Best New Noir Fiction for 2021

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Someone to Watch Over Me, by Dan Bronson

According to fans of noir fiction, Dan Bronson’s latest novel is an immersive 5-star read.

When did you last read a book that reached out a meaty, battle-scarred fist, grabbed you round the throat and dragged you, struggling, into darkened streets, thick with the stench of cigar smoke and shiny with foul puddles?

If you click over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to purchase Dan Bronson’s latest offering, Someone to Watch Over Me, you can be assaulted right now!

But in the very best way.

Someone to Watch Over Me is Bronson’s second book but his first foray into noir fiction. And just like a riveting film noir, Someone is chock-full of mysterious shadows, tragic circumstances, and foreboding imagery. In fact, if you listen closely, you may even hear the haunting notes of a sexy jazz saxophone running through the backstory.

Welcome to 1940s Hollywood

Set in 1940s Hollywood, Someone to Watch Over Me comes complete with busty, whispering starlets and the unethical studios who exploit them. And in the middle of it all is Jack Shannon, publicist to the very famous and fixer of bad behavior. Shannon’s employment depends on his skills at subterfuge, so when he’s recruited to safeguard Titanic Studio’s top ticket — blonde, breathy Savannah Stevens — he expects just another day on the job.

But this latest task quickly becomes more than just another assignment. Someone is following the bubbly bombshell, and Shannon is determined to find out the who and why.

Not Your Typical Hardboiled Detective Novel

Bronson’s Jack Shannon is not your stereotypical hardboiled detective, but he does find himself playing the investigator’s role as his association with America’s current sweetheart spirals more and more out of control. He won’t stop until he uncovers what’s going down at Titanic, even if his efforts cost him his job … or his life.

In Someone to Watch Over Me, Dan Bronson, former Hollywood screenwriter and Executive Story Editor at Paramount Pictures with ties to films such as “Witness” and “Pretty in Pink,” channels his formidable writing skills in an exciting new direction. The result is a book we’re expecting to become a best new noir fiction novel of 2021 and Bronson’s flawed-but-well-meaning protagonist, Jack Shannon, a burgeoning new hero for fans of Post-War Hollywood.

Start Your New Noir Fiction Adventure Today

Someone to Watch Over Me is an immersive, satisfying read for anyone who longs to lose themselves in a moody mystery. It’s available in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and Nook. Grab your copy today. And learn more about the author at the links below.

Dan-Bronson.com

Dan Bronson’s Amazon Author’s Page

Visit Dan Bronson on Facebook

Today’s Psychological Thriller: What Makes Us Love It So Much?

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“A Gripping Psychological Thriller with an Unusual Twist!” a book cover proclaims in big, bold lettering. But the book itself has little to do with the inner workings of the characters’ minds.

Is this truly a psychological thriller? Or has psychological thriller simply become a buzz phrase that we slap haphazardly on the cover of a book to make it more attractive to a select audience?

I’m not criticizing, mind you. For a short period of time, my second book had that tagline on the cover. The idea was that readers searching Amazon for psychological thrillers would also happen upon my book and become instantly intrigued.

I’ve since removed that particular description from my books because, with the exception of Sweet Cold of Winter, they aren’t psychological thrillers at all. They’re literary fiction, and misleading your readers is not only shady, but it’s risky, too. An excited reader who expects a gripping psychological thriller doesn’t want to be met with a cozy mystery or historical fiction.

What Is a Psychological Thriller?

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Bill Paxton’s portrayal of an off-the-rails dad in Frailty was the stuff of nightmares.

Readers of psychological thrillers want The Silence of the Lambs. They want The Girl on the Train. Possibly, they want Frailty. Frailty was actually a movie, but it’s still an excellent example of a psychological thriller — dark, inner workings of a disturbed mind? Or messenger of God?

Readers who find something other than what they paid for in a book are apt to leave THE REVIEW.

Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of THE REVIEW. THE REVIEW is a psychological thriller in itself — the stuff of nightmares and Goodreads.

Needed Elements of the Psychological Thriller

 

But then again, if an author intentionally misrepresents the content of his book, he deserves THE REVIEW. A psychological thriller should leave you wondering exactly who you can trust. It should build tension and contain unexpected plot twists that you never saw coming. Skewed thinking, irrationality, unexpected reality — all are important literary techniques needed for the proper telling of a psychological thriller. And speaking just for myself, I need that A-ha! moment at the end.

