many carry a wide selection of self-published novels that mainstream booksellers don’t stock. Some customers I spoke to said that they loved being able to shop without feeling judged for their tastes, and that booksellers were happy to steer them toward whatever they fancy: secret billionaire romance, B.D.S.M. erotica, Sapphic vampire romance, polyamorous hockey romance. A lot of the stores have an unabashedly feminine aesthetic. They are heavy on pink and floral motifs, with bright signs and merchandise that riff on familiar romance tropes — enemies to lovers, forced proximity, forbidden love, secret identity, fake relationships. They’ve become hubs for romance fans, not just to buy books but also to gather for book clubs, writing workshops, trivia contests and cheekily themed craft nights. Melissa Saavedra, owner of Steamy Lit in Deerfield Beach, Fla., said that even though romance sales were soaring, fans and writers still needed dedicated spaces and more recognition from the publishing world. “Even though it is the best-selling genre in fiction,” Saavedra told me, “we still have to fight tooth and nail for people to respect the genre.” via The New York Times

Story Merchant E-Book Deal

FREE July 15 - 19! The Fat Rules by Misti D. Mosteller

“Smart, witty, funny, painful, honest, brutal, forgiving. Truly amazing and left me wanting more!”

“This was laugh-out-loud funny and relatable. I felt like I was reading my best friend's diary.”

—Amazon Five Star Reviews

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Maddy Quinn survived being a fat kid and a fat adolescent, but being fat in her twenties is too much. Maddy is a smart, funny, chunky monkey living in a world of skinnies with only an XXL sweater set to keep her safe.

Living at home, Maddy attends a nearby university where she majors in Political Science and Not Being Noticed. Her mother would return her to the womb for safekeeping if only there was room for a 266 1/2 lb. adult, and her grandmother has never met an emotion that couldn't be suffocated with mashed potatoes or chicken fried steak.

Despite the over-love of a nutty family and the support of good, but skinny friends, waddling around campus is getting harder. In an effort to keep daily humiliations to a minimum, Maddy lives by rules she's developed to hide in plain sight.

Fat Rule #2
Never run in front of other humans, even if being chased by a mass-murdering maniac. Better to die with honor than let that jelly jiggle!

But when her birthday turns into Celebration Humiliation, Maddy's best friend, Sam, gives her a dose of tough love that would put an elephant down, setting Maddy on a life-changing course that includes Richard Simmons and a date with a college guy, or two.

Jeff Rivera Interviews Kenneth Atchity on Pursuing Your Dreams Later in Life!

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis

 

As the man who found everything he was looking for in his “retirement,” Dr. Atchity is a shining example of the never-ending potential of dreams and aspirations. In a HuffPost interview with Jeff Rivera Ken outlines many of the problems he encountered when shifting to a new career along with some useful advice for those looking to go down the same road.

Taking into account how the film industry has changed over the past couple of years, what advice would you give today that you wouldn’t have given two years ago?

I think it’s becoming harder to sell anything to big studios because they have become almost entirely married to producing big franchises and pre-sold concepts. Marketing has taken over the entertainment industry. Even in the publishing world, big publishers are only interested in how many copies of a certain book they can sell.

For new voices it can be extremely difficult to get published and this is very much the case in Hollywood. It’s often easier to get your work produced independently or through the MD method than it is to go to the studios. Keep in mind that the big studios used to produce hundreds of movies every year whereas now they produce dozens. Some studios are completing as little as three movies a year, but they’re making $400 million films from pre-established franchises like Spider-Man and Captain America.

There’s a global market for these movies and it’s a safer bet for them to spend a lot of money on one movie and earn it all back plus extra. This can make it even more difficult for new writers to sell their ideas, although I think writers can be proactive in finding ways to draw attention to their stories.

If someone, for example, lived in Nebraska and had a story about a family that lived in a cornfield, would they have any hope of having a studio make that film?

Always remember that if you don’t have hope then you shouldn’t be doing it, and hope is never something that can be analyzed statistically. It comes from within. In any industry, looking at the odds can be more than a little discouraging but if you believe them then you might as well go back to work as a bank teller. You have to think to yourself, what can I do? How can I think outside the box to draw attention to my story?

