ABNA reviews

So, my dear readers, here are the three reviews I got during this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition for my novel, The Last Tontine Survivor. I made it to the quarterfinals but was eliminated before the semifinal round.

They are generally good reviews, although I assume the PW review just wasn't strong enough to get me into the semifinal round.

More later.

Thanks for reading and keep writing. I certainly am.

ABNA Expert Reviewer

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

I think both the plot and Rachel, the main character, are the strongest aspects of this excerpt. So far, this is a very interesting plot (I haven't seen or heard anything quite like it before) and it has definitely piqued my interest. And I like Rachel - she is a thoughtful friend and a loving niece and granddaughter. She is obviously smart too. Overall, she is very well rounded and fleshed out. Her grandfather seems to be one of those crafty old coots (and I mean that in a totally fun way!) who says one thing ("yes, dear, I'm going to have just a plain, unbuttered bran muffin for breakfast...") and then secretly swipes a donut or two and goes off to eat them in private. I don't know much about him yet, but I think I would end up loving that old man before this story ended.

What aspect needs the most work?

Honestly, I can't really see any area that I think needs work. So far, I like everything about this excerpt. The plot moves along nicely and the characters are well drawn. This excerpt held my interest and actually left me wanting more.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

I loved it. I like Rachel a lot and I have the feeling the grandfather would end up being just as likeable and well drawn as she is. The author put a good amount of detail in the story, not too much and not too little and the plot moves along with good momentum. I enjoyed reading this excerpt and was a little disappointed that it had to end.

ABNA Expert Reviewer

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

Fast paced with good action. Rachel is different and likeable. Nice writing.

What aspect needs the most work?

The use of two similar names, Fleishman/Weisman was confusing. Holocaust stories about purloined good and missing fortune and Nazi conspirators running rampant are not terribly original.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

This was an effective excerpt with an unusual heroine. Although the Holocaust/missing fortune/ psycho Nazi spawn lines are tired and tiresome, this one brings a fresh perspective. I would read more.

ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer

In a work that admirably adds more layers as it goes along, this novel tracks the troubling murder of Holocaust survivor Howard Fleischman in downtown Indianapolis by a couple of thugs related to (supposedly now deceased) Nazi Gestapo chief Henrich Muller. Uncle Howard and his father, Julius, now 95 and a longtime resident of New York City, were the last surviving members of a German-Jewish financial group whose purpose was “to siphon money out of Gestapo accounts and transfer them to Swiss banking accounts.” With Uncle Howard’s mysterious death, and Grandpa Julius disappeared upstate, his competent, comely 32-year-old granddaughter, antiques attorney Rachel, gets to sort out the perplexing ramifications of this war-time group with help from her problematic boyfriend, Paul, and a drop-dead gorgeous police officer, Ellington Hughes. (His description as “tall and broad-shouldered like LL Cool J, bald and square-jawed like Taye Diggs, had a deep baritone voice like the late actor Michael Duncan, and the smile and totally commanding presence of Denzel Washington” reveals occasional cringing characterizations.) Happily, nothing is quite what it seems in this valiant work, from the youth resistance movement named Edelweis that Julius and others had been members of, to Paul’s secret ties to the Israeli Mossad, to Rachel’s half-black, half-Jewish parentage. It's a little uneven, but promising and surprising enough to keep readers going.