In association with Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours, Jersey Girl Book Reviews is pleased to host the virtual book tour event for The Deadening by author Kerry Peresta!
Book Review
The Deadening by Kerry Peresta
Book 1: Olivia Callahan Suspense Series
Publisher: Level Best Books
Publication Date: February 23, 2021
Format: Paperback - 310 pages
Kindle - 3893 KB
Nook - 7 MB
ISBN: 978-1953789358
ASIN: B08SVKLMZ8
BNID: 978-1953789365
Genre: Psychological Suspense
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Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author / publisher via Net Galley in exchange for my honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours.
Book Description:
Olivia Callahan's quiet, orderly life is shattered when she regains consciousness in a hospital and discovers she is paralyzed and cannot remember a thing. The fragmented voices she hears around her help her piece together that an apparent assault landed her in the hospital, but nobody knows who attacked her, or why.
Now, in spite of a brain injury that has rewired her personality, Olivia is on a mission to reclaim her life. As clarity surfaces, and she starts to understand who she was, she is shocked.
Could she really have been that person?
And if so, does she want her old life back?
Praise:
“A gripping read populated by likable characters. Peresta draws us into a colorful detailed world and makes us care what happens to the people living in it. We root for Olivia as she struggles to regain her memory, her bearings, and the identity she lost long before her injury. Excellent!”
– Susan Crawford, Internationally bestselling author of The Pocket Wife and The Other Widow.
“The Deadening is a captivating psychological suspense novel that will have you holding your breath with each turn of the page. Peresta has created a world chock-full of characters who are dynamic and unforgettable, for better or worse. Hold onto your seat.”
– Clay Stafford, bestselling author and founder of Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference
Book Excerpt:
Prologue
The stiff bristles of the brush grew coppery as he scrubbed back and forth, back and forth. Wrinkling his nose at the smell, he groped for the mask he’d bought, looped it over his head, and snugged it into place.
He dipped the brush in the red-tinged solution in a blue, plastic bowl beside him on the floor, and continued scrubbing. Fifteen minutes later, he emptied the bowl down the toilet and shoved everything he’d used into a trash bag. He fought to staunch the bile creeping up his windpipe, but his throat constricted and he gagged. After retching into the sink, he turned on the faucet and splashed water on his face. Paused to take deep breaths. He could do this. He had to do this. He gripped the edge of the counter and stared out the bathroom window.
She’d not told anyone. Thank God for that. No one could know. No one would ever know. He’d make sure.
He walked to his garage, opened his car trunk, tossed in the latest trash bag. His hands felt icy. He rubbed them together, wiggled his fingers, and slammed the trunk shut.
Admittedly, her terror had excited him. Confusion. Dawning realization in her expression. His lips curved upward into a smile, then disintegrated. Reliving it didn’t change anything. He needed to move forward.
He returned and studied the carpet. In spite of his efforts, the stain still needed work. He cursed, dropped to his knees, and pounded the dampness with a fist.
Through a veil of fatigue, he watched in horror as the kidney-shaped stain stood and pointed an accusatory finger at him. He blinked, hard. Was he hallucinating? How long had he been without sleep? He crabbed backwards, leaned against the wall, pulled his knees to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them some moments later, the blood-apparition had disappeared.
He groaned.
He stared at the ceiling until his brain spit out a solution.
The problem lay in the other room. That’s how he looked at her now.
A problem to solve.
He rose from the floor and walked out.
His eyes slid from her pale face, down her form, to her feet. He no longer thought of her as warm, soft, desirable. She had been so scared…eyes wide and unblinking as she fell. He shook his head and pushed the image away.
Nesting her in towels so her blood wouldn’t pool on the couch, her bronze-sandaled feet with their shiny, pink toenails hung over the edge. He looked away. “Get a grip, man. Just do it.”
The towels fell away when he picked her up. He wound them back around her, careful to tuck in the edges. His heartbeat slammed his ribs.
