Welcome to the CSFF blog tour for Vanish by Tom Pawlik. If I could get my mouse to work and capture the image of the book, you could see that instead of these links:
Vanish: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1414318936
Book Blurb:
Three strangers each encounter the same mysterious storm and awake the next day to find that everyone else has vanished. There’s Conner Hayden, a successful but unscrupulous trial lawyer who has forsaken his family for his career; Helen Krause, a middle-aged model struggling to come to grips with her fading beauty; and Mitch Kent, an enterprising young mechanic unable to escape a past that still haunts him. Afraid and desperate for answers, their paths eventually cross and they discover they are being watched. Elusive and obscured in shadows, the “observers” are apparently forcing them to relive vivid hallucinations of events from their past. They discover a mute homeless boy in tattered clothing and believe he may hold the key to the mystery, but the “observers” soon become aggressive and the four are forced to flee. When the boy disappears, the four decide to head from Chicago to Washington, D.C., in search of answers…and more survivors.
Somewhere I read Vanish was in the vein of Ted Dekker and Stephen King. In the vein of Ted Dekker and Stephen King? I love Ted Dekker books, but not so much Stephen King. I should have known better than to read Vanish, but I want to be surprised with the unpredictable, pulled into a story that will blow my mind.
Amazingly, Vanish easily tugged me into the story. Conner Hayden goes about his day as a lawyer in the midst of convincing a couple they should sue their doctor, the character’s manipulation techniques alone were interesting. Just as I’m into the character, the story snatches me into another character’s head—Helen Krause. She reminds me of myself—old and doesn’t want to admit it. Then again, I’m tugged from her story into Mitch Kent’s. Frankly, I became a little annoyed at the three-character rotating chapters.
By the way, the description of the storm reminded me of the alien vessels rolling into our space in the movie Independence Day—could totally picture that. That’s why in short order I thought ALIENS. I wanted to throw the book down and run away. ALIENS. I hate aliens. I’m one of probably a few people who don’t believe they exist, yet I can’t think of anything that terrifies me more than an alien invasion. Still, an alien invasion? Tyndale? Nah. This has to be a metaphor for . . something. I must read on.
Now hooked, I continue to read late into the night for several nights, thinking I should join the BIG HONKIN CHICKEN’S CLUB after all, but that’s for those who won’t read Brandilyn Collins suspense, not Tom Pawlik. I even suffer a few nightmares because of this book. But I HAVE TO KNOW how it ends. I’ll feel much better knowing how things resolve—Yeah, that’s it. And I never ever cheat by reading the end of the book first like some people I know.
Tune in for more tomorrow.
Tom Pawlik’s Web site – http://www.tompawlik.com/
Tom Pawlik’s blog – http://www.tompawlik.com/blog.htm
Valley of the Shadow: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1414326793
Back with the participants links when I can get them to work.