Blog Tour: DEJA VIEW by Michael Thomas Perone

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Blog Tour: DEJA VIEW by Michael Thomas Perone

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the DEJA VIEW by MichaelThomas Perone Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: DEJAVIEW

Author: MichaelThomas Perone

Pub. Date: October6, 2023

Publisher: Wheatmark

Formats: Paperback,eBook

Pages: 275

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/DEJA-VIEW

Twelve-year-old Bobby Dalton doesn'twant to grow up. All his life, he has relied on the imaginary games ofchildhood with his best friends Joe and Max to get him through the tough times.But this all changes when his Seventh-Grade class buries a time capsule tocommemorate the end of the 1980s. Now Bobby is being haunted by visions:ghostly doppelgangers of himself, his friends, and others. He calls them"déjà view." Are these visions real, or has his imagination finallygotten away from him? And if they're real, what do they want? Bobby needs tofigure this all out to survive his childhood…and his life.

From the author of theaward-winning Danger Peak, Déjà View is a darklyfunny coming-of-age dramedy with a sci-fi twist, cranked up to eleven. But evenmore, it's at once a pulse-pounding thrill ride and a haunting portrait ofparanoia, mental illness, and the unbearable sadness of growing up.

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About Michael Thomas Perone:

MichaelThomas Perone is an award-winning author who has written for The Baltimore Sun,Baltimore City Paper, Long Island Voice (a spinoff of The Village Voice), andThe Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), among others. Online, he haswritten for Fatherly, Yahoo!, WhatCulture!, and other websites that don’t endwith an exclamation mark. His articles for WhatCulture! covering the world ofentertainment alone have been viewed over 374,000 times, and his expertise oncritical writing in the music industry has been cited on Wikipedia and featuredin national press kits. He currently works as a Senior Editor in Manhattan andlives on Long Island with his wife and two daughters. For more information,please visit www.michaelthomasperone.com.

YABCQ&A for Michael Thomas Perone, Author of Déjà View: A Kid Nightmare

1. Whatgave you the inspiration to write this book?

Similar to mydebut novel, Danger Peak, Déjà View is based on a short story Iwrote when I was a kid. The idea came from something my friends and I actuallydid. We buried a time capsule in my backyard, and then the next day I was onthe swings at my best friend’s house around the corner. Our houses shared afence, so as I was swinging, I looked past the fence to see where we buried thetime capsule the night before and thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we werestill doing that? Sorta stuck in time, burying the capsule over and overagain?” That was the genesis of the idea, but in the original short story, it hadmuch more of a horror vibe. It was like a slasher flick, and there was a lotmore death. I toned that part down…a lot!

2. Whois your favorite character in the book?

Probably Dr. Pann,Bobby’s therapist. Without giving too much away, the character has a lot ofshades to him, and it was fun playing with his different sides.

3. Whichcame first, the title or the novel?

If by “novel,” youmean the story idea, that came first. The original title was Déjà Vu,but there are only about five-hundred books with that title already, so I wentwith Déjà View since Bobby is actually seeing these repeated visions ofhis. There are still a few other books with that title but nowhere near as manyas Déjà Vu. I guess that’s why I also added a subtitle to differentiatemy book: A Kid Nightmare. Also, my debut novel, Danger Peak, hasa subtitle as well (A Kid Adventure), and I wanted to link the twobooks, though Déjà View isn’t a sequel.

4. Whatscene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

Probably the ChuckE. Cheese chapter. Not only was it fun to revisit those birthday parties I usedto have in the ‘80s, I thought it was a pretty funny scene, and it sets thetone for the novel. It’s a little silly, slightly spooky, and somewhat surreal,and it foreshadows the strangeness to come. It also reinforces the major themeof the book, which is the death of childhood.

5. Thinkingway back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as awriter from then to now?

I learned theimportance of outlining. I used to hate writing outlines in school, and when Iwrote for fun on my own, I would write off-the-cuff and see where the storytook me. There are merits to that too, but I’ve found it much easier if youhave a general idea of where you’re going. You don’t have to have every sceneplotted out or every line of dialogue memorized obviously, but if you know howto get from point A to point B and then C and so on, the writing flows mucheasier, at least for me.

6. Whatdo you like most about the cover of the book?

The colors. I cameup with the design of the book (three kids burying something mysterious underthe light of the full moon), and the artists at my publishing house created it,but I didn’t have any particular colors in mind. I was really pleased thoughwhen the cover came back to me. The deep blues and purples of the night skyreally set the tone for the spooky story, and it’s also just pretty to look at.I might actually like the cover better than the one for my last novel, DangerPeak, and I really liked that one!

7. What’sup next for you?

After two novelsback to back, I’m taking a break from the longform story, so my next book willbe a collection of my favorite short stories I’ve written over the years. There’sone I wrote in the mid-‘90s that actually predicted the future. It’s about asmall town that becomes obsessed with television to the point of madness, andit features telecommuting and remote learning via T.V. screen and cars withbuilt-in screens in the front dashboard. I remember thinking it was ridiculousat the time, and now it’s commonplace.

8. Whatwould you say is your superpower?

Probably juggling(the figurative, not literal, kind, as I can’t even juggle two balls). I have afull-time job, two small kids to take care of, a wife to make happy, a dog thatrequires constant attention, parents around the corner who need help, a houseto fix up, and yet somehow, I found time to write two novels in the past twoyears. I know one day years from now—maybe when I’m retired—I’m going to lookback and think, “How did I do it all?” I’m actually thinking of that now!

9. Isthere an organization or cause that is close to your heart?

I like the Make-A-WishFoundation. When I was a kid, one of my good friends had a bad liver and neededto move to Florida because supposedly, they had a better hospital for him downthere for that sort of thing. He was granted a wish from this organization, andhe asked for a roundtrip plane ticket to come home to visit the family he leftbehind and his old friends, including me. That was the last time I saw him, as afew months later, his liver gave out, and he died. If it wasn’t for Make-A-Wish,I wouldn’t have had that final day with him, so you know they’re actually doingthe job they claim to do. I ended up naming Chris, one of the characters in mydebut novel, Danger Peak, after him.

Giveaway Details:

1 winnerwill receive a finished copy of DEJA VIEW, US Only.

Ends December12th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

11/27/2023

#BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog

Blog Spotlight

11/27/2023

Rockstar Book Tours

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