#Win The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel (US) (51)

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.

Sal seems to appear out of nowhere - a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he's welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he's a runaway from a nearby farm town.

When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever.

• Print Length: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (July 26, 2016)
• Publication Date: July 26, 2016
• ASIN: B01AGIBQTO

AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA   |   AMAZON UK

REVIEW:

Better than I initially thought.
It was Chapter 23 when I finally got it and started to enjoy the story. It was like six degrees of separation, with much separation in between. And by separation, I mean, confusion.
Oh, how I was confuzzled for most of this read. At times, I was lost at to what age the narrator was, it did flip around a bit. I was even lost as to who it was. Man, at times I was just lost. 
Then a blip of something fascinating would happen, and it flowed so well, that I had to keep reading.
I'm glad I did too, and didn't give up. Chapter 23 saw me with my mouth wide open as the pieces started to fit and make sense. Frankly, I even got choked up, and that's hard to do. 
So this is one of those reads that has you thinking. Has a huge amount of build up, and like I said, it's got six degrees of separation. Y'know, a full circle moment.
I think many of you will really like this read. So definitely give it a go if you think that it sounds up your alley.

3/5

An Ohio native, Tiffany McDaniel’s writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows. She is also a poet, playwright, screenwriter, and artist. The Summer that Melted Everything is her debut novel.
www.tiffanymcdaniel.com

FREDA'S VOICE ASKS;

When did you know you would be a writer?

Writing is what I remember doing as a kid outside of any external influence or direction to do so.  As soon as I could hold a crayon in my hand I was scribbling, but in my eyes, I was writing down what was in my head.  Not realizing it was story, until much older when I understood what story is.  From there I crafted homemade books out of notebook paper, cardboard flaps, and my mother’s yarn to tie it all together.  I’ve always want to be a writer.  There’s really nothing that would make me happier.  

Who or what inspires your writing?

What inspires my writing is the characters themselves.  There’s an obligation I feel to the characters to really tell their story as honestly as I can.  For me, the characters are real people and I’m merely the vessel through which they pass to get into this world.  The more I write and draft a story, and the more the characters become realized, the more they themselves inspire me to get it right.  

Have you written anything else?

I have eight other novels completed.  Currently I’m working on my ninth novel.  The novel I hope to follow The Summer that Melted Everything up with is When Lions Stood as Men.  It’s a story of a Jewish brother and sister who escape Nazi Germany, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and end up in Ohio of all places.  Struggling with the guilt of surviving the Holocaust, they create their own sort of camp where they punish themselves, realizing in the end it was each other they truly had to survive.   

Any advice to aspiring writers?

To never give up.  I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen years old, and didn’t get a publishing contract until I was twenty-nine.  It was eleven years of rejection and fear I’d never be published.  Literary fiction, like the genre I write, is really difficult to get publishers to take a risk on as there isn’t as high of a return on profit as there is for commercial fiction.  I still can’t believe I’m about to see my book on the shelf and I feel for writers still on the journey to publication.  To them, I say it will happen for you!  Never turn your back on your dreams. Never give up.    

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