Author: Barry Napier
Genre: Horror/Thriller
How long it's been on sale: 11 months
Current price: $2.99
Marketing: Twitter, Facebook, blogging, contacted reviewers to minor success
Total sold so far: 46
Link to book on Amazon: The Masks of Our Fathers
Product Description:
There is a powerful secret waiting in the forests of Moore’s Hollow. Buried in myths and ignored by history, there are dark things in the woods that laid claim to the land many years ago.
Jason Melhor heard about this secret around summer campfires as a boy. As a child, he came to know the legends well. But as he grew older, these fables disappeared with other childhood things.
Now, as a man unable to escape a past marred by an alcoholic father and his mother’s suicide, Jason has returned to Moore’s Hollow to bring his sordid family tragedy to a close. He has packed only a pistol and a single bullet.
But the secrets of Moore’s Hollow that Jason passed off as myths over the years are still lurking in the forests.
Something knows Jason has returned...and he has returned at the worst possible time.
First 300 Words:
Jason Melhor drove to his father’s old fishing cabin to kill himself.
The drive from Philadelphia to the back roads of central Virginia had taken almost seven hours, but Jason hadn’t been aware of the time. He had watched the scenery roll by as if he were only a bystander. The radio had been on but served only as reduced background noise, as insignificant as the wheels of his Honda Civic against the road. The only noises he had been aware of at all during the course of the trip were the shifting and clinking sounds that came from the glove compartment. The pistol that he had stored inside it tapped against the interior of the compartment from time to time, as if urging Jason to speed up, to get there already, to get this over with.
At some point, he had left the interstates and four-lane roads behind him. These had eventually become the single lane roads that wound around, and often through, the gradual elevation of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was the familiarity of these roads that had him pressing harder on the accelerator. He knew most of these roads from his teenage years, but the curves and the rise and fall of the terrain still evoked a sense of excitement in him; maybe he’d hit a curb too hard and flip his car over a guard rail, plummeting down the side of the mountain in a blur of trees, glass, and metal. It would certainly be more exciting than the firing of a single bullet.
As he made his way through the Shenandoah Valley, he knew that it would be almost unjust to die in such a way, though. If he were to die by sending his car off of one of these mountain roads, he’d be neglecting the inherited irony that would come by committing suicide in his father’s fishing cabin.
Gina's Comments:
Cover: The first impression of the cover is good. I like the dark eerie feeling. I imagine the horned thing to be a demon or evil presence. I like the red...also a sign of evil things to come. I like the lettering very much. All in all, this cover works for me.
Price: It's a fine price. If it's not selling, you might want to put it lower, but it's certainly not too expensive.
Product Description: Oh. I really like the product description. Spooky! I'd read this book based on that description!
First 300: I like the first paragraph but I am catching some little writing issues that might make fluidity of reading less comforting as it could be. I'm noticing a trend of "had taken" had been" "had watched". I think this puts the reader out of the story. To say it all in more of an active voice would work better for me. For example:
The drive from Philadelphia to the back roads of central Virginia took almost seven hours, but Jason wasn't aware of the time. He watched the scenery roll by as if he were only a bystander. The radio served only as background noise, as insignificant as the wheels of his Honda Civic against the road. The only noises he was aware of at all during the course of the trip were the shifting and clinking sounds that came from the glove compartment. The pistol stored inside it tapped against the interior of the compartment from time to time, as if urging Jason to speed up, to get there already, to get this over with.
It's a very subliminal thing, but it helps the reader feel like they're riding in the car with Jason instead of hearing about it later.
I believe this is the reason the book isn't selling. The plot sounds awesome. The cover rocks. The book description it solid. But...the writing isn't tight. You have extra words...watch those "that's". The average reader doesn't even know why they don't like it, they just know it isn't a fluid read.
I'd go through the book and do a search and destroy for the word that. Very seldom is the word actually required in a sentence. Plus, get this story in an active voice. I really think it has the ability to sell...at least by this beginning. But I personally would struggle with it as I'd be constantly wanting to tighten up your sentences.
I'm not in love with the cover, although I suppose it's appropriately creepy, but you lost me at the second line of the blurb. You've got "There is a powerful secret waiting in the forests of Moore’s Hollow. Buried in myths and ignored by history, there are dark things in the woods that laid claim to the land many years ago." Why isn't that "A powerful secret waits in the forests of Moore's Hollow. Buried in myths and ignored by history, dark things in the woods laid claim to the land many years ago."? The "there" repeated twice makes me think the writing is going to be slow and boring. I do think your first line is terrific, though--you might have caught me again if I'd read the look-inside-the-book, but I wouldn't have. Yes, of such little decisions are book purchases made! Looking at the writing past the first line, though, I'd still stop: I don't care about traffic when I'm in it, why would I want to read about it? I think you might need to tighten your text and really think about what's important to the reader, especially in the first few chapters since they are what compels a reader to buy (or not). (Sorry if all that sounds harsh--it's sometimes tough to decide whether what level of honesty is appropriate.)
ReplyDeleteTo further refine your point, Gina:
ReplyDelete"He watched the scenery roll by as if he were only a bystander."
could be tightened to
"The scenery rolled by as if he were a bystander."
And maybe you'd want to replace "scenery" with a concrete detail of that scenery, now that I think about it. And what exactly has been playing on the radio. Stuff to subtly establish the setting and mood from the get-go. Anyway, I've had a ton of trouble with distance-creating phrases like "he watched" or "he noticed" myself, so it's been on my mind lately.
COVER: I like it.
ReplyDeletePD: I disagree with Gina about this. It strikes me as too loose. Half of it is used up with allusive descriptions of the secret. Is it really necessary, for example, to tell us the various ways Jason related to the secret in the different phases of his life? As a boy he thought, in childhood he thought, as he grew older he thought, etc?
Moreover, the “buried in myth” phrase would have stopped me cold because I have no idea what it could mean to describe something as “buried” in myth. I’m probably in the minority on this, but I can’t stomach portentous but meaningless expressions. So when I see them pop up in the PD, I usually move on.
FIRST 300: Actually, “had taken” is active, not passive voice, though “hadn’t been aware” is passive. The tense in both cases is past perfect. Gina’s right that it’s the wrong tense for this kind of simple narration. The simple past tells you the action occurred in the past, the past perfect that the action was completed in the past.
The problem with the perfect, in this case, is that it makes the reader a latecomer to the party; he’s being told about things that have happened, rather than living through them as the protagonist did. At any rate, most of these past perfects should probably be simple pasts, “took,” “watched,” etc.
As both Gina and the redoubtable Wyndes have pointed out, there are other infelicities in the prose, none of them detrimental on their own, but each one decimating the reader’s desire to go on.
The cover told me immediately that this book was horror, so that's a good thing. I like the font, the layout and the artwork.
ReplyDeleteThe blurb is pretty decent, too.
Sometimes I download a sample and read it in the cloud so I can get a better feel for what the buyer is going to see. I did so in this case.
I didn't get all the way through the sample, but I was into the second chapter and still in the description of his journey. By that time, I wanted to give up and move on to something else.
There was not a lot of tension in what I read. Yes, he's going to kill himself, but he doesn't seem to be going through any emotions at all. He's a "bystander" to the whole process.
I can understand that in a way. He's closed himself off in a bubble of unreality and looking in from the outside. The only problem with that is the reader needs the buildup, and if the reader hasn't gotten it by the second chapter, it's too late.