Book Review: and she was

Book Review

 and she was

by: Alison Gaylin

So…

When I started writing for ‘real’ (with publication as my ultimate goal), I decided to make it a point to buy and read authors that I’d never read (or even heard of) before. Maybe I was hoping to bank some Karma points. Maybe I was curious to see what it took for a “no name” author to get published. Probably both.

 I bought and she was with the intention of reading it and writing a review. In March, and I really wanted to like it. I mean, I really, really wanted to like this book. Besides, it got blurbs from Lee Child AND Harlan Coben—no brainer, right?

Not so much.

I stuggled, but I finally forced myself to finish it a few days ago (I read roughly a dozen books in between… plus writing my own.) and decided, to be fair, I’d give myself time to “digest” it. I’m glad I did.

First, the positive:

The cover.

It drew my eye and grabbed me instantly. My hat’s off to whoever designed it. The use of color and styling is fantastic.

The writing.

Is fantastic! Gaylin knows how to turn a phrase. She left me, again and again, in a state of writer’s envy. Her use of language was interesting and thought-provoking. I found myself re-reading passages, not because I didn’t understand them, but because I like the way they sounded—and because I wished I had wrote them.

The premise is a good one.

P.I. Brenna Spector suffers from a neurological disorder that enables her to recall, in detail, everyday of her life. Spector, a divorced mother, is often bogged down in the past, so entrenched in memories, that living in the present is often impossible. Her disorder, triggered at a young age by her teenage sister’s disappearance, is often in control. I liked that while her disorder is often used to her advantage, Gaylin shows us how debilitating it can be. Searching, first for a client’s wife, and then her murderer when her client is accused of killing her, Spector becomes entangled in the 10+ year-old case of a young girl who goes missing in the same town.

The characters are vivid.

We see Spector in every aspect of her life. Private investigator. Mother. Ex-wife—it’s all here. We feel her struggle to break free of a past that never fades. We empathize with her as we watch her flounder as a mother who has failed to completely connect to her daughter and as an ex-wife who still loves her ex-husband, simply because she can’t forget how.

Spector’s assistant, Trent, is almost worth the price of admission, all on his own. He presented the perfect foil for the almost rigid Spector—100% Jersey Shore and funny as hell. Every time he made it on the page, I laughed out loud.

The plot was solid

In my opinion, this is completely different than, “the plot was great!” What this means, to me, is that there were no plot holes. It’s obvious that the author took her time when plotting this novel, and she did it well, but…

And this brings me to the not so positive:

The plot was slow.

and she was (this is how it is laid out on the book cover—all lower case), is touted as “A novel of suspense”… only, it wasn’t very suspenseful. Maybe this is because we only got a few glimpses of the antagonist and incidentally, he was the least fleshed-out of all the characters. Which made him kinda boring. The antagonist is just as important as the protagonist—especially in the suspense and thriller genres. Your antagonist (if he or she is a “bad guy”) should be larger than life. Gaylin’s antagonist was a throw-away character that seemed easily defeated, which really disappointed me.

What I bought was not what I got.

I bought a book about murder, a missing girl and the protag’s struggle to bring a killer to justice. While and she was had all these things, at the end of the day, that’s not the book I felt like I read.  and she was had a political-thriller feel to me (nothing wrong with political thrillers!) that I wasn’t looking for. Corrupted law-enforcement. Wealthy city officials buying their way out of trouble… unfortunately, this slowed the read for me.

The ending was a total rope-a-dope.

By this, I mean it came out of nowhere. Totally NOT where the book (or the reader) was headed at all, which left me feeling a bit cheated. Not that it didn’t make sense (because the plot WAS solid), just that when it all came together, I was left saying, “Really?” And not in a good way.

All in all, and she was, was a mixed bag for me. There were things I LOVED about the book, and things I didn’t. If you’re into books that are more character-driven than plot-driven, then this is a book for you. It might surprise you to know that if Gaylin writes another Brenna Spector novel, I’ll be among the first in line to plunk down my $8.50 for a chance to read it. I was that drawn to Gaylin's characters and use of language.

plot problem? writing question?

thrillersandkillers@gmail.com

My Biggest Secret...

When I was 12, I received a school assignment that changed my life. It was simple enough: write an informative essay or short-story. Let’s see—write an essay. Write a short-story. Essay. Short-story…well, that’s a no-brainer.

So, I wrote the short-story and turned it in, certain that I would get a good grade. What I actually got was mandatory weekly sessions with the school psychologist—and a deep-seated complex that probably altered the course of my life.

