Posts Tagged ‘thriller’

My Next Novel, My Thesis

Posted: July 28, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Scary Stuff, Writing
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This morning I started work on my next book, which will double as my thesis for my senior year. Well, that’s not quite accurate. Truth be told, I came up with the idea for my thesis back in autumn last year, and then while searching for a thesis adviser, I fleshed it out a bit more, deciding what would happen in this or that scene or whether I wanted this or that event to happen at the beginning or ending of the story. And after I found my adviser, I had to make some decisions so I could know what books I would order for research and therefore why I was applying for a small grant to afford said books. And after I got said grant and returned from Europe, I worked hard on Laura Horn so I could get that done before I began work on my thesis.

Well, this morning I began in earnest to start researching and outlining my thesis. I stopped by the English Department to make sure everything was in order for the following year, stopped by another department so I could possibly do some more research for my main character, and then started on the first draft of the outline, of which I’ve made a little bit of progress on.

Now, some of you might be asking yourselves, “Is he going to tell us what his thesis is about?” Actually, I’ve decided to be cruel and not tell you at all. You’ll have to wait until the book comes out.

Just kidding! No, my book is called Rose, and follows the story of a grad student named Rose Taggert. On the night of Rose’s engagement party, she gets killed in a hit-and-run. This leads one of her students, who has an obsessive infatuation with Rose, to kidnap her body from the morgue and resurrect her using nature-based magic. The way he resurrects her though leaves Rose dependent on him for her survival, which causes the young man to believe they are in a relationship. With Rose trying to find a way out of her situation, she is set against impossible odds, and may not be able to overcome them.

How’s that for a setup?

Rose is the first full supernatural horror novel I’ve written in a while. Reborn City and Video Rage were sci-fi stories, while Snake and Laura Horn were thrillers, the former having some obvious horror undertones. I’m looking forward to diving into some full on horror. I know how the novel begins and I know where it’s going to end, and I know some of the things that’ll happen in this story, I just have to flesh out the rest. The thing about some horror stories, this one among them, the main character or characters have to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to escape the evil plaguing them. Sometimes they do it successfully, other times they don’t. The thing is, you’ve got to make it about the protagonist dealing with the great evil at each and every turn and looking for ways to fight back against it. And sometimes fighting back will do more harm than good, leading the reader to wonder how they will continue on with the odds against them and read on.

So believe me when I say, I will be looking for some great ways to make Rose’s life difficult. Or second life, I guess. Either way, it’ll be very exciting for the reader (I hope).

I’ll be doing periodic updates on the progress of Rose, with the ultimate goal being finishing the first draft before the school year is up and I graduate (oh my God, I can’t believe how close it is! It’s sneaking up on me). Tonight, I hope to resume my work on the outline and get that done by the end of the week. First though, I’ve got some other things to take care of, including another blog post to write up. As usual, my life won’t slow down any time soon.

Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear!

My Top Villains 2014 #5-1

Posted: July 24, 2014 in Review
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Only the worst of the worst get to hang out here.

Yesterday we took a look at my choices for #10-6 for my top villains list for 2014. Today we look at the Big Bads, the worst of the worst, the folks and creatures we should all fear in our sleep. These top 5 villains are the ones that have amazed, impressed, and/or terrified me the most.

And remember to click here if you’d like to compare #10-6 and #5-1 from last year. Here we go! Mwa-ha-ha!

5. Jennifer Blake (from Teen Wolf)

Once again we have another villain from Teen Wolf, this one from the first half of season three. At first, you think the only thing that the main characters have to worry about is a pack of Alpha werewolves, but then Jennifer Blake comes into the picture. At first just an innocent English teacher who becomes Derek Hale’s love interest after a close encounter, she is actually the Darach, a Druid gone bad, and she has all sorts of dangerous magic on her hands, which she enhances through elaborate human sacrifices. All in the name of revenge against t;he Alpha werewolves who betrayed her several years ago. Her devious tactics, her theatrical flare, and the lengths she’s willing to go are enough to put her above the wily Nogitsune, who was only out for some twisted laughs.

4. The Murder House (from American Horror Story)

I’ve always maintained that a setting can be as much a character as your other characters, and that especially goes for haunted houses. In this house in particular, we feel it as a character, a force with a devious and wily personality for drawing in the innocent and guilty alike, twisting their minds and then trapping their souls forever. All for a very dark purpose that isn’t revealed until the very end of the first season of the groundbreaking FX show. Trust me, you do not want to spend the night in this place. EVER!