These days, the internet can be hugely beneficial if you’re looking to get your story out there as it provides millions, if not billions, of people access to you work. If you’re looking to generate interest then the internet is the best tool you can use. Studios have executives who do nothing but trawl through the internet looking for new stories. The Hunger Games is one of the biggest success stories of the last 10 years in this sense.

I think the gatekeepers are becoming predictable because they’re so enslaved to their corporate owners but what the true creative executives are looking for is someone who’s not saying the same thing as everyone else. Anyone who has a following as the result of their work is a potential line of interest. So, if I were in Nebraska facing that dilemma, I would focus on the thing that I have in front of me – that everyone has in front of them – the internet. You just have to find a way to pierce that golden shield.

What specific advice would you give to the person in Nebraska if they had access to the internet? How can they get noticed?

Well, honestly, if I had an answer to that I’d be a billionaire. This is where creativity comes in. If you were putting together a cartoon, for example, you might start putting it into a small book. Books are easier to get to people than anything else. I don’t recommend putting an entire screenplay on the internet but you could try generating interest by creating a website or blog and doing everything in your power to drive traffic to it.

On there you could maybe share stories, although I also like the idea of doing cartoons or animations because they can end up going viral. You can usually find someone to animate or do a cartoon for your story. Remember that social networks are a key part of using the internet, especially sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter which are all vehicles that can reach millions of people. I boosted a post the other day from Naples and over 8,700 people saw it in the first hour. That’s how you get exposure.

Try not to be too shy or humble when promoting yourself. Shakespeare wasn’t shy when he talked the queen into building the Globe Theater and Sophocles and Aeschylus wouldn’t have been remembered today if they hadn’t gotten patrons to sponsor putting their tragedies in the Great Dionysian Festival every year. The most aggressive writers have always gotten their story told and it’s important to push your point across.

As for writers who think “I’m just a writer, I don’t really do marketing and all of that,” you have to snap out of that mindset. As Cher says in Moonstruck; “Snap out of it!” It’s not going to get you anywhere!” No one feels sorry for a poor writer who can’t sell their own work and if you really are that person then you need to find somebody else to sell your work for you.

What about the independent route? Is there a way for a really passionate writer to go out and make the film themselves? How does that work?

In theory, the indie route is always possible because anyone can buy all of the equipment needed to physically make a movie. You can enlist the help of friends, write the script yourself, or do it even without a script as many small pictures have been done. That is the ultimate indie route. 

That’s what Robert Rodriguez did with El Mariachi, which is a masterpiece of ingenuity. I heard that he didn’t even give lunch to his actors because he couldn’t afford it; so they had to knock off at noon. Rodriguez also shot all of his scenes so that nobody’s lips were ever facing the camera. He then dubbed all of the dialogue in post-production, completely diverting the chance that any sound problems would crop up during the shoot.

You can find somebody to work with you and to help produce your movie and raise enough money to develop it and so on. There are ways of doing it and every year movies breakthrough that are made unconventionally, but still in a really old-fashioned, pioneering style. If you follow in the footsteps of Robert Rodriguez then you’ve reached a point where you are doing it all yourself because nobody is doing it for you.

Is it true that your company has a division where they do this? They match people with money to producers such as yourself who help in making their films. How does that work exactly?

Yes, that’s correct. We work with writers who have access to resources as well as those who have a great story. Money makes things happen: If they have access then we help them prepare their movie. If you imagine a big conveyer belt with every project that has the potential to become a movie on it, you can see stories, treatments, and even books on the far end of it. These are naked ideas but by the time they reach the front of the belt they’re “fully-clothed” and ready to leap onto the screen.

These movies need to have a professionally prepared budget that shows exactly what the cost of the film is going to be. They need to have that budget bonded by a completion bond company. They will have the locations chosen, along with a director, cast, and start date. They should also have a distributor interested or attached, and so on and so forth.

If you already have the ability to put together some money then you can leapfrog over the other projects on the belt, which is what happens every day, but if you’re on the belt there’s no guarantee that you’ll get to the front of the line because you’ll always be leapfrogged over by another project with better casts, directors or financing. Our goal is to work with people who can find the money they need for their project. With writers have access to funds our goal is to turn them into producers so that they then have control over their project and don’t lose the rights before their movie is made.

If I’m an author that lives in Iowa, or Canada, how can the book that you just released help me turn my 70,000 word tome into a feature film?