See… I’ve always had a vivid imagination. I had an imaginary friend until I was… well, how old I was when I finally gave her up it totally irrelevant, but the point is that my brain is constantly making up stories, and when I was about 10 or so, I started writing them down.  I never thought much about it one way or the other until that fated short story assignment landed me in therapy for a year and a half. Suddenly, writing—my writing—was a bad thing. And not just my writing… my thoughts and feelings were suspect. The way I viewed the world was wrong.

When high school rolled around, I found out that I could actually take a creative writing class. You mean that there is an entire class, devoted to making stuff up?? Seriously? My excitement lasted for a grand total of 3.5 seconds. Up until I remembered that my writing got me into trouble. The kind of trouble that consisted of 50-minute hours and being asked, “how do you feel about that?” I spent my entire high school career avoiding all forms of structured creative writing. I perfected The Art of the Essay. I read enough Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky to make my eyes bleed… but I continued to write in secret. I hid notebooks filled with pages of my ramblings, and then had panic attacks when I forgot where I put them. I turned into some kind of rabid animal when someone said, “what are you writing?” And when someone was brave or stupid enough to say, “can I read it?” I said no, but not just no… I said absolutely, positively, over my dead rotting corpse—NO.

College came, and I remembered staring longingly at the CRW course list… I wanted very badly to take them. But taking those classes meant putting myself out there. Allowing others to read my work. Allowing others to pass judgment on what I wrote, and ultimately, pass judgment on me. There was no way that such a thing could ever be positive for me—not with the way I saw things. Not with the way others viewed my work.

I took Family Studies instead. I fell in love with psychology and the writing faded for me a bit. I put it away and focused on becoming a productive member of society.  I got married and had a baby. I grew up. Then I received another assignment: Write your life history.

Okay. I can do that. It’s based on fact, no imagination required. Nothing that could get me into trouble. Perfectly safe. I turned in my paper and that was that…

And then my professor said she wanted to speak with me. In her office. In Private. Holy shit. All I could think was that there was a 72-hour bed hold in my future at the county annex and I was still breastfeeding… not ideal.

Against my better judgment, I kept the meeting, ready to defend whatever it was that she found so off-putting about my writing. I sat in her office, stomach twisted in knots and sure enough, there it was--my paper. Covered in notes she’d written in the margins. Undoubtedly marking the place she found most upsetting. I waited for the white coats to jump out of her filing cabinet and take me away. And then she said something I’ll never forget:

“Have you ever thought of pursuing writing as a career?”

Huh?

I stared at her like  snakes where falling out of her mouth but I shook my head no. No, I had not.

She gave me my paper and said, “Well, you should.” And then she gave me a letter of recommendation for a creative writing scholarship.

I took both and quickly left her office, unsure of what had just happened… had she actually suggested that my writing was good? I spent the next few days in a confused stupor. As impossible as it seemed, judgment had been passed and it had been favorable.

… I wish I could say that that one teacher’s praise had been enough to erase years of self-conditioning but it wasn’t. I threw the letter away and hid the paper in a box under my bed. But… every once in a while I took it out and read it. Read the notes of praise she’d written in the margins. Read the words I’d written about my life and I felt good. Good enough to start writing again. It took another ten years or so for me to find the courage to take my first creative writing class and a little while longer to finally believe that there was never anything wrong with the way I think. Nothing wrong with the things I feel. And nothing wrong with what I choose to put on paper.

got a plot problem? let me hear it: thrillersandkillers@gmail.com

Fiction Fridays

The thick stack of Jacksons on the bar told her two things. That the pink-shirt-wearing-Mexican-beer-drinking asshole didn’t know when to quit and that she was about three seconds away from being able to pay her electric bill on time for once. She looked up at her uncle which was a mistake because she went from bending to caving in the blink of one twinkly blue eye. Who needed light to see by, anyway? “Okay, okay—”

            “Hey, Sweet-tits—you gonna answer the question or stand there and jaw with Pops all night,” Pink Polo sneered at her and threw a drunken high-five at his friend.

            She felt her uncle stiffen, watched his hand squeeze the yard glass he held, hard enough to crack it. She laid a hand on his arm and smiled up at him. “Can I kick his ass now?”

            He dropped a kiss on top of her head and took the whiskey sour out of her hand. “Hurt ‘im, Mavie. Hurt ‘im real good.”

