Title: Fall of Knight
Author: Steven Cross
Genre: YA psychological thriller
Publisher: Booktrope Publishing
BOOK REVIEW
*Maya's Review*
I have to say this is not my usual fare, but sometimes I like to delve into thrillers and this is one well written mind-bender. The story is about a young person battling mental problems as well as real life ones in the form of bullies.
I can't say I know a lot about bipolar or other personality disorders but this author does a good job in painting a picture that is both vivid and realistic. I got drawn to the narrator and rooted for him against everything the bullies and the monsters in his mind. I understood what it felt like to be the one standing outside the crowd as a young person. The author captures the life of young people quite well.
As I said already, this is well written and will appeal to anyone who enjoy a good old thriller.
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Synopsis:
A normal teenager Dean Knight is not.
With a mental illness that threatens to take over his sanity; a sister who’s deep in her own problems; and a wasted mother who couldn’t care less about it all, Dean is left to battle real life on his own. School, bullies and medications are his realities.
Then there are also the ghosts, the hallucinations and of course – the monster.
In the middle of it all, when everything seems to lose purpose, hope comes shining down on Dean’s miserable life. Her name is Ella and for one reason or another, she actually wants to be close to Dean. With Ella’s help, the lost teenage boy decides that he could finally win a battle or two – both in real life and in his writing.
But hope is a tricky thing. And the monster seems to know that.
When secrets buried down for almost a decade come out in the open, what do you do?
B&N: http://bit.ly/1IcLeO9
iTunes: http://apple.co/1xLjDQl
Excerpt:
Ella’s face flushes, and her eyes twitch. I feel as if my senses have become hypersensitive and I can see everything that’s going on with her body. Maybe I did listen more than I thought when my speech teacher was talking about nonverbal communication.
“His sister and my brother are kind of dating,” Ella says, “so I hang out some with Dean. Mom won’t let my brother and his sister be alone, so she insists I tag along.”
“Bet your brother loves that.” Dr. King laughs. He doesn’t see that Ella is playing him. She’s calm again. “Lots of caves along that river, I hear,” Dr. King says.
“Yes, there are. My dad says―well, said―that Indians used to use them as shelters.”
“They lived in them, especially the ones close to water.” Dr. King pauses and studies Ella for a moment. “So tell me about the skeleton in the cave.”
If his purpose is to make Ella flinch, Dr. King fails. Instead, she gives him a puzzled look.
“Skeleton?”
“The one with its skull bashed in.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ella says.
I feel as if I’m going to vomit. Dr. King looks at her. “The one you and Dean found. The one he says is his dad’s body.”
I puke in the nearest trash can. Marcus comes into the room.
“Have you been reading some of Dean’s stories?” Ella asks.
“He has a story like that?”
“Yes,” Ella says. “He let me read it.”
“Why would Dean be writing a story like that?”
“I’m not sure, really. I know we explored some of the caves, and we’ve looked for some arrowheads and stuff. I told Dean that sometimes the Indians buried their dead family members in the little side chambers. One of the caves we looked at had a small room on the side of the main cavern. Dean wanted to dig it up, but I wouldn’t do it. I told him Indians believe that if you disturb their graves their spirits wander around restlessly.”
I want to scream at Ella through the glass. I want to call her a lying bitch. I want to break through the glass and shake some sense into her, but Marcus watches me closely.
“Dean wrote a story about his dad being murdered and stashed in a cave. It was pretty weird, and I told him so. I don’t think he went to his dad’s funeral, and he’s never really accepted the fact that he drowned.”
“She’s lying,” I tell Marcus. “I did see him. I—” I shut up when Marcus gives me that, Dude, you are so fucking crazy look.
“Hang on for just a second, Ella. I want to bring in Dean’s mom to see if she can confirm something for me.”
He goes to the door and calls out something I can’t quite hear because my heart is thrumming and my demon is growling in low hushed tones inside my head.
Steven Cross:
Steve Cross’s first successful writing project was a play about a werewolf that his eighth grade English class performed. Though the play was never published, the warm fuzzy feeling from its public performance has never quite left Cross, who continues to sink his teeth into a variety of writing projects. His first publication was a haiku, followed by two middle grade novels published by POD publishers and a young adult novel published by Buck’s County Publishing.
A fanatical St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan; a lover of all kinds of YA fiction, as well as the writings of Dean Koontz and Stephen King; a fan of all kinds of music – from Abba to the Zac Brown band, Cross dreams of the day he will write a best-selling novel or sell a screenplay for seven figures, so he can retire and write more best-selling fiction. Until that day, he and his wife Jean, Missourians born and bred, will continue to toil in the field of education and live in peace with their two dogs and two cats and wait around until their daughter Megan and son-in-law Sean give them grandchildren to spoil.
Social Media links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/
Website: http://thecrossesblog.
Giveaway:
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