I have my own ideas on what makes up a psychological thriller, and some might disagree. But when I see that tagline on the cover of a book, my heart begins to race, and my mouth waters, accordingly. I feel a smile form because the psychological thriller is one of my favorite genres, when it’s done well.

The Psychological Thriller Defined

 

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Cujo was a classic psychological thriller

 

Author Mark Edwards of The Magpies and Because She Loves Me offers sound advice on what readers should find between the pages of a riveting psychological thriller. In his guest post at Writer’s Digest, Edwards recommends a few key components, including:

  • Average People
  • Unusual Circumstances
  • Recognizable Surroundings
  • Unexpected Plot Twists
  • Tension, Tension, Tension

In other words, the goal is to successfully enact terrifying events on unsuspecting people just like ourselves. The more identifiable the characters, the better. The more mundane the setting, the more we can imagine ourselves inside it.

One of the most impactful books I ever read was Stephen King’s Cujo. Not because the dog was so big and scary, but because I drove an unreliable old beater at the time and could put myself inside that sweltering car with that desperate mom who was so determined to keep her small son safe.

I’m not going to lie. Cujo made me cry. The book ended differently than the movie, and if you’ve read it, you understand. If you haven’t, and you like a good psychological thriller, you should. Some might actually say Cujo leans more toward the horror end of the spectrum, but I disagree. The characters are just relatable enough to feel decidedly real. And real dogs get rabies, no one can deny. Men abuse their wives and kids, mothers have extra-marital affairs, and children are more fragile than adults. As a result — reality.

Reality with a side of OH MY GOD!

THAT’s what makes a good psychological thriller.

Oh, how I love them.

Sources:

Writer’s Digest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pets and Depression: Can Snuggling with Your Dog or Cat Help Ease Your Pain?

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If you’re someone who regularly experiences depression or low moods, you should eat better.

Exercise more.

Socialize.

You know — everything you absolutely can’t do when you’re feeling sad.

Advice such as this is well-meaning, but impractical.

pexels-photo-395196You COULD conjure up a big salad filled with green plants and berries, but that would mean finding the energy to wash and chop produce, arrange it nicely in a bowl, and put everything away afterward.

It might also require washing a bowl first.

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the desire or the energy to wash dishes and clean up the house when the world waxes gray.

Yes. You could go to the gym or eat some sushi, but let’s be honest … that’s not going to happen. Probably, you’re going to forage in the freezer for the first thing that looks like ice cream and drag it onto the couch beside you.

So, let’s overlook the science of eating well to feel better for a moment and focus on a task that’s less scientific, but completely tangible in the shadow of a gray day.

Let’s snuggle with a beloved pet.

The Many Benefits of Pets for People With Depression

There are some things you probably don’t know about pets and depression, including:

  • Roughly 74% of pet owners say furry friends impact their mental health in positive ways.
  • Pet ownership helps keep you on a schedule — something that many people prone to depression have difficulty achieving. You have to feed, water and possibly walk a pet several times a day. This not only gives you purpose, it may also get you out of the house and into the sunshine for much-needed vitamin D.
  • Stroking a pet increases your levels of oxytocin and decreases your levels of cortisol. This makes you feel less stressed. Additionally, the sound of purring is the sound of calm contentment.
  • Pets may also help you build social connections, regardless of how introverted you may be. When you walk your dog, you feel inclined to speak to neighbors and passers-by. A bright smile and a moment of conversation from the right person at the right time has been known to alter destinies, after all.

Pets and depression have other benefits, too. There are no dreaded side-effects to snuggling with your pet. You won’t wake up tomorrow feeling hung-over or depleted. It won’t cost you a co-pay to cuddle on the couch with Tiger and Wolfie. Neither does it require expending energy that you simply can’t find in the moment.

Pets Bring Unconditional Love to those Who Feel Unloved

pexels-photo-3616232Another important connection between pets and depression is the unconditional love we find in our pets — that same unconditional love that we search so vainly for in humans. Pets are empathy on furry little feet. They sense when we’re sad, and they offer the only thing they have as comfort in return.

They offer themselves.

It’s soothing to be in the presence of a roly-poly cat or a playful pup. Pets give us a warm presence to touch. They let us ruffle their hair and scratch their ears, and sometimes, they give us a warm lick or a playful nose bump in return. They distract us, too. And sometimes it feels SO good to JUST STOP THINKING.

Pets and Depression Trump Unwanted Advice

This isn’t to say that it’s okay to ignore medication and therapy and your doctor’s orders the next time a dark day beckons. I’m actually an enthusiastic supporter of eating well and exercising often … just not so much on the gray days.