            That was all the encouragement she needed.

She leaned against the bar and stood on her tip toes to close the distance between her and Pink Polo. She put her face close, so close she could smell the bottled piss he called beer on his breath. She ran her fingertip along his jaw, urging him closer. His eyes dipped to her mouth and he smiled at her. Must’ve thought he won.

Fat fucking chance.

 “If your great-grandfather’s birthday is May twenty-second, nineteen o’two, then he was born on a… Thursday.” She winked at his friend, a frat boy in a Yankees cap and Puka shells—only slightly less drunk than Pink Polo. She lean back, dropped her feet flat on the floor and took the stack of cash with her, tapping the edge of the bills on the flat surface of the bar as she went.

            Pink Polo glared at her. “Is she right?”

            Yankees cap scrolled through the app on his iphone. “Hold on… wait—holy shit.” He looked up at her. “She’s right.”

The bar erupted into applause. Pink Polo reached for his pocket but she shook her head. “No more. I’m done for the night. Why don’t you and your friend have one on me, okay?” She pocketed the cash and slapped a couple of glasses on the bar and poured them each a finger of Jameson.

            Yankees cap downed his shot. “How the fuck do you do that?”

Pink Polo’s hand lashed out and clamped around her wrist. “She’s some sort of retard, that’s how,” he said. The bar went quiet. Shit.

            “You might wanna take a look at where you are, boys. This isn’t Vegas and you sure as hell ain’t swilling Martinis at Ghostbar. There’re no bouncers here to break it up before things get nasty… and trust me, they’re about to get real nasty.” She yanked her wrist free. “I think it’s time I call you that cab.”

            Pink Polo took a lunge at her but was yanked back and tossed out of his stool. Thad Jacobs. This night keeps getting better and better. The crowd around the bar took a giant step back and watched Pink Polo bounce off the scarred hardwood floor. He made some sort of noise that sound like, “fuckin’ Irish pig,” and that closed the crowd in fast.

            “He ain’t Irish—he’s a Jew, you Puka-shell-wearing piece of shit.” Quinn Galligan detached himself from the crowd.

            Holy Mary, Mother of God…

Fiction Fridays

So... it was suggested to my by a very smart and resourceful friend that I start posting some of my work for you all to read, and hopefully, enjoy on a regular basis.

For those of you who are wondering, this is not part of the book that my agent will be taking to BEA next month, but rather a project I've been kicking around but haven't really spent a lot of time on. Thanks for reading...

One

  

            Mave McKinnon was a know-it-all. Literally. They’d tested her in the sixth grade, thought maybe she was some sort of Einstein. Turned out she wasn’t a genius.

She was a savant.

She remembered everything. If she read it, saw it or heard it, then she knew it. And not only did she know it—she understood it. Forever. There was no formal name for what she was. No explanation for why she could do the things she could do and that was just fine by her. Truth be told, she didn’t really care, didn’t need to understand. All she needed to understand was it made her money.

It was a favorite pastime at The Black Irish Pub—Stump Mave. Impossible, at least for the beer-swilling gits that crowded around her bar. Not once in her six years of building yards of Guinness and pouring shots of Jameson did one of them ever ask her a question she couldn’t answer.

It was a point of pride for most of her regulars. For years now, they’d been pushing through the door, the first words out of their mouths—“Alright Mave McKinnon, prepare to be bested.” For the tourists, she was akin to the bearded lady or that guy with a third leg sticking out of his ass. She was a sideshow. A freak. With the regulars it was all for fun. With the tourists it was straight-up business.

 Three questions. If they stumped her on even one, she paid their bar tab. If she got all three they paid double. Those were the stakes. Usually.

Mave eyed the guy across the bar while mixing a whisky sour. This one was different. This one had trust-fund baby written all over him. They’d been at it for nearly an hour now. Him looking up ridiculous questions on his iphone. Her answering them faster than he could spit them out. He kept losing and every time he’d pull out another stack of bills and say, “Double or nothing.” Yeah, this one was different, alright. This one didn’t want his tab cleared.

He wanted a kiss.

            “Mavie, love—have a heart.” Her Uncle Dan leaned against the bar. She looked at him, at his weathered face and twinkly blue eyes, and couldn’t help but smile. He was the best man she’d ever known and she felt herself bend a bit. “The boy’s completely bolloxed,” he said under his breath while he pulled a Guinness. “Give him a peck on the cheek and call him a cab.”