3. Dr. Oliver Thresden/Bloody Face (from American Horror Story: Asylum)

Movie and TV serial killers are hard to make unique. A few even come out looking like carbon copies of Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. In AHS‘s second and much darker season, they not only give us a serial killer with character development, but with a soul. Dr. Thresden originally arrives at Briarcliff Manor to perform a psych evaluation on protagonist Kit, who is believed to be the infamous serial killer Bloody Face. Dr. Thresden ends up staying on to help update Briarcliff’s outdated methods to treating insanity. He takes a special interest in leading lady Lana Winters, a lesbian who, after some failed aversion therapy, he deems sane. After helping her to escape the asylum though, he reveals himself to be Bloody Face, and he is looking for a woman to be his mother, his real mother having abandoned him years ago. With an unhealthy preoccupation for human skin and for his mommy, Bloody Face may at first seem like a bad copy of Leatherface, but in reality he’s unique in so many ways. Played by actor Zachary Quinto, it’s no wonder this character was nominated for so may awards, and won a few as well.

2. Hannibal Lecter (from the books by Thomas Harris)

Our only returning villain from last year, Hannibal Lecter earns his spot for his incredible ability to continue to terrify and manipulate us on the NBC show Hannibal. Honestly, watching Mads Mikkelsen perform in the iconic role is a dark pleasure. In this previous season, he managed to keep the authorities dancing around him, even as some of them began to suspect that he was the Chesapeake Ripper. What’s most horrific is that he almost manages to get protagonist Will Graham to become just like him, a monster without a conscience who likes to see what happens on impulse. And the way he sets things in motion is like watching a Rube Goldberg machine in motion, only with people involved. Until the very last episode and the awesome twists and turns, you’ll be on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next I’m looking forward to season 3 next year. I hope they can keep up the fun!

1. The Weeping Angels (from Doctor Who)

Our winner this year for Top Villain is another creature from Doctor Who, but this one is slightly stranger and more sinister than the Daleks. The Weeping Angel is a strange being. It can only move when it isn’t seen, thus it keeps its hands over its eyes in case its working with one of its own kind. When they take their hands off though, they reveal monsters that are anything but angelic. And you literally can’t even blink in front of them, because they can move even between the opening and closing of your lids to get you. Once they do, they’ll send you back in time so that you die maybe hundreds or thousands of years before you were born, while they feed on the displaced time energy that results from your timeline into the future being erased. Created by show runner Steven Moffat, these are probably one of the Doctor’s most terrifying enemies, enough to make my sister scream in fright when they feature in an episode. If you ever watch the episode in which they debuted, Blink, you’ll know why.

 

That’s all for this yer. Join me in 2015 for another Top 10 list. Maybe making the list will be thesis deadlines, because that will be one of the scarier things I’ll have to deal with in this coming school year.

Anyway, hope you had fun reading my Top 10 Villains list. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear. And let me know what you think of the list. Who do you think should have gotten on? And was there anyone here you agreed or disagreed with? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My Top Villains 2014 #10-6

Posted: July 23, 2014 in Review
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I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while, but with Laura Horn still needing to be finished and everything…

Anyway, last year I did a countdown of my favorite villains from fiction (to read that contest, click here for #10-6 and here for #5-1). I’m doing it again this year to show case the awesome villains that have impressed and terrified me since that list last year. And a lot has happened over the last year: we’ve got only one person is returning to the list from last year, which just goes to show that Hollywood/New York/everyone else can come up with some really amazing villains sometimes. In fact, I’d like to announce our honorable mention now: Peter Pan from Once Upon a Time. The revisionist fairy tale show came up with a unique take on the classic character as a manipulative sociopath living in a magical Lord of the Flies kingdom who will go to any lengths to stay young, free, and powerful forever. Creepy!

Now let’s get this show started with the first half of the list!

10. The Daleks (from Doctor Who)

Despite their at-first rather ridiculous appearance, the Daleks are terrifying to behold. A genetically-engineered creature living inside a cyborg transport machine, the Daleks are a powerful metaphor for racism, particularly Nazi racism. That, their pure destructive force, their popularity with fans, and many other reasons is why they’ve continued to terrify children and adults since their debut in 1963, and are still part of DW lore and pop culture today. Honestly, even though I love Daleks, if one of them shouted “EXTERMINATE” near me, I might freak out myself.