What you should feel free to overlook, however, is all the good “advice” that comes your way when you’re feeling your worst. It’s okay if you can’t conjure up the energy to run the dishwasher or run the track. It’s okay to relax on the couch with your pint of butter pecan and your TV remote occasionally. And it’s definitely okay to bump relaxation up a notch by adding the weight and lolling tongue of a fuzzy friend or three.

Some might even call it therapeutic.

Sources:

bphope.com

WebMD

PsychCentral

How One Author’s Books About Abuse and Neglect Reflect Real Life

AnneLeave a comment

I write books about abuse and neglect.

My books aren’t for everyone. In fact, readers either love them to death and follow them passionately, or they hate them in the extreme.

There is no middle ground.

As an author, as a describer of worlds, this used to bother me, but I’ve since discovered a hard truth pertaining to books about abuse and neglect: Some readers identify; others don’t, and it’s the farthest thing from personal.

Abuse and Neglect: Sticky Topics

For other readers, however, The Ashkettle Boys Book Series remains sticky. Sonny, Bo, and Dack linger in the minds of these readers long after the last page turns.

And that, my friends, is what writing books is all about.

These are my readers, and I appreciate them.

Everyone can never love you, but to a select few, maybe you’re doing a good thing.

A Fictional Series of Books About Abuse and Neglect

cropped-fb-cover-1.jpgThe Ashkettle boys are brothers. The series begins when Dack is just sixteen and trying to survive a life ruled by a cruel step-uncle. The opening scene is explosive, but satisfying, and it catapults readers into the worlds of Sonny, Bo, and Dack Ashkettle — devoted brothers fighting to save each other, regardless of the consequences.

The setting is cold — a mostly fearful community of neighbors in the reclusive Appalachian Mountains, reluctant to get involved. From the opening pages, however, the story warms. My favorite parts of these stories, ones that fought their way to life through the overwhelming powers of self-doubt and procrastination, are the passages that echo the love of a determined family to escape abnormality and find at least momentary peace, however fleeting.

How Books About Abuse and Neglect Reflect Real Life

Sadly, many children and teens live much like the characters portrayed in books about abuse and neglect. In fact, statistics from Childhelp.org are heartbreaking:

  • Five children die every day in this country from abuse and neglect.
  • We report an incident of child abuse every 10 seconds in America.
  • There are enough mistreated children in America to fill at least five football stadiums. These are only the ones about which authorities are aware.
  • Abuse and neglect in childhood can shorten your life expectancy as you grow older and leave you with mental scars that make life difficult to understand.

The last is a pervasive theme throughout the Ashkettle Boys Books, because keeping mental illness real and portraying it truthfully is important.

Meet the Ashkettle Boys

Thoughtful handsome. Handsome young man in full suit and sunglasses holding hands clasped looking thoughtful while sitting against grey background

In the Ashkettle Boys books, Dack is the youngest brother who took the brunt of the abuse and neglect for seven long years. He battles daily to control his mental state and to navigate life in a “normal” fashion. Luckily, he has his two older brothers to help.

Some people read my books and leave reviews stating that they’re exaggerated or unrealistic. Others say things like, “Yes. That’s exactly what happened to me.”

Unless you’ve experienced it, or you grew up with someone who experienced it, you’re probably not going to get it. And that’s wonderful. I wish that very thing for all my readers. Trendy young man in black shirt, portrait of sexy fashion boy lo

But if you do identify with books about abuse and neglect, you’ll find hope in the Ashkettle Boys books. These are books about abuse and neglect, it’s true. But these are also books about hope and redemption, books about moving on and letting go, books about finding your way in a dark so black it solidifies, forcing you to kick, claw and scream your way out.

Handsome man faceMostly, however, they’re books about the strength of family and the undefinable power of love. I hope you’ll begin reading with Ashkettle Crazy and work your way through:

  • Ashkettle Haunted
  • Ashkettle Fierce
  • Downers
  • Shaw’s Obsession
  • Sweet Cold of Winter
  • Ashkettle Boys: The Trilogy (Featuring books 1,2, and 3)

You know, if you identify with books about abuse and neglect.

Explore Ashkettle Boys Titles.

Sources

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Childhelp.org

Karen at the Helm

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Did you know? Before there were the Ashkettle Boys, there were the Karen Stories. If you’re a reader of the Ashkettle Boys books, and you recognize phrases or passages, that’s because the Karen Stories eventually morphed into “Ashkettle Crazy.”