            The guy was completely hammered and he was young, though not much younger than her. The kind of asshole that wore pink polo shirts and Puka shells and had the balls to order a Corona in an Irish pub. The way he watched her, she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with a simple peck on the cheek.

            “Mave…”

            The thick stack of Jacksons on the bar told her two things. That Pink Polo didn’t know when to quit and that she was about three seconds away from being able to pay her electric bill on time for once. She looked up at her uncle which was a mistake, because she went from bending to caving in the blink of one twinkly blue eye. Who needed light to see by, anyway? “Okay, okay—”

            “Hey, Sweet-tits—you gonna answer the question or stand there and jaw with Pops all night,” Pink Polo sneered at her and threw a drunken high-five at his friend.

            She felt her uncle stiffen, watched his hand squeeze the yard glass he held, hard enough to crack it. She laid a hand on his arm and smiled up at him. “Can I kick his ass now?”

            He dropped a kiss on top of her head and took the whiskey sour out of her hand. “Hurt him, Mavie. Hurt him real good.”

            That was all the encouragement she needed.

A lot less talk and a little more action...

Holly wrote:

What I want to have happen in my story is to gather a task force to investigate the murders going on around town. Of course, the killer will be on the task force, so he can monitor what they know, throw them off track, etc. Should I kill off another attorney now? Maybe a female this time? I think I need to get Ollie out to the jail to see Araceli, but there’s no action there. Maybe I should have the murder happen in another jurisdiction, so Ollie & her buds aren’t in the middle of it, again?

I’m having a hard time getting this thing moving—it seems that most of the danger and tension that comes to Ollie is in her head. Maybe I do need to kill some more people so the task force is established sooner. However she’s involved in it (whether she’s on it, or just friends with people who are) it will become apparent to the killer that she is a threat to him, and of course he’s going to go after her. Maybe I’m just taking too long getting there?

Maybe Ollie needs to do some research & discover some old murders that fit the pattern? Bring it to the attention of Merc her mentor, so the TF is established soon?

Thank you, as always, for your invaluable help...

Hi, Holly ~

Murder? Did you say you want to murder someone? Several someones??  CHA-CHING!!

No, seriously—a good rule of thumb when writing a thriller is: when things get slow—kill someone.

How this stacks is, you’ve got two sisters—Ollie and Araceli. Araceli stands accused of their father’s murder and it’s up to Ollie to prove her innocent…

A task force would only be formed if:

1) There are several murders, or:

2) The victim was extremely high profile, either due to media coverage or importance within the community.

I think you can cover that by killing off some high profile defense attorneys and or a judge (I’d kill ‘em all, but I’m stabby that way). Your killer needs to go on a spree of sorts—two or three victims in as many days—this will whip the community into a frenzy, making the task force a viable option.

But… and I’m sure you’ve thought of this:

1)      Once these murders start popping up, it’s going to become clear that Araceli is innocent and she’ll be released, thus solving Ollie’s surface problem.

2)      Ollie would never be allowed within a country mile of this task force if her sister is the suspected murderer.

One way to avoid all this is to make these new murders totally different from Ollie’s father’s. Have them die violently or publicly (or both) so that when the task force is formed, no one is including her father’s death in the line-up. They have Araceli all sewn up and since it’s a completely different case, Ollie can work the task force. From within the task force, she can view case files of other victims and note some sort of pattern that only she can see, and how it relates to her father’s murder.  Ollie will start to investigate on her own because any correlation between the TF murders and her father’s will get her kicked off the task force, thus ending the flow of information she needs to solve the case. As she digs, she uncovers a sting of similar murders across the country and starts to connect them all via this magical pattern (don’t worry, I have faith in you!) only she can see. When Ollie feels like she’s compiled enough info to make her case, she brings her findings to the table and get shot down but since the killer is on the task force, he’ll know just how close she is and try to kill her before she can expose him.

I know that Ollie happens to be in possession of some information that she took from her father’s apartment. What if there is something on it that the killer wants? Maybe she’s “mugged” in the parking garage at work( the killer attacked her to try to get the thumb drive but she doesn’t have it on her.) Maybe she lands in the hospital but checks herself out early to recuperate at home and the killer breaks into her house while she’s there. Maybe she goes back to her father’s to dig for more info and the killer breaks in while she’s there… there is plenty of opportunity for danger here, Holly—you just got to make it happen! J

Thanks for the question, Holly and I hope I helped!

Maegan

Got a plot problem? thrillersandkillers@gmail.com

Putting Words In People's Mouths...

