G1025 Book Review of boy on the beach by R.D. Maddux
Author:R.D. Maddux
ISBN: 9781978448162
Publisher: Self-published
Type of book: Revenge, karma, free-love, relationships, past and present, California, architecture, mysterious companies
Year it was published: 2017
Summary:
Andrew Foster, a real estate developer in San Diego, is a man suddenly haunted by his past. Memories, like specters from his former life of sex, drugs and rock and roll have come crashing into his current world of business in this sunny coastal city. The ominous, repeated appearance of a black SUV at the beach where he meets his sister each week, has triggered fears that it’s payback time for a bad choice he made years ago.
To add to his frustrations, his hopes of a big breakthrough in the San Diego real estate market haven’t come to pass. He’s starting to wonder if his visions of success will ever come true when an investor offers to finance his dream project. Soon things start to fall into place for Andrew in business, life, and even love. He starts dating the beautiful and business-savvy Nicole but even with her at his side he can’t seem to shake the ghosts of his past. As the relationship with Nicole deepens, Andrew opens up to her about the many loves and adventures that have taken him from the crazy days of living in Big Sur and Joshua Tree to business success in San Diego. Her wise insights help him face the character flaws that have caused him to fail in his past relationships.
Rounding out his social life is his once-a-week task of assisting his sister with her nanny job watching a young boy named Chandler. They build sand castles on the beach and enjoy the beauty of nature together. But the now ominous weekly appearance of a strange car at the beach has awakened Andrew’s fears. Is the boy in danger? Or worse, has an enemy from Andrew’s past come seeking revenge and now Chandler’s caught in the middle? A strange twist of events threatens to destroy Andrew’s dreams, but as he searches for answers, a sudden revelation offers hope of a future he never imagined.
Characters:
Main character includes Andrew who is best described as a former hippy and "free-lover" and who believes in hexes and curses and feels that due to his past, he is being cursed. He is also best described as self-centered, selfish and someone who mistreats people and continues to mistreat people. Other characters include Landon and the company where he works at, but besides the job there is honestly not much to tell without spoiling the story.
Theme:
Karma will come back to pay you back
Plot:
The story is told in first person narrative, first from Andrew's point of view, and once in a while Landon's as well. Landon and the people he knows are far more intriguing than Andrew, to be honest, and I often wished that the author would have explored their angle instead of Andrew's. Perhaps 99 percent of the story is from Andrew's point of view, and I had to be honest in saying that this is a book where its difficult to care or like a character because of his actions. I tend to go for characters that would best be described as misunderstood, and I often understand them even when I disagree with them, but for me, Andrew is a special case where I couldn't understand him and don't even like him.
(From the website)
Amazon ~ Autographed copy
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R.D. Maddux has story telling in his blood. Since he was young he’s always loved a good tale. He’s been writing seriously since he was in high school and college. His novels range from Mystery and Intrigue to Sci-fi/fantasy. With Boy On The Beach he’s set the story in modern America, to be exact, on the West Coast of California. He’s a native of the golden state and has been a resident of San Diego since 1987. Before that he grew up in northern California and lived in the Sacramento Valley and Bay Area with sojourns in some of the beautiful parts of our state.
Living in California for over 60 years he couldn't help but watch the way things have changed in our culture and the impact this coast makes on the rest of America and the world. So even though Boy On The Beach is fiction, like most serious novels, it is not without a context and comment on issues we all face in our changing world. It takes place in real locations that are very familiar to him and its characters, which are fictional, no doubt have their counterparts in the real world. Boy On The Beach is a story of intrigue, suspense, revenge, love and redemption with flashbacks to the era when sex, drugs and rock and roll set our culture on it's inevitable journey to our present day. This idea has been rattling around in his heart and mind for a decade and it's finally coming to the page.
Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram
Opinion:
I'm sorry but no. I'm sad to say that I didn't like anything about the story; not the characters, nor the plot, or the writing style. There are a number of things that I had issue with when it came to the story: first of all the characters that I either should have liked or felt sorry for, which I didn't because the main character has done a lot of reprehensible actions that will make the reader very upset, and the justifications for his actions are not well written or explained. The writing style is a lot of told not show, and it makes it difficult for me to believe in characters, especially a certain psychic character that the main character always worries about, and a lot of it is also repetitious over and over, which annoyed me. While the plot was intriguing, because a character I didn't like told the story, it made it less intriguing. (I think I would have preferred more of the secondary characters instead of the main character to be honest.)
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0 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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