Tuesday, July 24, 2012

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

2 comments:

Robyn said...

I love a good "whodunit" book! Thanks for the review. I will be adding this book to my summer reading list. Another book worth mentioning is called, "The Masada Protocol" by author Lee Broad. This a fiction thriller novel based in Israel in which a former black ops officer has taken on an intelligence assignment that takes him into a Middle East conspiracy that he must solve along with the help of a beautiful under cover agent from the Mossad. http:///www.leebroad.com/

Donna McDine said...

Cheryl,

Thank you for announcing Mayra's latest release. We appreciate your time, interest, and never ending support!

All the best,
Donna