I've touched on this subject in other posts, but felt it bared mentioning again, since it happens to be a favorite of mine:

Dialogue.

I love to write dialogue. This is where we get to bring our characters to life. Show the world who they are. Expose their inner most secrets and deepest, darkest thoughts... and maybe some of our own along the way. But it's important to get it right--I can't stress this enough.
I can't think of anything more cringe-worthy than wooden, stuffy dialogue. Except maybe making your character say something that is totally out of character.
These are people you created. You breathed life into them. Gave them purpose... so, why would you want to make them say stupid things?
It's imperative that you first figure out who your character is. Are they shy? A bit dull? A smart ass? A raving lunatic? Once you've figured that out, build them a life, even one that reaches beyond the confines of your story.
In my book, The First, my male lead is named Michael. He isn't my protag but he's important enough that I had a this burning need to figure out who he was, so I wrote his life. All of it. Once I sort of revealed to myself the kind of guy I wanted him to be, hearing his voice was surprisingly easy. There has never been a question of, "would he say something like that?" because I knew everything there was to know about him. Sound crazy?
You'd be surprised how many people sit down to write a short story or a novel without fully understanding the characters they're trying to write. Doing so will cause you nothing but trouble... not to mention create confusion and distrust in your reader. So that's rule # 1:

Figure out who your characters are before you go putting words in their mouths.

This will not only effect what they'd say, but also how they would say it and allow you to create a well rounded, totally believable character that your reader will not only understand, but empathize with.

Rule # 2:

Study language.

Not English. Language. The way people talk. Real people. Most people have their own verbal short hand that is unique to them. Very few people that are not British royalty actually speak in complete sentences on a consistent basis. The next time you go out for drinks with friends or spend an afternoon at the mall (may God have mercy on your soul), listen to the conversations around you and you'll see what I mean.

Rule # 3:

Watch Movies.

Huh? Yes, watch movies. Today, my husband blasted me for wanting a television in my writing office. I told him it served a very important function, and it does. Movies are the best way I know to get a feel for the rhythm of speech. The back and forth of dialogue between characters. If you're writing a thriller--that's what you watch. If you're writing a romance, watch one of those. Really pay attention to the way the characters within the story interact with each other. Give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

Got a plot problem? thrillersandkillers@gmail.com

The Joy of Multiple Personalities...

Brock writes:

Hi Maegan,

I have a question about the use of point of view. Is it permissible to have a fluctuating point of view within a story? How about within a chapter? Don't worry I won't ask about within a paragraph or sentence. Can this be employed to heighten tension or does it evoke a tension of a different kind, the one where your reader fires the book across the room?

Finding the right POV through which to tell your story can be hard. Which do I use—first person? Close third? Omniscient third? Some say it depends on the story, but I tend to disagree. A writer needs to choose the POV that they feel most comfortable with—one that fits their voice and style.

Personally, I like a close third. This POV allows freedom (as opposed to a first person—too limiting for me) while making it possible to really focus in on your most important characters.

In my novel, The First, I employ three POVs—my protagonist, second lead, and antagonist—and I fluctuate between the three frequently. I feel that this makes for a well rounded story, offering different perspectives while allowing room to build suspense within the novel. I switch POVs within chapters, but never the same paragraph or sentence. This causes too much confusion for the reader and will get your book tossed across the room.

By employing multiple POVs, I was able to create cliffhangers—I could leave my protag in peril while fleshing out other aspects of the story through my other characters. When I introduced my antagonist’s POV (which I used sparingly), I was able to establish him firmly in the reader’s mind and leave them wondering when he’d be back. It makes for a faster paced novel, several things are happening at once and it works to pull your reader in, but…

You had to know there was a but, right?

But, it can be tricky. Never switch POVs, just for the sake of switching—there has to be a reason. To create tension. To showcase a different aspect of the story. To further the plot. These are all legit reasons to employ multiple POVs—any other reason will just piss your reader off.

Some things to consider:

1)      When employing multiple POVs, 2-3 max works best.

2)      Make sure these POVs have something to offer. Don’t choose your protagonist, his mother and the guy that works at the corner market. The characters you choose should have something to offer the story and as such, your reader.

3)      Although some might disagree, I think it’s important to start your novel off with your protag’s POV. This firmly establishes who your story is about. 

I hope this answers your question, Brock and thanks for reading!

Maegan

got a question? hit me up: thrillersandkillers@gmail.com