30 Authors in 30 Days is a first of its kind event aimed at connecting readers, bloggers, and authors. Hosted by yours truly, this month-long event takes place during September and features 30 authors discussing their favorite recent reads on 30 different blogs. There are also some great prizes provided by GoneReading.com and BookJigs. For the full schedule of participating authors and bloggers, visit the main event page or join the Facebook group. You can also follow along on Twitter with the #30Authors hashtag!
Note: Jenny Milchman is the first author on the tour because a few months ago, she approached me with an idea for an event that would help build a community of readers, bloggers, and authors. I took her idea and ran with it, and the result is #30Authors! I hope you enjoy it!
Author Jenny Milchman on Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Koryta
Do you remember that scene in the movie Witness where a terribly young Lukas Haas is in the bathroom of the train station, looking out from behind a stall door? Remember how clever we found that kid, who by being there sets off a series of events potentially more deadly than the murder he sees?
Those Who Wish Me Dead, Michael Koryta’s most masterful novel yet, takes a similar scenario and twists it. And turns it. And makes it into something we’ve never seen.
Jace Wilson is fourteen when he witnesses the event that will change his life. But his life needs changing anyway. In addition to wrangling with the identity woes and insecurity of adolescence, Jace’s relationship with his mother is plagued by distance, and his social life is something of a wreck.
Of course, the Blackwell brothers will put any such strife into perspective.
The Blackwell brothers are the bad guys in this thriller, and their evil runs like the cold, dark lake into which Jace sinks himself after witnessing the brutal murder the brothers commit. Jace gets away. That time.
But the reach the brothers have is great enough that even witness protection won’t keep Jace safe. Enter Ethan Serbin, a wilderness survival expert. Summers, Ethan brings a troupe of ne’er do well boys AKA at risk kids into the Montana mountains and hopes that lessons learned in the outdoors will translate into turnarounds back home. Jace is to be one of the boys, and no one, including Ethan, will know which one he is.
It sounds like a good plan, but in the mountains, the stakes are higher when things go wrong, and in this novel, pretty much everything does. Koryta creates the most soulless pair of killers I’ve seen in a while, and we come to know them intimately as they stalk Jace and Ethan and the rest of the Lost Boys through the woods.
Like the rest of Koryta’s work, Those Who Wish Me Dead is one part thriller, one part story about losing our way as human beings, then trying to find it again. Along for the ride, and ultimately enlisting as kamikaze, is Hannah Faber, a fire fighter who was responsible for a battle that went wrong and has never quite come out of the flames.
What’s wonderful about this book is that as harrowing as its events are, they all make a sort of sense. The best crime fiction today does that, and I believe it’s why we gravitate toward it. Not because the author ties everything up with a neat, flossy bow; Koryta would never be so cowardly.
But if we are going to take such a deadly journey, then we want to know there was a reason for it. Something that couldn’t be accomplished with a lesser tale. Koryta makes those who sometimes feel lost—and who among us doesn’t—believe that there just might be a reason for being on this journey.
About Jenny Milchman:
Jenny Milchman is the Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author of Cover of Snow, and the follow up, Ruin Falls. She is currently on the road on what Shelf Awareness calls the world’s longest book tour, and finds all her recent reads at local bookstores.
Interested in Those Who Wish Me Dead? You can learn about Michael Koryta by liking him on Facebook or visit his website. Or, you can purchase the book now on Amazon or Barnes N Noble. You can also learn more about Jenny Milchman by liking her on Facebook, following her on Twitter @jennymilchman, or purchasing their book from Amazon or Barnes N Noble.