She was fragile, a little bit of a thing, like a bird. He drew his index finger across her lips. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “If you had just…if you had only…” His voice trailed away. Jaw clenched, he carried her to his car.
Chapter One
Nathan ambled along sidewalks that wound through the manicured hospital grounds, fishing in his pocket for a lighter. He lit the cigarette dangling from his lips and inhaled deeply, his smile saturated with nicotine’s unholy bliss.
“Thank God,” he mumbled around the cigarette, and withdrew it from his lips, stretching. He glanced over his shoulder at the brightly lit ER entrance to Mercy Hospital, rubbing his neck. He rolled his shoulders, inhaled several deep drags from the cigarette, dropped it, and ground it beneath his shoe. “These night shifts are killing me.” He groaned and gazed at the sky. Clouds hid a full moon. He’d been grateful to get the med tech job, but after two months of bodily fluid testing and storage, he was bored. He needed a challenge.
Nathan followed his typical route through the hedged lawn, almost on auto-pilot, so when he stumbled and sprawled onto the grass face-first, he was stunned. What had tripped him? Cursing softly, he explored his cheeks, nose, forehead. No damage done that he could tell. “Klutz,” he berated himself, pushing up to hands and knees.
Something soft and warm lay beneath his palms. His breathing sped up. He looked down, but it was too dark to see. Trembling, his fingers inched their way to lips, nose, eyes, stiff knots of hair. His mouth dropped in horror. The clouds obligingly slid off the moon and revealed a woman’s body, her hair blood-matted, her face ghostly white. The grass around her head was rusty with blood. He edged his head toward her lips to check her breathing. Shallow, but at least she was alive.
He scrambled to his feet, fighting nausea and staring at his palms, sticky with the woman’s blood. Shrieking for help, he raced into the hospital and skidded to a stop in front of the desk. The ER nurses behind the reception desk squinted at him like he was deranged.
“Possible head injury!” He flailed an arm at the entrance. “Someone, anyone, come quick!”
A male nurse and two aides followed him outside, shoes pounding the sidewalk at full gallop. The tech stopped, turned, and signaled them to tread carefully as they parted ways with the sidewalk and navigated the shrubbery in the dark. Single file, panting, they tiptoed through the shadows until the tech raised a palm for them to stop.
“Here,” he hissed at the nurse, and held a point like a bird dog.
The nurse dropped to the ground and clicked a flashlight on. “Ohmigosh,” he whispered. He lifted the woman’s thin, pale wrist and glanced at his watch. Satisfied that she had a pulse, he slapped the flashlight into Nathan’s bloodied palm. “Stay with her!” He rushed inside.
Within minutes, looky-loos poured from the ER and clustered around the limp form.
“Move back!” Nathan stretched out his arms like a cop directing traffic. “She’s barely breathing!” His glanced nervously at the ER entrance.
The crowd didn’t yield an inch. The ER doors whooshed open. A stretcher clattered down the sidewalk and onto the dew-damp grass. Chills shivered up the tech’s spine as the ashen pallor of death climbed from the woman’s neck to her face. He dropped to the ground and picked up her hand. The paramedic team drew closer, their flashlights piercing the darkness with slivers of light. The crowd eased apart to let them through.
Nathan bent closer to the woman, and whispered, “Hang in there. Help is on the way.”
The stretcher slid to a stop beside him. The paramedics dropped to their knees, stabilized the woman’s head with a brace, staunched the bleeding, and wrapped the wound. They eased her onto the stretcher and rumbled away. The aides shared nervous smiles of relief. They looked at Nathan, then followed the paramedic team back inside.
Nathan, his heartbeat finally slowing, called, “Thanks for the assist, guys!” as they walked away.
The crowd dispersed with curious glances at Nathan, who watched until the group disappeared behind the ER’s double glass doors. He heaved a sigh of relief and swiped perspiration off his forehead. He patted his scrubs pocket for a cigarette, reconsidered, and trotted toward the ER entrance.
After the automatic doors parted, he jogged past two closed-door exam rooms and paused at a third, wide open. He looked inside.
