MIRRORS OF ANGUISH by R.P. Kraul

Author's Creative Brand:
"Mirrors of Anguish"
Genre: Modern Classic Horror Noir
Length: 281 Pages
Immortal Ink Publishing 

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:
1.  World's Immersion:
Readers are transported like Jill, the writer protagonist of "Mirrors of Anguish," as fish-out-of-water' into the secluded town of Belcorte, nestled away in the Southern Catskills or Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania. A deliberate isolation like this, ought to be indication enough, that Readers are in for an especially tasty, macabre-odd ride.

The Author further isolates world elements to completely surround Readers in his own conjured mood of a throw-back, old-school haunting:  the snaking Indianhead River, the mythic Townsend House, the 'relic' county precinct, a chrome greasy-spoon known as Lila's Diner, Mount Nessler with the Jarvings' looming Georgian-style estate, or up to bleak Chelsing Asylum.  Readers will wander, clamber, shiver and soak, within all sorts of creepy environments.

The main world of our involvement, is inside of Jill's mystery-drenched, Victorian mansion, once owned by her infamous grandfather. In fact, events as they are unveiled, become quick realization to Readers, that this stage is set at ground-zero of a legendary, most monstrous dismemberment imaginable, to any human spirit...

AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR ERIKA ROBUCK

Author Bio:  ERIKA ROBUCK (@ErikaRobuck) is an avid reader and a book blogger specializing in Historical Fiction. She self-published her first novel RECEIVE ME FALLING.  Her novel HEMINGWAY'S GIRL was just released by NAL/Penguin, and will be followed by CALL ME ZELDA in 2013.  She is a member of The Hemingway Society and the Historical Novel Society.

1.  What was the galvanizing "Aha" or process in conceptualizing RECEIVE ME FALLING.  What compelled you to choose this one, as your debut novel?

E.R.:  It was a series of consecutive discoveries that compelled me to write this novel first.  I'd long been interested in the relationship of slavery to the present day, and was emotionally stirred by such works as Frederick Douglass' NARRATIVE IN THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SLAVE and Toni Morrison's BELOVED. When planning a trip to the Caribbean I started to research some of the "plantation inns" and was saddened that I didn't know more about slavery in the Caribbean, where so many men and women passed through on their way to the United States. I wanted to show readers that aspect of the terrible past of slavery, and explore its relevance to the present day.

RECEIVE ME FALLING by Erika Robuck

Author's Creative Brand:
"Receive Me Falling" 
Genre: Historical Fiction / Mystery / Literature
Length: 280 Pages
Elysian Fields Press 

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:

1.  World's Immersion:
“Nature is still in command here.” Erika Robuck uses a present-day frame for her first novel, to place Readers in a familiar world of modern Annapolis, Maryland, USA...but only as the jump-off point into the deep-end of a wilder journey. We are transported across an ocean of both physical space and historical Time to the island of Nevis, in the Caribbean, circa: early 1830's.

This present day journey arrives at an immense plantation once called Eden, and the ghost of a plantation house, standing mightily against the tropical majesty of its exotic backdrop.  This house, formerly owned by the Dalls who once ran the plantation, is now over-run by emerald vines which have grown in densely through the windows, completely overtaking the dining room walls, among other unknown spaces within.  Architectural cultivation dragged backward into a context of wild, organic imposition. “The night was never silent in Nevis.”  

The plantation house, as setting to our central story, has not been ransacked by the local culture which is collectively superstitious of disrupting ghosts of the past.  We, the Readers, are left with this delicious opening into a pristine, historical mystery of a time-capsule...and timeless issues of a deep, human gravity.