9. Bughuul (from Sinister)

Sinister is probably one of the best horror films in the past ten years, and Bughuul, also known as Mr. Boogie, is one of the main reasons for that. Portrayed by Nick King, Bughuul is a reimagined boogeyman, a Babylonian god that causes children to murder their families and then feeds on their souls for centuries in his spirit world. Throughout the movie, Bughuul weaves a web of psychological terror around the main character and around the viewer, even up until the final moment of the film. It’s no wonder a sequel is in the works, and no wonder Bughuul deserves a place on this list.

8. The Headless Horseman (from the Sleepy Hollow TV series)

In this reimagining of the classic short story by Washington Irving, the Headless Horseman is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, specifically Death, and he’s looking to find his head so he can continue with his mission to start the end of the world. Not only that, he is looking to gain his revenge on Ichabod Crane, whom he has a strange history with, and the revelation of that history just makes things that much more exciting in this awesome show. Also, it’s so cool to see the Headless Horseman riding down the street with an axe and automatic weapons. Total badassery right there.

7. William Lewis (from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit)

Portrayed by Pablo Schreiber, Lewis appeared in the finale of Season 14 and throughout Season 15 and is probably one of the worst villains ever to be on the show in its 16-year run. A monster who gets his kicks from terrorizing his victims and putting them in pain and agony, Lewis kidnapped Detective Benson and tortured her even as he was running from the cops who were looking for him. Even after he was caught, Lewis continued to find ways to harass Benson both in person and in her nightmares, and even escaped to cause more terror. Even after committing suicide, he nearly destroyed Benson and a few other people too. A man like that is the worst, and deserves his place on this list.

6. The Nogitsune (from Teen Wolf)

Season 3 of the hit MTV series was unique in several ways, particularly because it was literally two seasons in one, each half comprising of 12 episodes. The latter half of the season featured the Nogitsune, a fox spirit of chaos who causes murder and mayhem wherever he goes. And all for the sake of a few laughs. When he possesses one of the main characters, you know you have reason to be afraid. Especially when he starts out his day by telling his potential victims riddles.

 

That’s all for now. Tune in later this week when I list #5-1 of my top villain list. And let me know what you think of these villains. Like them? Hate them? Who do you think should have gone on the list? Let me know in the comments below.

Laura Horn: First Draft Finished!

Posted: July 23, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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After a year, a week, and two days, with twenty-six minutes before midnight, I am finally finished with the first draft of my fourth novel Laura Horn. I wish I hadn’t had to take so many breaks to focus on schoolwork (not to mention writing was nearly impossible during my study abroad trip), but I’m glad I was able to get it done. And even though it’s a first draft and obviously will need a lot of editing when the time comes for that so it can look something resembling publishable quality, I’m quite happy with the result.

For those of you who are not very familiar with LH, it follows the story of a girl with a very traumatic past who, through an odd series of accidents, stumbles upon a conspiracy that could destroy the United States of America. With a few good friends to help her, she sets out to save her nation from the threat that looms over it, and confronts her demons as well.

So it’s kind of like White House Down or Olympus Has Fallen, only it’s got less explosions and a little more character development. Actually, a lot more character development. Our titular character goes through a lot of changes throughout the book, and it’s astounding even to me, the guy who created her, how much she changes in the course of the story.

It’s also a lot more thriller than I tend to write, but my next big project will be some pure psychological/supernatural horror, so it all pans out in the end.

Anyway, I’m happy to announce that I’m finally done with LH, and that in a few months (schedule permitting) I can start editing the book and getting it ready for eventual publication. I’ll be setting up a page for the book on this blog with the notice “Coming Soon”. With any luck, I can have this book out sooner rather than later, and maybe work on a sequel or two (I have a couple planned out, I just need to commit to them).

So now for the page and word counts. I wasn’t actually too far off. I did say the three chapters that would make up the epilogue would be around five-thousand words and it turned out to be more like nine-thousand, but hey, it could’ve ended up much longer. Anyway, the Epilogue in total was 32 pages and the word count ended up as just under eighty-nine hundred. That brings the total page count to 356 pages and 94,774 words. About average for a Rami Ungar novel. Of course, these counts might change drastically by the second draft, but this is a good placeholder until then.

