Tag: thriller

#ThrowbackThursday Poor Boy Road by James L. Weaver

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. Throwback Thursday is designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

I’ve decided to delve back into the earliest days of my blog (not that it’s that old) and share one of my first reviews. It’s for the first in a series of terrifically entertaining action thrillers by James L. Weaver, published in March 2016. You can read my review of the sequel Ares Road here and if you happen to get hooked, you’ll pleased to learn a third book, Blackbird Road, is due out in 2018.

Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) by James L. Weaver

poorboyAbout the Book

As a mob enforcer, Jake Caldwell is in the dark business of breaking kneecaps and snapping bones. But each job sends him one step closer to turning into the man he swore he’d never become – his violent and abusive father. Leaving the mob is easier said than done. When his boss offers a bloody way out, Jake has no choice but to take it, even if it means confronting ghosts of old. Arriving in his hometown, Jake has two things on his mind: kill ruthless drug lord Shane Langston and bury his dying father. Racing through the countryside searching for Langston, the web of murder, meth and kidnapping widens, all pointing toward a past Jake can’t escape and a place he never wanted to return – Poor Boy Road.

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

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My Review

Poor Boy Road is the first in a series featuring mob enforcer, Jake Caldwell. In fact, Jake very much wants to be an ex-mob enforcer but the price for this is killing his mob boss’s rival drug lord, Shane Langston. This will mean returning to his hometown which holds nothing but bad memories – of his troubled childhood at the hands of his violent father (now close to death), the trauma of his brother’s death and his abandonment of the woman he loved.

Although the book follows a fairly well-trodden path for an action/thriller, that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Despite his dubious past exploits, Jake Caldwell makes an really engaging protagonist who one feels still retains his moral compass. It’s to the author’s credit that we care about Jake, who comes across as something of a ‘lost soul’ seeking a path to redemption despite the ‘Devil’s bargain’ he’s had to make with his mob boss, Keats.

‘Sometimes he stared in the mirror at hollow eyes, seeing the face of a man who hid in the shadows, a man he swore he’d never become.’

In fact, many of the characters in the book are looking for a way out: from poverty, crime, drug and alcohol addiction, family breakdown or domestic violence. The author creates a convincing picture of life in small-town America where your life chances can be measured by which side of Poor Boy Road you reside.

‘Every town, every city had their economic dividing line between the haves and the have nots. Poor Boy Road was their line.’

The book is full of twists and turns with plenty of action as Jake teams up with his old friend, Bear, now Sheriff of Benton County, to frustrate the drug gangs that menace the community and achieve the goal that will give him the chance to make a new start in life.   Along the way Jake has to confront unpleasant memories, particularly his troubled relationship with his father, in the hope that he can stop trying to ‘outrun the ghosts’.

I really enjoyed Poor Boy Road and I can’t wait to read the next in the series, Ares Road.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of Lakewater Press in return for an honest review.

About the Author

James L. Weaver is the Kansas City author of the Jake Caldwell series featuring IAN Thriller of the Year finalist Poor Boy Road and soon to be released Ares Road from Lakewater Press. He makes his home in Olathe, Kansas with his wife of 19 years and two children. His previous publishing credits include a six part story called The Nuts and his 5-star rated debut novel Jack & Diane. Author note: a handful of the raters are actually not related to him.

Connect with James

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Blog Tour/Guest Post: The Dark Isle by Clare Carson

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TheDarkIsleBanner

I’m delighted to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Dark Isle by Clare Carson, the thrilling conclusion to the Sam Coyle trilogy. And I’m thrilled to say Clare has written a fascinating article about how she goes about communicating a sense of time and place in her writing.

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TheDarkIsle2About the Book

Sam grew up in the shadow of the secret state. Her father was an undercover agent, full of tall stories about tradecraft and traitors. Then he died, killed in the line of duty. Now Sam has travelled to Hoy, in Orkney, to piece together the puzzle of his past. What she finds is a tiny island of dramatic skies, swooping birds, rugged sea stacks and just four hundred people. An island remote enough to shelter someone who doesn’t want to be found. An island small enough to keep a secret…

Format: Hardcover Publisher: Head of Zeus Pages: 416
Publication: 1st June 2017 (UK) Genre: Thriller    

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Dark Isle on Goodreads

Guest Post: ‘The Dark Isle: Finding a Sense of Time and Place’ by Clare Carson

The Dark Isle is set in Orkney and London in 1976 and 1989. The sense of place and time is integral to the story – I try to bring landscapes to life by portraying them through the eyes of the characters I’m writing about. In The Dark Isle, places are described as seen through the eyes of Sam, the protagonist, both as a child and as a young woman.

I learned to see landscapes in different ways when I was researching women’s health in rural Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a country of extremes; it has beautiful, lush green valleys and cool mountains, but these are often places that were once owned by white Rhodesians. Most poor black women were pushed by the colonial government into the arid lowlands where barely anything grows.

I wanted to talk to these women, so I ended up staying for a year in a sun-scorched village, ringed by thorn bushes. I hated it for the first few weeks. I could barely move in the heat and the giant crickets and millipedes that roamed the sandy paths made me recoil. But after a while, as I talked to more women, I started to see the village differently. There was a human geography and history – the chief’s house, sacred grounds and trees, the traditional healer’s hut, the bushlands where the guerrillas hid and camped during the war of independence. There was even some greenery in the small gardens carefully tended by women growing a few vegetables to add to their meagre diet.

Later, I returned to the area after a few weeks away; the evening sun was dropping over the sand, the vast baobabs were silhouetted black against the crimson sky and the lovingly painted yellow and pink walls of the mud huts glowed magically in the dusk. The landscape was stunning and moving, it had just taken me a while to see it.

That experience has stayed with me. I know that landscapes are like people – first impressions can be misleading. And I also know that people bring landscapes to life – a sense of place comes from the stories that are buried in the rocks and trees, and from the way that different characters view the environments in which they live or find themselves.

In The Dark Isle, it is Sam’s view of Orkney and London which gives the book its sense of time and place. The way these landscapes are portrayed change and take on a different colour as Sam ages and faces up to the legacy of her father and her emotional battles with her past.

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ClareCarsonAbout the Author

Clare Carson is an anthropologist and works in international development, specialising in human rights. Her father was an undercover policeman in the 1970s.   She drew on her own experiences to create the character of Sam, a rebellious eighteen year old who is nevertheless determined to make her father proud.

You can find out more about Clare’s experience growing up as the daughter of an undercover policeman here

Connect with Clare

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