Well, that is the exact purpose of the book - sell your story to Hollywood. It’s basically a little handbook that just shows you all the steps that have to happen in order to sell a story. This includes how to get an agent, how to get a manager, how to attract attention of producers, and even how to prepare sales materials that will help you in delivering a short pitch or contacting people via email. The purpose of the book is to provide you with an outline of all the things you have to overcome in order to get the story into the hands of the buyer.

My second aim with the book is to offer some alternative selling methods including some information on making a movie yourself. It gives examples of treatments and other materials that you need to build along the way.


SELLING THE STORY: SIZZLE REELS

What is a sizzle reel and how can someone use one to pitch a reality show or drama?

A sizzle reel is basically a teaser or sampler of a program that’s used as an outline by the creator. The term came out of reality programming because you need a sizzle reel to sell a reality TV show. A sizzle reel is usually three minutes at the most and it’s supposed to be an exciting, well-edited teaser that gives you a vision of what the program is and what it is intended to be. In theory, the reel gives you a strong inkling of how the program will continue and how it will go beyond its pilot episode. Sizzle reels can introduce characters as well as convey the excitement and points of interest within the show.

Knowing how to make a decent sizzle reel is extremely important but very, very difficult because if you’re not actually in show business you don’t know what companies are looking for. Learning how to put one together is an extremely beneficial way of getting into the industry and it’s a great way to show what you have to offer.

If someone had a sizzle reel, would they then upload it on Vimeo or YouTube? Would it also be included in a pitch to a producer?

Yes, it’s important to send it everywhere you can. You can come up with a log line, or short pitch, that would get producers to watch it. Do a short version for Instagram. YouTube is definitely a great tool. People scour YouTube all the time looking for ideas for movies. Facebook is also good. It’s important to send it it in whatever way you can. If you have an email list, send it to everyone. Ask people to share it, pass it on.

GETTING THE RIGHT ATTENTION

For those wanting to enlist your help in producing a project, what’s the best way for people to pursue you? Are you looking for work or simply developing your own projects?

I’ve been in the business for so long now that I’m not really looking for a whole bunch of things. I’m already involved in a lot of projects, but things that do often catch my eye are ideas that I’ve never seen before; new concepts that are truly exciting—and female-driven action, thrillers, and drama.

I recently read a piece on a boy who was born in the US but ended up being taken to Saudi Arabia at the age of seven or eight and raised over there as an outcast because he was half American. He spent his teen years trying to figure out a way to escape and when it finally happened he ended up joining the US marines where, to his amazement, he was treated like an outcast because he was half Saudi. What I loved about the story is that it’s something Americans really need to understand; it’s exactly what Saudis are taught as they’re growing up and what makes a person turn against his country. When I see something that unique and that unusual it captures my attention despite how many things I’m involved with.

If anyone is looking to speak with me then I’m contactable through referrals, emails, and phone calls. Email is the best way to approach people like me and I’d suggest keeping it brief. If an email is longer than five lines long, the chances of me jumping on it are very, very diminished. If it’s only two lines long and says something amazing about you and your story then it will be hard to resist. Use some examples from your work and write-up a short pitch, that’s the best and most respectful way to do it. atchity@storymerchant.com

Jeff Rivera

Writer | Producer

Jeff Rivera is a writer | producer. He began his career as an author, co-author and ghostwriter of nearly 100 books. He has appeared on national television, radio and print in such outlets as Forbes.com, The Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Right On! Magazine, Rotarian Magazine, TMZ, WABC, WNBC, WCBS, SITV, American Latino and NPR. He has written for Entertainment Weekly, Mediabistro, GalleyCat, Publishing Perspectives, Digital Book World, Examiner, American Chronicle, School Library Journal and the Huffington Post and has been invited to speak worldwide about his rise from American poverty and living in his car to fast-becoming one of the most sought after writer | producers in the nation. Rivera has been on panel discussions for The Library Journal, Authors Guild, the Harlem Book Fair and many others. Rivera has produced social media campaigns, Skype/Google Hangout tours and web content for many high profile people including Mark Cuban, Mark Victor Hansen, Jeff Kinney, Elmore Leonard, Mitch Albom, Stan Lee, Seth Godin, Nicholas Sparks, James Van Praagh, and cast members from from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Rivera now develops film, television and web content.