Darkroom by Joshua Graham
Published By: Simon & Schuster/Howard Books
Release Date: May 1, 2012
Format: Paperback - 386 pages / Kindle - 1238 KB / Nook - 2 MB
ISBN: 1451654693
ASIN: B005FLODPC
Genre: Mystery / Suspense / Thriller
About The Author:
WINNER OF 2011 INTERNATIONAL BOOK AWARDS, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble #1 bestselling author Joshua Graham's novel Beyond Justice is taking the world by storm, one reader at a time. Many of his readers blame him for sleepless nights, arriving to work late, neglected dishes and family members, and not allowing them to put the book down.
Suspense Magazine listed Beyond Justice in its BEST OF 2010, alongside titles by Scott Turow, Ted Dekker, Steven James and Brad Thor.
His short story The Door's Open won the HarperCollins Authonomy Competition (Christmas 2010).
Publisher's Weekly described Beyond Justice as: "A riveting legal thriller ... breaking new ground with a vengeance ... demonically entertaining and surprisingly inspiring."
Joshua Graham grew up in Brooklyn, NY where he lived for the better part of 30 years. He holds a Bachelor and Master's Degree and went on to earn his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. During his time in Maryland, he taught as a professor at Shepherd College (WV), Western Maryland College, and Columbia Union College (MD).
Today he lives with his beautiful wife and children in Southern California. Several of Graham's short fiction works have been published by Pocket Books and Dawn Treader Press.
Writing under the pen name Ian Alexander, Graham debuted with his first Epic Fantasy novel Once We Were Kings, an Amazon #1 Bestseller in multiple categories and Award-Winning Finalist in the SciFi/Fantasy category of The USA "Best Books 2011" Awards, as well as an Award-Winning Finalist in the Young Adult Fiction category of The USA "Best Books 2011" Awards, and an Award Winner in the 2011 Forward National Literary Awards in the Teen/Young Adult category. Once We Were Kings is available in ebook and hardcover editions.
His next Suspense/Thriller novel, Darkroom (Simon & Schuster/Howard Books) was released on May 1, 2012.
BUY THE BOOK: Darkroom
Disclaimer: I received the book from the author's publisher in exchange for my honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event.
Virtual Book Tour Event: On Wednesday, June 20, 2012, in association with Pump Up Your Book! Virtual Book Publicity Tours, author Joshua Graham participated in a virtual book tour event with an Author Guest Post on Jersey Girl Book Reviews.
Book Description:
After scattering her mother's ashes in Vietnam, photojournalist Xandra Carrick comes home to New York to rebuild her life and career. When she experiences supernatural visions that reveal atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers during the Vietnam War, she finds herself entangled in a forty-year conspiracy that could bring the nation into political turmoil.
Launching headlong into a quest to learn the truth from her father, Peter Carrick, a Pulitzer Prize Laureate who served as an embedded photographer during the war, Xandra confronts him about a dark secret he has kept - one that has devastated their family.
Her investigations lead her to her departed mother's journal, which tell of love, spiritual awakening, and surviving the fall of Saigon.
Pursued across the continent, Xandra comes face-to-face with powerful forces that will stop at nothing to prevent her from revealing the truth. But not before government agencies arrest her for murder, domestic terrorism and an assassination attempt on the newly elected President of the United States.
Darkroom is a riveting tale of suspense that tears the covers off the human struggle for truth in a world imprisoned by lies.
My Book Review:
Xandra Carrick is an award winning photojournalist for the New York Times. At the age of twenty-seven, she's following in the footsteps of her father, Peter Carrick, a Pulitzer Prize photojournalist who was embedded with the US Army in Vietnam during the war.
Xandra and Peter travel to her mother's birthplace, Vietnam, to honor her dying wish by scattering her ashes. While in Vietnam, Xandra takes pictures using an old camera that Peter had used during the Vietnam War. Upon returning home to New York, she develops the film and sees disturbing paranormal visions of images of death. Stunned by the visions, she uses the camera to take pictures at a local park near her apartment. When she develops the pictures from the park, she sees a body in the pond, so she calls the police to report what she saw in her pictures, but she finds herself arrested for the murder of a young woman, a student at Juilliard. Out on bail, Xandra leaves NY for California in search of answers to the disturbing visions that she saw in the pictures, and she knows that the answers can only come from her father. Can Xandra solve the mystery behind the disturbing visions from Vietnam? Was her father part of a conspiracy while he was stationed in Vietnam? Can she prove that she is innocent of the murder she is accused of, or will someone stop her from revealing the secrets and truth that have long been buried?
Darkroom is a riveting political mystery suspense thriller that will have the reader sitting on the edge of their seat. The story is set in alternating time periods between the present and flashbacks to the Vietnam War, and intriguingly narrated with alternating first person perspectives by different characters. With vivid descriptive scenes and attention to detail, the author transports the reader back to the historic Vietnam War era of political conspiracies, lies and deceptions, atrocities and horrors of war, murder and paranormal happenings.
The author provides a cast of realistic, complex, strong and intriguing variety of characters, and masterly interweaves their individual stories into one heck of a compelling and powerful story. These characters are downright fascinating, and I thought that their varying narrative perspectives provided a realistic element to the storyline.
This intense fast paced suspense thriller is jammed packed with enough action, intrigue, twists and turns that will keep the reader captivated, holding their breath and guessing until the surprising conclusion. If you fancy an intense political thriller with a mixture of family discord and romance thrown in, then Darkroom is the novel for you!
RATING: 5 STARS *****
Xandra and Peter travel to her mother's birthplace, Vietnam, to honor her dying wish by scattering her ashes. While in Vietnam, Xandra takes pictures using an old camera that Peter had used during the Vietnam War. Upon returning home to New York, she develops the film and sees disturbing paranormal visions of images of death. Stunned by the visions, she uses the camera to take pictures at a local park near her apartment. When she develops the pictures from the park, she sees a body in the pond, so she calls the police to report what she saw in her pictures, but she finds herself arrested for the murder of a young woman, a student at Juilliard. Out on bail, Xandra leaves NY for California in search of answers to the disturbing visions that she saw in the pictures, and she knows that the answers can only come from her father. Can Xandra solve the mystery behind the disturbing visions from Vietnam? Was her father part of a conspiracy while he was stationed in Vietnam? Can she prove that she is innocent of the murder she is accused of, or will someone stop her from revealing the secrets and truth that have long been buried?
Darkroom is a riveting political mystery suspense thriller that will have the reader sitting on the edge of their seat. The story is set in alternating time periods between the present and flashbacks to the Vietnam War, and intriguingly narrated with alternating first person perspectives by different characters. With vivid descriptive scenes and attention to detail, the author transports the reader back to the historic Vietnam War era of political conspiracies, lies and deceptions, atrocities and horrors of war, murder and paranormal happenings.
The author provides a cast of realistic, complex, strong and intriguing variety of characters, and masterly interweaves their individual stories into one heck of a compelling and powerful story. These characters are downright fascinating, and I thought that their varying narrative perspectives provided a realistic element to the storyline.
This intense fast paced suspense thriller is jammed packed with enough action, intrigue, twists and turns that will keep the reader captivated, holding their breath and guessing until the surprising conclusion. If you fancy an intense political thriller with a mixture of family discord and romance thrown in, then Darkroom is the novel for you!
RATING: 5 STARS *****
Thank you Joshua for the opportunity to read, review and host a virtual book tour event for Darkroom. I loved the book, couldn't put it down! :)
ReplyDelete