In the meantime, let me tell you guys what projects I plan to take up next (though they may or may not be in this order):

  • Work on the outline for the novel that’ll be my senior thesis (more on that at another time)
  • Edit Video Rage
  • Write several articles on writing for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors
  • Write a few blog posts I’ve been putting off so I could finish LH.
  • Write several short stories, and hope I can get a few of them published in magazines
  • Start assembling a new collection of short stories
  • Experiment with writing erotic fiction (yes, I plan on doing that. I meant to do it earlier this summer, but things got in the way).
  • Try and get through the many books I still have to read for pleasure.
  • And just have a good time as usual.

Not too hard to do, right? At least, I hope so.

Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. It’s late, so I’m going to read a little and then sleep. It’s my day off tomorrow, so I’m going to find plenty of time to celebrate before I get back to writing (it’s a work hazard, I just can’t stay away from it). Anyway, that’s all for now. Have pleasant nightmares tonight. I know I will be!

Conversations with Pat Bertram

Posted: July 14, 2014 in Author Interciew, Writing
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pat bertram

Today’s interview is with an author who has a lifetime of experience and some really great books too. Pat Bertram is an author with Second Wind Publishing, whose books include the thriller novels More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire, as well as the non-fiction book Grief: The Great Yearning, a book about dealing with grief based on personal experiences. Pat also is an administrator and active participant in a Facebook group for suspense and thriller writers, and has two blogs, one of which she writes posts for at least once a day.

I was lucky to have a chance to ask Pat, whom I consider a friend, some questions on her life, her writing process, and what she’s up to these days.

How did you get into writing in the first place?

When I was in my mid twenties, I set out to be a writer. I quit my job, gathered up paper and pens, and sat down at the kitchen table to write. I thought writing was a type of automatic writing, that I just needed to put pen to paper and words would come. Didn’t happen. When I tried to force words on the page, I discovered I had no talent for writing, so when real life got in the way, I let go of my desire to write and turned my mind to other things. About fifteen years ago, I had some predicaments I wanted to work through, so I decided, talent or no, that I would write the story, which I did. And it was terrible! During the subsequent years, I have learned how to write, to pace a story, to write sparse but picturesque prose, but most of all, I have learned how to rewrite and edit.

How would you characterize the stories you write?

The unifying theme in all of my books is the perennial question: Who are we? More Deaths Than One suggests we are our memories. A Spark of Heavenly Fire suggests we are the sum total of our experiences and choices. Daughter Am I suggests we are our heritage. Light Bringer suggests we are  . . . ? So, perhaps my genre is “identity quest,” though I can’t see that as ever being a big draw. My only hope is to build an audience for “Pat Bertram books.”

What is your writing process?

I have no real process. When I do write, it’s usually late at night because all is quiet. I don’t set a daily goal — the words come hard for me, so I’m grateful for whatever words I manage to get on paper. Oddly, considering this is the electronic age, I still prefer to write longhand, though I am gradually doing more writing on the computer. As for the story, I know the main characters, I know the beginning of the story, I know the end of the story, and I know how I want the characters to develop, but I don’t flesh out the individual scenes until I start writing them.

You blog at least once a day, and you often talk about your personal life, both the good and the bad. What gives you the courage to share such information with your readers?

Before my life mate/soul mate died, I wrote innocuous — and fairly impersonal — posts about the books I read, the stories I was writing, general thoughts I had. After he died, I was shocked both by the true scope of grief and people’s ignorance of the process, so I made it my mission to tell the truth of what I was going through to help dispel the myth that after a couple of months, life goes on as it did before. I gained so much by opening up, that I have continued to be open as other traumas enter my life, such as my efforts to cope with both my aging father and my dysfunctional brother.

Are you working on anything at the moment?

Yes. When the members of my dancing class found out I was a writer, they suggested I write a book about them. It’s been fun —  all the characters have real life counterparts, so it has become something of a group project.

What is some advice you would give to potential writers?

Writing is not always about writing. Some authors can sit down and let the words flow and lo! There is a story! Other authors have to think about what they’re doing. So ask yourself, what story do you want to write? Why? What do your characters want? Why? How are they going to get what they want? Who is going to stop them getting what they want?

If you were stuck on a desert island and could only take three books with you, what would they be?

Three blank notebooks. And pencils, of course.

 

If you’d like to find out more about Pat, you can find her at her personal blog Bertram’s Blog and on Pat Bertram Introduces, where she interviews authors, publishers, and even book characters, as well as on her Facebook page.

