Go ahead, pick John Rector's sort-of debut novel “The Cold Kiss” up and chances are you'll find yourself flying through as the suspense builds and builds.
The disclaimer is needed since Rector released “The Grove” last year on Kindle. That novel will be out in hardcover in November. Back to his “debut.” From the opening scene, a diner outside of Red Oak, Iowa, to the pitch-perfect ending inside a Reno, Nev., casino, the novel speeds along at a dramatic clip befitting the snowstorm that sweeps through and causes major problems for Nate, the novel's narrator, and his pregnant fiancee, Sara.
The ending is the kind that, Rector himself admits, you'll either love or hate, no gray area. For this reviewer, it couldn't end any other way. Rector nails it, and you'll find yourself thinking back on the characters he's created.
There are plenty of gray areas within Rector's tale, nearly all of them centering around a suitcase full of cash and a dangerous loner's request for a ride to Omaha in exchange for $500.
Thriller and noir fans alike will find plenty to love with the 39-year-old Omahan's novel, released this month by Forge.
Rector's didn't take the traditional path to publication. The Colorado native secured an agent but was having trouble finding a publisher.
He decided to release “The Grove” on Kindle for 99 cents and, to Rector's surprise, it became a top download for several months. That proved to be enough for Forge to purchase and release “The Cold Kiss.”
Q. You've taken a different route to getting published, how did you decide to first publish via Kindle?
A. When I decided to publish on the Kindle, my agent was shopping “The Cold Kiss” around New York. One publisher, Tor/Forge, had been sitting on the manuscript for months. I knew they wanted to buy the book, but breaking out a new author is hard to do these days and they were hesitant to make an offer. I thought if I released the first novel I wrote, “The Grove,” on the Kindle and managed to sell a few copies, I could start building an audience and hopefully show them that their investment would be worthwhile. And it worked. The Kindle book immediately took off, and Tor/Forge came back with an offer about three days later.
Q. When did you know you might have something really good going?
I wrote the first 70 pages of “The Cold Kiss,” then stopped working on it. I thought it was too dark and the setting too claustrophobic. I'd just been through several months of rejection with my first novel where I'd been told the book was too dark and too in between genres. I didn't want to do the same thing again, so I closed the file and turned my back on it. It wasn't until my wife read the pages and told me she wanted to know what happened next that I went back and took another look. When I did, I liked what I saw. There was definitely something there, but if it wasn't for my wife, I never would've seen it.
Q. Did you have the ending, which I thought was brilliant, in mind when you started the book?
Thank you. I'm finding that people either absolutely love the ending or they hate it, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. I'm not too surprised by this. When I finished the book my agent told me I was going to split my audience with the ending, and he was right. I've had people come up to me at signings and tell me they didn't like it, and I've had people tell me it was beautiful and it made them cry. So far no one has been indifferent, which is good. And yes, I had the last scene in mind early on, but I had no idea how I was going to get there.
Contact the writer:
444-1279, jason.kuiper@owh.com
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