| Taken is Thriller for Women |
SEACOAST BOOKS
Kate Bickford's 11-year-old son Tomas was with her one moment. Then suddenly he was gone. The kidnapper, however, has no intention of returning Tomas. Kate strikes back by hiring an expert in child abduction. Then the action begins in what Publisher’s Weekly calls an "emotionally rewarding thriller" by a local Seacoast author.
READ interview with Rod Philbrick
"On a perfect day in the month of June, in a lovely field of green, my life starts falling apart. At five minutes after four in the afternoon, to be exact."
So opens the first-ever novel by Chris Jordan, who is not really Chris Jordan at all, but veteran author Rodman Philbrick of Kittery, Maine and Key West Florida. When we last spoke to Mr. Philbrick he was touring Alaska, Great Britain and Chile for his latest children’s books. Now the popular author of 40 books including "Freak the Mighty" has gone and jumped into a whole new world with a whole new publisher. Mira Books, a division of Harlequin, publishes "the brightest stars in fiction". This is action fiction for women and, according to a local librarian, TAKEN is exactly the kind of book that flies of the shelves in summer. Mira is counting on that and has launched a sizeable promotion for this "women in peril" genre that has Mr. Philbrick flying off to Florida this week to sign books and doing radio interviews across the USA.
This is not a major departure for Philbrick. Roughly half of his novels have been mysteries or action thrillers. And he has appeared under pseudonyms before. Taking the role of a female narrator, he says, is new, but not as difficult as one might imagine. Women readers, so far, have found this a compelling page-turner. The goal, from start to finish, is to re-unite the protagonist with her kidnapped son. The story, told with Philbrick’s practiced narrative, never lets up.
So far critics have been enthusiastic and book orders have been very promising. The author, meanwhile, is hard at work on his next project – when he’s not out fishing, that is. Philbrick fans will be happy to know he has recently begun his own author blog on Amazon.com. You can keep up with the author’s activities (assuming he keeps up) by clicking here.
TAKEN
By Chris Jordan (aka Rod Philbrick)
Mira Publishing
Retail hardcover price $21.95
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From the Publisher
No parent believes it can happen to them — their child taken from a suburban schoolyard in the gentle hours of dusk. But as widowed mother Kate Bickford discovers, everything can change in the blink of an eye. One minute her lanky, amazing, maddening Tommy is begging for ice cream. Then in a terrible instant, he's gone. Opening the door to her Connecticut home, hoping to find her son, Kate comes face-to-face with her son's abductor. He wants money. All she has. And if she doesn't follow something he calls The Method, the consequences will be gruesome. Her comfortable life collapses as precious seconds tick by, and Kate is horrified to uncover the terrible, world-shattering secret she and her son share with a killer who will stop at nothing.… ALSO by Rod Philbrick SeacoastNH Reader Response: MEN WRITING AS WOMEN
Writing female fiction from a man's prospective is not hard to do. I know I do it .It helps if you're married a long time, or at least living with a woman. You have to have some understanding of the Female persona. That does not come easy. It helps if you know the writing styles of some of today's leading female authors Like Ms Cornwell. One of the things that I try to remember is that a woman will do the same thing a man will do in certain situations, and in other situations she will not. I have to know which is which. I'll give you an example: If your heroine is a cop, soldier, firefighter she will think like a man She has to She is in a man's environment. If on the other hand she is a Nurse, doctor, homemaker or even a corporate head, she will and this is not written in stone think more like a woman. Every situation is different. Women adapt easier than we men. The one thing we male writers cannot do is to adopt an attitude that we understand how you ladies think in the bedroom. That is where we have tendency to fall on our face. That is where we have to tread lightly, but I'm leaving that right here. This latest thing that I'm writing concerns a woman in the high powered world of men like Donald Trump My character is similar, while somewhat less charismatic than he. My lead Female falls for him, and ultimately saves him. Any how I'll get this man's book, and read it
Paul McDermott US Army retired