Dead In A Week by Andrea Kane

Welcome to Freda's Voice tour stop for Andrea Kane's new book, Dead In A Week. Keep reading to the end, there is a guest post by the author.

Genre: Suspense Thriller
Published by: Bonnie Meadow Publishing
Publication Date: March 19th 2019
Number of Pages: 384
ISBN: 1682320294 
Series: Forensic Instincts, Zermatt Group
Purchase Links: Amazon  | Barnes & Noble  | Goodreads 

What would you do if your daughter was kidnapped and given only a week to live?

Lauren Pennington is celebrating her junior year abroad when life comes to a screeching halt. At Munich’s Hofbräuhaus, she engages in an innocent flirtation with a charming stranger for the length of a drink. Drink finished, Lauren leaves—only to be snatched from the streets and thrown into an unmarked van.

Officially, Aidan Deveraux is a communications expert for one of the largest financial firms in the world. In his secret life, the former Marine heads the Zermatt Group, a covert team of military and spy agency operatives that search the data stream for troubling events in an increasingly troubled world. When his artificial intelligence system detects Lauren’s kidnapping, Aidan immediately sees the bigger picture.

Silicon Valley: Lauren’s father, Vance Pennington, is about to launch a ground-breaking technology with his company NanoUSA—a technology that the Chinese are desperate for. No sooner does Aidan arrive on Vance’s doorstep to explain the situation than the father receives a chilling text message: hand over the technology or Lauren will be dead in a week.

In a globe-spanning chase, from the beer halls of Germany, to the tech gardens of California, to the skyscrapers of China, and finally the farmlands of Croatia, Aidan’s team cracks levels of high-tech security and complex human mystery with a dogged determination. Drawing in teammates from the Forensic Instincts team (introduced in The Girl Who Disappeared Twice), the Zermatt Group will uncover the Chinese businessmen responsible, find the traitors within NanoUSA who are helping them, and save Lauren from a brutal death.

Andrea Kane is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, including fifteen psychological thrillers and fourteen historical romantic suspense titles. With her signature style, Kane creates unforgettable characters and confronts them with life-threatening danger. As a master of suspense, she weaves them into exciting, carefully-researched stories, pushing them to the edge—and keeping her readers up all night.

With a worldwide following of passionate readers, her books have been published in more than twenty languages.

Kane lives in New Jersey with her husband and family. She’s an avid crossword puzzle solver and a diehard Yankees fan. Otherwise, she’s either writing or playing with her Pomeranian, Mischief, who does his best to keep her from writing.

Catch Up With Our Author On: AndreaKane.com , Goodreads , Twitter , & Facebook 

Conversation with Andrea Kane...

I often get asked what irritates me most when I’m writing.  In pondering that question, what occurred to me is that some of those things are specific to my writing and some are the same things that irritate me when I’m reading.

Let’s start with the writing quirks.  Number one on my list: I need dead silence when I’m writing.  No music.  No distant conversations.  No “quick questions” or interruptions.  Nothing.  Believe me, I know how tough that is to accomplish.  That’s why, during my writing hours, I pretty much hole up in my office, door tightly shut, and avoid emails, social media, and phone calls.  I write from early in the morning until early afternoon, after which I rejoin civilization, follow up on what I need to, and spend time with my family (and remember that I haven’t eaten since the night before).  I have a precious one-year-old granddaughter and a demanding little Pomeranian, both of whom I adore playing with.  I wouldn’t give up that time for anything.  So, much of the afternoon is devoted to them, to household responsibilities (yuck!), and to taking a long walk to get in my 10,000+ Fitbit steps.  I resume writing in the evenings and sometimes continue until way too late at night.  It’s a good thing I don’t need much sleep, because I never get it!

And the obvious #2 on my writing quirks: getting stuck.  And I don’t mean a little stuck.  I mean when not only won’t the words flow, the tight connection I have to my characters and my storyline isn’t there.  It’s like I’m floating and I just can’t seem to swim.  Those days I turn to researching and rereading my previous chapters to boost myself back into the saddle.  But it’s more frustrating and upsetting than I can say.

Now for the writer/reader combo irritations.

Number one: misunderstandings.  I absolutely hate when a simple misunderstanding is the pivot of a story.  Every time I find myself even remotely going in that direction, I veer rapidly off.  And as a reader, I’ve been known to not finish a book once I realized that a misheard word or a letter that never arrived serves as the story’s foundation.  It’s a major pet peeve of mine, one I’ve had forever.

Next up, flimsy storylines.  Now granted, some of that is because I can never seem to write anything simple.  No matter how hard I try, every novel I write is super complex and multi-layered.  It’s just in my DNA.  So it’s natural that it’s also in my reader DNA.  If I finish a book and my reaction is: “That’s it???” then there’s a big problem.  I never allow myself to do that to my readers, and I get very cranky when an author does that to me.

And last, I love sequels and/or series books.  That goes without saying, since DEAD IN A WEEK is the 7^th in the Forensic Instincts series and I’ve already started on the 8^th.  The one thing I strongly dislike is finishing a book with the understanding that, if I want to find out what happens next, I must wait for the sequel.  In my opinion, every book should be a complete story unto itself.  Spinning elements of it into the next book is great, but leaving me hanging after the last page just isn’t okay.

Despite the fact that I’ve just expounded on the negatives of writing and reading, I love both and truly can’t imagine doing anything other than writing.  It’s who I am, and I feel blessed to be able to create my stories and share them all with you.  I can’t wait to hear your reactions to DEAD IN A WEEK!

Thank you all for visiting our guest author this week, and I hope you will get your copy of Dead In A Week today!

**Opinions are owned by Freda's Voice.