Summer Reading: Sunstruck by Mayra Calvani

Daniella is an architecture student living with her narcissistic artist boyfriend in San Juan. Abandoned by her father at an early age, Daniella always falls for the ‘wrong’ type of man. Her most enduring male relationship so far has been with her cat.
   
Several strange mysteries are threaded through Daniella’s everyday life: her ex-husband, Ismael, has just opened an outlandish hotel for animal lovers that has her distraught; Ismael’s wife, a rich woman Daniella fondly refers to as ‘Lady Dracula’, has some gruesome ways to keep her skin looking young; Daniella’s mother is founding a revolutionary, feminist society called The Praying Mantises; the island’s national forest is being depleted of hallucinogenic mushrooms; meanwhile, young girls are disappearing and there’s a nut loose dressed as Zorro slashing the rear ends of women who wear miniskirts.  

Oppressed by all these eccentric characters, Daniella feels herself falling into an abyss. Then something terrible happens, making Daniella wake from her stupor and take charge of her life.

What reviewers are saying…

“Dark and quirky humor coupled with quixotic characters adds to the surprising mix found in Sunstruck… I've never read a book remotely like it. Everything from the humorously weird to the acutely macabre can be found between these covers, and then some.” –Laurel Johnson, Midwest Book Review

"Sunstruck is like a nutty Whodunit with a little twist. Who really is in the Zorro costume? With all the crazy characters I caught myself pointing fingers again and again. A great read that will make you forget where you are, while you giggle yourself to complete oblivion from all the silliness." –Autumn Blues Reviews

About the author…

Award-winning author Mayra Calvani has penned over ten books for children and adults in genres ranging from picture books to satire to paranormal fantasy novels. She’s had over 300 articles, short stories, interviews and reviews published in magazines such as The Writer, Writer’s Journal and Bloomsbury Review, among others. She has lived in America, Asia, the Middle East, and now lives in Brussels, Belgium.

Purchase info…

Title: Sunstruck
Author: Mayra Calvani
Author web site: http://www.mayracalvani.com/
Publisher: Twilight Times Books
url: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/
ISBN: 978-1-60619-024-2
Genre: Parody/Satire
Format: ebook in pdf, ePub, Kindle, Mobi, PRC, etc.
Distributors: Amazon Kindle; Apple iBookstore; BN.com Nook; eReader; Fictionwise; Kobo Books; OmniLit; Sony eBookstore, etc.
Release date: July 15, 2012
Price: $5.95
Pages: 160
Chapter excerpt: http://twilighttimesbooks.com/Sunstruck_ch1.html

Purchase link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LYYOWM

Sunstruck by Mayra Calvani--Book Review

What do a naive and deeply sensitive college student, a modern-day Zorro who goes around slashing the rear ends of women in mini-skirts, a smug and selfish artist with a love of LSD, an ex-husband with his eye on revenge, a woman who collects torture devices, and a socialist--maybe communist--best friend who is in love with a priest, have in common?

They all live in steamy San Juan, Puerto Rico and they can all be found in Sunstruck, the latest release from talented author Mayra Calvani.

I've read several books by Calvani, but nothing could have prepared me for what I found in Sunstruck. Realizing how difficult satire can be to pull off, Calvani's witty prose captured me right away and kept me turning the pages.

Written in third person present--a challenge in and of itself--Sunstruck tells the story of Daniella, a college student studying architecture, who is trying to find her place in the world while surrounded by the most bizarre individuals.

From Tony, her live-in boyfriend whose obsession with LSD is only equal to his hatred for Daniella's cat, to Daniella's ex-husband who is married to a woman better known as Lady Dracula because of her gothic appearance and strange collection of torture devices, the further into this book you get, the stranger they all become. Just when you think you've got the situation figured out, you discover you're not quite there yet.

Calvani has taken human nature and put it under a microscope--a warped and slightly cracked microscope.

The chapters are short enough that you can read several in one sitting, but you won't be able to put the book down anyway. I was a bit cool on the cover art, but it captured the essence of the book well, and the cat on the back is absolutely gorgeous.

Proving once again that she is a master storyteller in multiple genres, Sunstruck by Mayra Calvani is both witty and brilliant.


Title: Sunstruck
Author: Mayra Calvani
Publisher: Zumaya Publications
ISBN: 978-1-934841-18-1
SRP: $14.99 (U.S.)