The paramedics shared their observations with the ER doctor on call as he deftly explored the woman’s wounds. When he finished, he nodded, barked instructions, and pointed at the bed. In seconds, the woman’s transfer from stretcher to bed was complete. One of the nurses whisked a blood pressure cuff around her arm. Another hooked an IV bag to a chrome stand, pierced the skin on the back of the woman’s hand, slid in a needle, and taped it down.
The tech stepped back from the door to allow the paramedics to exit. Holding his breath, he stole into the room and crept past a floor-to-ceiling supply cabinet. He planted both palms onto the smooth, white walls behind him and inched sideways, melting into the corner next to a shelf holding tongue depressors, a box of plastic gloves, and a sanitizer dispenser.
“Pulse one-fifteen.” The nurse studied the blood pressure cuff. “Blood pressure eight-five over fifty.”
“Need a trach,” the doctor barked. “She’s bleeding out. Get some O neg in here.”
A blur of motion, two nurses and the ER doctor huddled around the woman’s body. When they stepped back, a laryngoscope, an endotracheal tube, and four sticky electric nodes leading to a cardiac monitor had been secured.
The medical team stilled, their eyes riveted to the monitors. The nurses wore sage green scrubs. Both had pink stethoscopes around their necks. The ER doctor had on a crisp, white jacket with his name scripted in black on the pocket. Nathan fidgeted and stuck his head out from the corner a little to focus on the screens.
The readings sputtered, stalled, plummeted.
“Code Blue!” The doctor spun around. A nurse jumped to the wall and slapped a flat, white square on the wall.
“Code Blue!” echoed through the ER’s intercom system. Frantic footsteps in the hall. Shouted instructions. Clanging metal. Squealing wheels. Nathan squeezed farther into the corner as the cart bearing life-saving electronic shock equipment exploded through the door.
“Brain must be swelling,” the doctor mumbled. He grabbed two paddles and swiped them together. “Clear!”
The woman’s body jolted. The doctor’s head jerked to the cardiac monitor. Flat.
“Clear!” He placed the paddles on the woman’s chest.
Her frail torso arced. The machine blipped an erratic cadence, then droned a steady hum.
The doctor cursed. “Clear!”
Another jolt. The monitor surged, sagged, then settled into a reassuring metronome blip. Tense faces relaxed. Applause spattered around the room.
The doctor blew out a long breath. “Okay, people, good job.” He smiled.
Within minutes, more lines snaked from the woman’s form. An orogastric tube drooped from the corner of her mouth, behind the intubation tube. A lead to measure brain waves clung to her forehead. The doctor studied each monitor in turn. Nathan let out the breath he’d been holding, slid down the wall into a crouch, and balanced on the balls of his feet.
“Any additional instructions, Doctor Bradford?” Brows raised, the nurse waited.
He rubbed his head thoughtfully. “Think she’s stable for now. CAT scan already ordered?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Tell them to expedite.” He cocked his head at the woman. “May be a long night. Watch her closely.” The doctor strode to the door, paused, and turned. He glanced at the tech huddled in the corner. “Good job, son.”
Nathan grinned and rose from his crouch, his chest puffed out a little. He’d never saved a life before. After a sympathetic glance at Mercy Hospital’s latest Jane Doe, he returned to the lab.
***
Excerpt from The Deadening by Kerry Peresta. Copyright 2021 by Kerry Peresta. Reproduced with permission from Kerry Peresta. All rights reserved.
My Book Review:
In The Deadening, the first book in the Olivia Callahan Suspense Series, author Kerry Peresta weaves a suspenseful tale that follows the challenges that Olivia Callahan faces as she puts the pieces of her life back together after a traumatic assault.