Laura Horn: Part V Done!!!

Posted: July 14, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I could just about start dancing in my seat! Well, I would but I’m typing up this post, and it’s getting very late, so no time to mess around.

Anyway, I’m proud to announce that I’ve just finished Part V of my novel-in-progress Laura Horn, leaving only three chapters left until I finish the whole damn thing! I’m so excited, especially this novel has taken longer than others to write, a little over a year at this point in fact. It’s also been a great challenge to write. That’s true for any novel, but this one was a challenge because it’s a lot more thriller than my other books (even Snake, which is thriller, is one with horror overtones), and there’s a lot of growth centered on one character, which I had to monitor and make believable throughout the book. All in all though, I’m happy witht he result. Sure, it may take anywhere between one and three more drafts to make ready for publication, but I don’t see too much of a problem.

And now I’m going to add up the pages and word counts to see where I stand in. Part V was 32 pages and 8,605 words. That brings the total number of pages (8.5″ x 11″ double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font) to 324 pages and the total number of words to 85,879. Wow, looks like that prediction on word count back when I finished Part IV was right. Though I can’t imagine the Epilogue to be very long. Five-thousand words or so, or twenty pages or thereabouts.

I hope to finish LH in the next couple of days, Friday or Saturday at the latest. In the meantime, I plan on writing up an interview and one or two blog posts and articles before I get onto the last three chapters. It shouldn’t take me too long. I hope, anyway.

That’s all for now. It’s late, so I’m heading to bed. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear.

Snake: One Month Since Publication

Posted: July 10, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
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snake

How far would you go for love and revenge?

I swear, unless there’s a review, this’ll be the last post I write about Snake for a while. I know by now some of you are so sick of hearing about it you want to strangle me, but hey, I’d be remiss in my job as an author if I didn’t do my fair share of advertising for my books. And the one month milestone is pretty big.

For those of you who aren’t aware, Snake is my second published novel, and my third published book overall. It follows a young man whose girlfriend is kidnapped by mafioso after she overhears something she shouldn’t. In order to get her back, this young man becomes the Snake, a serial killer who takes his cue from techniques used by the Russian mafia, and starts hunting down members of the family who kidnapped his girlfriend in order to find her. He will go to any lengths to get her back, including becoming a worse monster than the ones he is hunting.

I’m very happy with how this book’s been doing during its first month. I’ve had plenty of people checking it out, including two people from England and Germany who downloaded e-books within the past week (first time that I can remember having someone from outside of North America checking out my work). And I even got my first review on Snake, from fellow author and good friend Angela Misri. Here’s what she had to say on Snake in her four-star review:

Rami Ungar makes a promise to (the reader) in all his writings: he WILL scare you, and if he does “his job is done.” Snake will scare you. I am a huge Stephen King fan, so this should give you some idea of my tolerance level for gore, death and mayhem – I was scared. Rami takes you into places you would never have believed possible, and manages to pull his hero (and eventually his heroine) out of them against all odds. If you like to be scared. If you LOVE to be scared. You should read this book.

Considering that I’m a huge fan of Stephen King and I got favorably compared to him, this is probably one of my favorite reviews of all time. And I hope it leads to more people giving it a chance and checking it out.

If you’d like to get a copy of Snake, you can follow this link to Amazon and check it out (though I will be uploading it onto other sites soon). And if you like or hate it after reading it, please don’t hesitate to write a review and let me know what you think. I love feedback, positive or negative, so if you have some for me, please don’t hesitate to share it with me.

You can also check out the page for Snake here for excerpts and more information, if you wish.

That’s all for now. I’ve got a few things to take care of this morning before work, so I’m going to get on that. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.

Laura Horn: Part IV Done

Posted: July 7, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Oh, I doubted I would actually get this far. I mean, with all the delays and breaks and whatnot I had to take with this novel, I really despaired about getting to the climax of the book. I’m happy to say that after four or so days of working through Chapter Fifty, I whizzed through Chapters Fifty-One and Fifty-Two and finally finished Part IV: Inauguration Day of Laura Horn.

This part of the novel actually got longer and shorter while I was writing it. I added two chapters to give the antagonists more page time, and then I combined two chapters into one so that the flow of the novel would…well, flow smoother. I’m glad to say that it all went very well in the end. Now I’ve only got ten chapters left of the novel, seven of which are in Part V: Triumph, and three in the Epilogue. I can’t wait to see if I can’t get through these last ten chapters in the next seven days. Ten or twelve at the most.

