Guest author feature - H.E. Joyce
Today on The Saturday Sizzler we have a guest author H.E. Joyce in the sizzling seat as we investigate his book
The Deadliest Game...
Background Information
H.E. Joyce lives among the beautiful Chilterns of Buckinghamshire, England, with his wife and black Labrador. He has two children and four grandchildren.
Thrillers with unexpected twists are the genre which he enjoys reading and writing, playing mind-games with his readers.
The inspiration behind the story.
'With The Deadliest Game, I definitely found inspiration while visiting various small coastal towns in New England, and although I visited during the summer months, I imagined what they might be like during the stormy season and felt it would be a great setting for a thriller. The rest just followed.'
The Blurb
'A storm is coming, to the small town of Brooksville, Maine, and also for Laura. After moving from Chicago with her young son, Laura finds a degree of the inner peace she has longed for. However, the idyllic life she has found changes when Laura meets Michael Peterson at a Halloween dance. After a brief romance, they marry and, for a while, life seems perfect. That is until she begins to receive disturbing phone calls and sees shapes lurking in dark shadows. Deep feelings of distrust take over her thoughts. Is she losing touch with reality? Or is her past catching up with her?' (from Amazon)
My Review
I thought I would just read this book a chapter a night as bedtime reading. However, I found the book compulsive reading and actually read it compulsively for two days. The story is a slow burning one where you have time to meet the characters and explore the beautiful little seaside town of Brooksville before the psychological games begin. Michael and Laura, the main protagonists both have things lurking in their history and these are revealed slowly and subtly. Added to the characters own demons is the mysterious 'unknown suspect' which creates a sinister background menace.
I particularly enjoyed the sensitive psychological portrayals of Michael and Laura, learning their thoughts through head-hopping which I always like. Another positive aspect was the use of descriptive narrative which successfully creates a picture in the reader's mind of Brooksville.
I would highly recommend this book to lovers of psychological thrillers and multi-genre readers who enjoy a good story.
