The Ghosts of Our Past
Hello! My name is Chris Keane and I write paranormal romance books. I’m
thrilled be joining you here at Fang-tastic Books! Today I will discuss the
inner workings of some of the characters in my new novel, The Girl from the
Woods. Being in the paranormal romance genre, The
Girl from the Woods contains some actual ghosts. But I thought it would be
interesting to discuss the metaphorical ghosts that haunt the main characters
throughout the story.
Ultimate List of Character
Ghosts
Dante is haunted by his parent’s brutal judgment
and feelings of abandonment after they dump him at his grandmothers and head to
Europe for the summer. As the story progresses, Dante must learn to take care
of himself if he is going to survive.
Angie, the girl from the woods, is haunted by a failed romantic relationship. Will she be able to open herself up to love with Dante? Will she ever be able to trust him with the knowledge of her special gifts?
Angie, the girl from the woods, is haunted by a failed romantic relationship. Will she be able to open herself up to love with Dante? Will she ever be able to trust him with the knowledge of her special gifts?
Dr. Sewall, Angie’s father, is haunted by the untimely death of his beloved wife. Her loss left him empty inside and he’s struggling to fill that void. Will he overcome his grief and find happiness again? How far is he willing to go to get it?
Gram, Dante's Grandmother is haunted by a mistake she made as a young adult, when she turned down a college scholarship to get married. Now she is widowed and struggling to survive on pennies while her health rapidly deteriorates. Will she survive? Will Dante be able to care for her, considering he’s never even had to take care of himself?
Kurt, Dante’s older brother, is haunted by memories of high school where he was a popular football star. Now he is partying it up, trying to re-capture the feeling of being on top. Somehow, regularly berating Dante also makes him feel like a king again. Kurt’s plight definitely adds some comic relief to the novel. But will he pull himself together and stop making Dante’s life miserable?
Fight or Flight
So, we’ve learned a little bit about what makes our main characters tick. The
interaction of all their unique motivations is at the heart of The Girl from
the Woods. Now it’s time to send them on a fantastic journey. And it will be a
sight to see! Because when characters are able to overcome the echo of ghosts
from their pasts, heroes are born.
Who is your favorite literary protagonist? What ghost is he/she battling with?
Chris
Keane
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Pennant Collective
Date of Publication: April 25th,
2017
ISBN: 978-0692832172
ASIN: B06X9Y715F
Number of pages: 144
Word Count: 43,000
Cover Artist: Nick Kiefer
Book Description:
It’s summertime and the last
place 19-year-old Dante Elton wants to be is at his grandmother’s in rural
upstate New York. But it’s exactly where his parents dump him, as they jet off
to Europe. Without a car, cell service, or even basic television, there is
nothing to do but wander around the nearby woods just as he had as a small
child…
There he meets sexy—and slightly
older—Angie Sewall while on a hike. On the surface, she’s a devoted daughter
content to be single while she manages her father’s medical practice. Yet deep
down, Angie is bored and heartbroken…and is harboring some special gifts that
she keeps secret from her father and their backwoods community.
When Dante’s grandmother’s health
declines, he reaches out to Angie’s father for help, only to uncover the good
doctor’s dark side. When Dante confides in Angie, it drives a spike into their
budding relationship. He’s left to wonder if he’s all alone in his quest to
save his grandmother
Excerpt:
As the sun
splintered through the gaps in the tarp, Dante held Angie in his arms while she
slept. He had never felt or even imagined being this happy. He watched her
sleeping peacefully, half-expecting she would just vanish like the girl from
his dream. She seemed other-worldly, more of a product of his imagination than
the surrounding environment. In the real world, a beautiful girl like Angie
would barely give him the time of day. She wouldn’t be into reading horror or
Japanese anime either. She would probably be rejecting his friend request on
Facebook.
He still hadn’t
told Angie that she had appeared to him in his dream back in New Jersey. He
figured she would probably just laugh at him. The past few weeks, he had
assumed he would forget about it. Yet somehow, the thought wouldn’t vacate his
brain. If she had actually appeared to him in his dream, this was no ordinary
girl, and that frightened him. She seemed normal, but her father did not. He
was an eccentric man with a sketchy past. Dante had come across a stack of
books on witchcraft in his study. But she brushed it off, saying that he had
grown up in Massachusetts, and everyone up that way was into the history of
Salem.
Chris is a graduate of Rutgers
University and studied the art of storytelling at Gotham Writers' Workshop in
New York City. Chris' first publication, "Loot," became a bestselling
Kindle Short Read, in the category of Young Adult Fiction.
"Loot," set on
Halloween in 1977, tells the tale of three boys who skip Halloween to hunt for
cash to purchase an Atari in an old farmhouse belonging to one of their
deceased aunts. Adventure ensues in his coming-of-age tale in the spirit of
Stand by Me and The Goonies.
In addition to authoring prose,
Chris is a screenwriter. In 2013 he wrote the screenplay for a short film, The
Baseball Card, about three twelve-year old boys who fight over a Don Mattingly
baseball card during the summer of 1984. The Baseball Card was an official selection
of the Garden State Film Festival, Hoboken International Film Festival, and
Maryland International Film Festival in 2014.
The Girl from the Woods is his
debut novel.
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9 comments:
Thanks for having me on Fang-tasticBooks BLOG!
LOVE YOUR SITE!
Best,
Chris Keane
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