Maude's Adventures: A weekend in bed

Maude pulled the covers over her head buried her face into the pillow. After four weeks of dating Tony, exclusively, (which had been her choice) he hadn't called or returned a text in three days. Broken hearted she called into work using one of her precious sick days. Things had been going great...she thought.

Why would he do this.

Pulling her phone from the charger she checked the ringer volume, made sure it wasn't on vibrate, then checked to see if she had any missed calls or texts. This had become the dominant exercise for the weekend.

Review of Godchild and a How To Be Friends With a Best Selling Author

So this post is supposed to be a review of Godchild (which is 99 right now) and an interview with it's author Vincent Zandri as part of his blog tour with Pump It Up Books. Well you aren't going to get exactly all that. But you will get your review and something more of an observation about Mr. Vincent Zandri.

If you didn't know Vince and I are colleagues and friends or online friends is probably more spot on there. I speak to Vince often usually through emails that resemble im chats with really long pause times in between responses and signatures that say "sent via blackberry" or "sent from Bri Clark's iPhone" (Oh you guys know I am not going to have not crapberry!) I know what your thinking how did a Amazon bestselling noir author become friends with a romance author? Believe it or not we actually have covered that before here.(FYI I'm the blonde bombshell)

So when you are friends with someone you notice little changes in their behavior when things are off. Now I'm not saying Vincent is on drugs or is doing illegal things or anything. I'm just saying I've noticed he's very very busy.( By product of success.)With that said I could not in good conscience do an interview when I knew that I might be able to ease up his schedule a little bit. So if you want to gripe about it in the comments go ahead. However, you can go here and see the review and interview of the prequel to Godchild the Innocent that I've done with him before. So pick you lip up go to your room and have your feelings then come back and check out this review.

Why Won't J A Konrath Accept My Friend Request & Why Does The Facebook Machine Insist on Taunting Me About It

So let me start out with explaining who this guy is. He is like the supernova of self publishing success. A very good friend of mine has an almost obsessive following for the guy (honestly I think there may be a tat somewhere on his body of his face. You know who you are.) So I hear about him ALOT! Anyway if you want to find out more about him he is HERE.

Naturally after checking out his blog and seeing his success at marketing and not to mention he's a dang good writer I check him out on Facebook. The guy has like 4688 friends and get this we have 32 friends in common. Again naturally I send him a request.  Guess what he turned it down!!!

That doesn't really bother me it's the fact that everyday the Facebook friend suggestor engine taunts the piss out of me about it. Every time my page refreshes there is JA Konrath up in the right hand corner as not my friend. I counted one day of how many times the Facebook taunt master friend suggestor suggested JA. Now granted I am on facebook alot...my friend Aaron Patterson said one time "If Bri Clark wrote as much as she facebooked she'd blow us all out of the water." It was 19 times. That is friggin ridiculous! And there is no way to make it stop. For the first time ever I am not happy with Facebook. Curse you Facebook...curse you!

The Monsieur of Noir... Vincent Zandri

A review and an interview....

SOMETIMES THE PAST DOESN'T COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU! IT COMES BACK TO KILL YOU!

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.

Trailer for The Remains

The Remains was voted the No. 1 Amazon Bestselling Hot Hard-Boiled New Release and was No 8 on Amazon's Romantic Suspense list. It was published by the rising star of a publisher Stonehouse Ink. This novel was two firsts for me. It was my first noir genre novel and was also my first taste of Vincent Zandri. I have to say I'm addicted to Zandri now like a southern woman needs gossip. The noir genre is a big leap for me. Romantic fantasy, paranormal romance and romantic adventure are my genres of choice to read and write. You will notice the key word being "romance."

The Remains by all indications was an accidental romantic suspense...I still felt every exclamation point!

 I connected with Rebecca in a way I have only done from female authors before. Most reviews you will read (there are plenty)about the The Remains will talk about how suspenseful, frightening and scene setting it is. Believe me it is all those reviews and more. However, for me I enjoyed another element. It was subtle and woven in like the center piece of a braid, hidden but needed for a tight rhythm. It was Rebecca.

Rebecca has lived a life of tragedy from the painful experiences of a childhood event, to the loss of her twin and finally the ending of her marriage. Nevertheless, through all that she happily endures. Her love and empathy for those around her is inspiring. If Zandri ever tires of noir he obviously has more than potential for romantic suspense.

Vincent Zandri...The Monsieur of Noir
Vincent Zandri is an award-winning, bestselling novelist, essayist and freelance photojournalist. His novel As Catch Can (Delacorte) was touted in two pre-publication articles by Publishers Weekly and was called "Brilliant" upon its publication by The New York Post. The Boston Herald attributed it as “The most arresting first crime novel to break into print this season.” Translated into several languages including Japanese, Russian, French and the Dutch, Zandri’s work has also been sought out by numerous major movie producers, including Heyday Productions and DreamWorks. Other novels include Moonlight Falls (R.J.Buckley), Godchild (Bantam/Dell), and Permanence (NPI). His newest thriller, The Remains (Stone House) will be published in July, 2010 in E-Book and in November, as a Trade Paperback. Forthcoming novels include The Concrete Pearl (Stone Gate), a new detective series starring the brassy but beautiful construction business owner, Ava "Spike" Harrision, and the re-publication of the classic, As Catch Can (Stone Gate).
I was able to speak with Mr. Zandri... here are the spoils of that interview.

What is noir? Noir is my passion! It's truly American literature...dark detective type novels. When Europe caught on it became known as noir. Noir is French meaning dark, gloomy or black.

How do you write women so well?  As a child I was surrounded by women...I still try to do that as an adult. (can you see the smile in that line?) I had a single mother, two older sisters and I'm very experienced in relationships. What can I say...I love women.(see the smile again)

Have you ever received a bad review? No.. at least not professionally or from a blog review. Thank God. (He thanks God a lot. It's sincere too.)  However, I had one by a reader on Amazon, it's still there and I remember it well. This douche (yes he said douche) said I should be classified in the same pile of junk as LaHane. And I thought that's a good pile to be in.

Was The Remains meant to have a romantic element? No absolutely not. I had just ended my relationship with my second wife. That relationship very much inspired this novel. Don't get me wrong I loved her and we are still very close.(insert smile again) I didn't get much done creatively during our six year relationship. When it ended I went into a writing frenzy and the end result was The Remains.

Do you consider yourself a character writer? You set the scenes so realistically.  I like to set up the circumstances and then imagine how that character would react.

Do you base your characters off real people? Of course. I even use their real names until the end. (I'm curious if he will have to keep his laptop locked after that one.)

What's a typical day for you? Always have to have a good cup of coffee...at home I make it. In Italy I found myself going out for coffee. A great cup of coffee is essential for an author. I put on what's lying around and write a while. There is always writing to be done...whether on a novel, for my blog, or an article. I'm a gym rat so I always work that in. I have three kids so anything they need. I enjoy cooking for them.

After reading The Remains and now Moonlight Falls and Moonlight Mafia as well as interviewing Mr. Zandri this is my conclusion. I already knew he was a gifted rising author. However, now I find that he is wickedly brilliant and witty with as much baggage as his characters. Just like his characters he perseveres through the trials of circumstance and finds the joy of the moment. Which really I think is a requirement for any great author. Can you be a cutting edge anything and be described as delightfully normal?