Olivia is found with a serious head injury by a med tech on the grounds of Mercy Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. Comatose, blind, with a traumatic brain injury, and paralyzed, Olivia doesn't have any identification on her, and is classified as a Jane Doe, until her nurse sees a missing person report on the television six days later. Olivia is considered Mercy's Miracle when she regains consciousness and begins the journey of recovering, but she doesn't have any memory of her past. Olivia is determined to reclaim her life, but as her memories return via triggers that prompt flashbacks, Olivia is surprised by the way she had lived in the past, and with the help of Richmond Detective Hunter Faraday, they are determined to find the person behind the assault, and deal with the tangled web of deceit from her past that surfaces along the way.
Author Kerry Peresta weaves an intriguing and suspenseful tale set in the alternating locales of Richmond, Virginia, and Glyndon, Maryland, that follows Olivia Callahan on her quest to reclaim her life after a vicious assault left her with a traumatic brain injury, and no memory of her past. You can't help but get drawn into Olivia's story as she gives a realistic depiction of the challenges she faced as she puts her life back together.
Told in the present time and interwoven with flashbacks to her past, the reader gets to know Olivia as her memories return via triggers. Olivia is no longer the person she used to be, and with the help of Detective Faraday, she wants to find the person who caused the assault, and move on with her life.
The story has a great mixture of drama and suspense that keeps the reader engaged and guessing what will become of Olivia's quest to reclaim her life, and how she resolves the tangled web of deceit from her past. Olivia's journey is filled with grit, emotions, family drama, deceit, heartbreak, and realistic trials and tribulations, you can't help but cheer Olivia on as she discovers what person she wants to be going forward. I look forward to reading the next book in the Olivia Callahan Suspense Series.
The Deadening is a riveting and suspenseful story that you won't be able to put down.
RATING: 5 STARS
About The Author
Kerry Peresta’s publishing credits include a popular newspaper column, “The Lighter Side,” 2009-2011; and magazine articles in Local Life Magazine, The Bluffton Breeze, Lady Lowcountry, and Island Events Magazine. She is the author of two novels,
The Hunting, women’s fiction, released by Pen-L Publishing in 2013, and
The Deadening, released in February, 2021 by Level Best Books, the first in the
Olivia Callahan Suspense series. She spent twenty-five years in advertising as an account manager, creative director, and copywriter. She is past chapter president of the Maryland Writers’ Association and a current member and presenter of Hilton Head Island Writers’ Network, and the Sisters in Crime organization. Recently, she worked as editor and contributor for Island Communications, a local publishing house. Kerry and her husband moved to Hilton Head six years ago. She is the mother of four adult children, and has a bunch of wonderful grandkids who keep life interesting and remind her what life is all about.
Contest Giveaway
Win A $20 Amazon Gift Card
This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Kerry Peresta. There will be 1 winner of one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card.
The giveaway begins on April 1, 2021 and runs through May 2, 2021. Void where prohibited.
Virtual Book Tour
Tour Participants:
04/01 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
04/02 Guest post @ Novels Alive
04/02 Showcase @ The Book Divas Reads
04/04 Interview @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
04/05 Guest post @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
04/05 Showcase @ The Reading Frenzy
04/06 Review @ Margaret Yelton
04/07 Review @ nanasbookreviews
04/08 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
04/09 Interview @ CMash Reads
04/12 Review @ Books and Zebras @ jypsylynn
04/14 Review @ Quirky Cats Fat Stacks
04/14 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
04/15 Interview/podcast @ Blogtalk radio
04/15 Review @ Just Reviews
04/15 Review @ Novels Alive
04/16 Guest post @ Nesies Place
04/17 Review @ Cheryls Book Nook
04/18 Showcase @ EienCafe
04/19 Interview @ BooksChatter
04/20 Showcase @ Im Into Books
04/21 Review @ Book Reviews by Nikki H. Rose
04/22 Review @ The World As I See It
04/23 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
04/23 Showcase @ Books to the Ceiling
04/24 Showcase @ Brooke Blogs
04/25 Review @ rozierreadsandwine
04/26 Review @ The Book Review Crew
04/27 Review @ Spookys Maze Of Books
04/29 Review/showcase @ The Bookwyrm