And now for the page and word counts (and by page counts, I mean 8.5″ x 11″ pages). Part IV was fourteen chapters, comprising about seventy-five pages and seventeen-thousand, seven-hundred and ninety-four words. Combined with the preceding thirty-seven chapters, that’s a total of 292 pages and 77,274 words. Wow, we’re right up in the novel range. I’m going to make a guess between 85,000 95,000 words at the end of it all. Well, that’s around normal for one of my books, I guess. Video Rage was around eighty-four thousand, while Snake was 110,000. Reborn City was somewhere between them, around ninety-one or ninety-three thousand.

Huh…funny now that I look at it. The novels that had longer chapters but less of them had smaller word counts, while the novels with shorter chapters but more of them are much longer. I’m not sure why that is, but I’m sure it might have something to do with the books I read growing up and how I began writing with the goal of being as good as the books I was reading.

Well, I’m going to probably write an article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors and a blog post or two and then get to work on finishing this novel about a girl with a very dark past who confronts her demons and ends up saving her country from a horrific coup. Should be fun. Wish me luck on it.

Well, I’ve got a big day tomorrow. I’m meeting someone who’s helping me find a job after graduation tomorrow morning, and if I’m lucky I might be able to pick up my new glasses beforehand. Plus another shift at work, so that’ll be my whole afternoon. I might as well go to bed now and get some sleep. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares to you all.

Snake: Sale Till July 7th

Posted: July 4, 2014 in Novel, Scary Stuff, Writing
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snake

How far would you go for love and revenge?

If you haven’t heard yet, Snake‘s e-book is only on sale for a few more days, until July 7th. After that there won’t be any more sales for a while…no, wait. The Quiet Game‘s one-year anniversary is ten days later. Never mind.

But yeah, Snake‘s e-book will only stay $1.99 for a few more days, so if you’re interested in reading the book one author compared to a Stephen King novel, now’s the best time to check it out. All you have to do is head to Amazon, and from there it’s easy to obtain the story of how one young man is willing to become the most horrific of killers in order to save the woman he loves and bring his enemies down to their knees.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I hope to have a review out tomorrow night on the new horror movie Deliver Us From Evil, so stay tuned for it. I hear it’s going to be great.

Snake: The First Review!

Posted: July 2, 2014 in Novel, Progress Report, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
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snake

I’m going to be perfectly honest: I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw Snake had its first review. The only reason I didn’t was because my computer was in my lap and it’s not even six months old yet. It’d be a pain in the butt to get it fixed because of some well-deserved excitement.

Anyway, back on point: Snake received its first review, from fellow author and dear friend Angela Misri, who helped with the editing and sprucing up of Snake prior to publication. She named her review If you LOVE to be scared, you should read this book, and gave Snake four stars out of five. Here’s what she had to say:

Rami Ungar makes a promise to (the reader) in all his writings: he WILL scare you, and if he does “his job is done.” Snake will scare you. I am a huge Stephen King fan, so this should give you some idea of my tolerance level for gore, death and mayhem – I was scared. Rami takes you into places you would never have believed possible, and manages to pull his hero (and eventually his heroine) out of them against all odds. If you like to be scared. If you LOVE to be scared. You should read this book.

Okay, any review with me and Stephen King, and even being scarier than him, makes it onto my list of favorite reviews of all time. And I’m glad you found it terrifying, Angela. There were times I wanted to hold back on how terrifying to make the story, and I’m glad I didn’t. And I’m glad you gave Snake such a strong recommendation. Coming from you, it is a really huge compliment.

If you would like to read Snake after reading that review, you can check it out on Amazon, both in paperback and in e-book (which until the 7th is on sale for $1.99, so now’s a great time to get it). If you do decide to get Snake and end up reading it, please let me know in a comment or in a review on Amazon what you think. Good or bad, I love feedback, and I would love to hear yours.

And while you’re at it, you should also check out Angela’s book Jewel of the Thames, which I’ve reviewed here. It’s a great mystery in the style of Sherlock Holmes (in more ways than one), and great for mystery lovers. Check out her blog for details, which I’ve left a link to above.

That’s all for now, I’m off to get some more writing done before the evening’s done. Have a good night, my Followers of Fear.

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