Enjoy 🙂

Karen at the Helm

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Karen talks to weeds.

It sounds strange, but she brings those weeds to life as she sits there on that well cap, circled by industrious honey bees. I sit there too, entranced by the stories Karen weaves around two sneeze-inducing stems of yellow foxtail, of all things. The weeds take on lives. They talk to each other, and they work out problems — boy problems, school problems, futures those weeds want that are so out of their reach.

They’re weeds, after all. Two tall, spindly living things tucked away in the hollow and having little impact on the world around them. It’s not like they’re tomatoes or even kale, and it’s hardly likely that they’ll ever become police officers or marine biologists.

Weeds like that grow wild and prolific in the Appalachians – common as topsoil — not a damn thing special about them.

But in Karen’s hands, they take on personalities and tell stories. They even affect speech impediments from time to time, and they always, always love Charles Bronson.

Sometimes, when Karen isn’t talking to weeds, she’s drawing volcanoes – little exploding mountains of ink. Tiny stick-figure people run from these mountains whenever they erupt. Those little people have stories too, and I can’t get enough of them. They have strikingly complicated lives for simple drawings. Some of them have husbands and children, even. Often, they’re well-meaning scientists who tragically miscalculate. Sometimes they’re contrary townspeople who stubbornly refuse to evacuate. Usually, those careless, inked characters end up covered in molten ink lava, but occasionally, they manage to escape.

The really lucky ones get rescued just in the nick of time by a stick hero who bears a striking resemblance to Charlton Heston.

On the very best days, Karen and I visit a forbidding and momentous pile of dirt in the woods, pushed there years ago when Grandpap cleared the land. Grass and bendy saplings have overtaken this place, and I think it’s shaped somewhat like the head of a rattlesnake. But Karen sees right away that it’s really more monster-like. She christens it Monster Head, and it’s immediately obvious that Monster Head is the perfect name for such a hideout. Karen plays there almost every day, and I play too. We pull plants up by their roots and hang them on tree branches. These roots sustain us during hard times like blizzards or earthquakes or invasion by vicious, wild dogs who cleverly disguise themselves as aging, limping beagles named Pancho and Alexander.

New disasters wait around every corner when Karen is in charge. You never know what’s going to happen next. Sometimes the whole world floods, and Monster Head is the only boat left anywhere, and there’s not a single hi-fi nor television antenna left on Earth.

And in times like these, it’s good to have Karen at the helm.

Copyright © 2015 Anne Goetz. All Rights Reserved.

Sweet Cold of Winter Available on Kindle

AnneLeave a comment

kindlecover

Available today for Amazon Kindle.

Small towns hide big secrets.

When tourists discover the body of seasoned hiker James Fremont at the bottom of Scarface Mountain Trail, Sheriff Jacob Knight immediately suspects foul play. Fremont died with an engagement ring in his pocket and enough supplies to last two people for several days, yet there’s no evidence of a woman at his abandoned campsite.

Worse — Fremont’s girlfriend, local cougar Denise Langerkamp — won’t admit they were ever a couple.

Denise has already moved on, her next target a scarred young man named Dack Ashkettle.

From the moment he first meets her, Dack is certain he loves Denise, but he’s about to find out — sometimes, loving the wrong woman can be murder.

Get your copy of Sweet Cold of Winter today.

 

Death in June Giveaway

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Hey Guys! There’s another giveaway up and running, and it’s full-sized books again! Those are the best kind because they don’t tease you with ten percent of the book and then leave you hanging.

Nope nope nope.

When you click on over to Death in June, you’ll get instant access to 34 mystery/thrillers from up-and-coming new authors who just might end up being the next Stephen King or Patricia Cornwell.

And you can say you read them when!

All books are complete in their entirety. All are free when you sign up to receive the author’s newsletter.

So what are you waiting for? Go get ’em 🙂

I did!

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Flood Damage in Ashkettle Country

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It’s another rainy Wednesday here in Ashkettle country. In fact, we’ve had a lot of rainy Wednesdays here this spring. Here’s the proof!

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These are images of the Potomac River where it runs near Hancock, MD, and of Little Tonoloway Creek that runs through Widmeyer Park in Hancock. There was only minor flooding in this area this time around, and the water had receded by mid-afternoon the next day, but areas south of us were hit much harder. Schools were closed in some areas, and roads were washed away.

It’s 7:40 am here today, and the sun is shining 🙂