With Will Dean’s The Last Thing to Burn one of my favourite reads of 2021 so far (my review of which you’ll find here) I simply couldn’t resist breaking my self imposed blog tour ban to participate in this one for Will’s latest book Bad Apples. My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for […]
Bad Apples by Will Dean — Linda’s Book Bag
Today I’m pleased to welcome Brad Parks to the blog. Brad is the author of the Carter Ross series which includes The Good Cop and The Player and the standalone novel Say Nothing. His latest novel, Closer Than You Know was published by Faber and Faber on 15 March 2018.
Brad kindly answered a few of my questions.
1. Tell us a little about Closer Than You Know.
The premise is really quite simple: That no matter where you go in the developed world, there is an agency of government that has the authority to take people’s children from them; and that someone who understands that system could manipulate it to steal someone’s child. So we start with Melanie Barrick, a working mother, rushing away from her job to pick up her son at daycare—only to learn the child has been taken away by social services. And no one will…
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Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back, and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness.
There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman) who’s haunted by a family tragedy is looking for a partner.
Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact becomes more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting…
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I have to say, I don’t agree with the statement of the cover being unpretentious. It is absolutely a marketing triumph, as stated, but just like any other book this cover is cunningly designed to draw the eye with it’s alarming loud red, iconic typewriter image and the name of Tom Hanks all over it. It’s far from simplistic! The artwork and title are designed to appeal to all ages, those many thousands of readers and writers who are typewriter obsessed and will be magically drawn to anything linked to vintage typewriters. It also has a sixties look, which is very popular at this time with young and older readers.
So please, don’t be under any illusions this cover is in any way simplistic. It’s like any other cover, it loudly says ‘buy me!’
Despite the clever cover design, I’m still very interested to read this book of Tom Hanks short stories. If it’s as good as described here, I hope he goes on to write a lot more.
Let’s get this out of the way now, so I don’t have to mention it too much during the review of ‘Uncommon Type’. Yes, it’s Tom Hanks. The prolific, award winning, Oscar winning actor Tom Hanks. Yep, the person that voiced Woody in Toy Story, that’s him. You didn’t know he was a writer…well he is, and judging by ‘Uncommon Type’ he has a ‘BIG’ future (Ok I’ll stop dropping in the film titles now before I get carried away).
I wanted this review to focus on the man, the writer the typewriter enthusiast Tom Hanks; for him to be judged solely on his writing credentials and nothing else. I am a huge fan of Tom Hanks and it could be easy for me to float his ego with an outpouring of beautifully constructed sentences that tell you he’s the best writer ever…but I guess acting is a lot like…
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Another Kind Of Grass 