Independent novel review: Double Bind by Seb Kirby

“The guy with the bad attitude has been following me all week.”

Seb Kirby gets right into the story in Double Bind. There’s not a wasted word in this book: no background, no world-building, no nonsense. The writing is spare and clean, active yet evocative, told in first-person present tense, which enhances the action and immediacy.

Take this for an example: “Elmington Drive is a wealthy suburban street. Smart gardens, no parked cars, large houses, most with gravel drives and tall shrubs.”

Because he gives readers credit for knowing something, Kirby is able to painted a picture in a few phrases.

In short, Kirby is a true professional writer of fiction.

The story begins with the narrator, successful author Raymond Bridges, meeting his double at a book signing. The double accuses Bridges of stealing his face and identity — and his pen name. Soon, Bridges finds himself in a new body, victim of spreading ripples of identities displaced into new bodies. Double Bind is a science-fiction story presented like a mystery — not an easy assignment for any writer. Kirby has the skill to pull it off.

Kirby makes it all make sense by explaining the process and the science through the characters’ actions. Bridges, who becomes Erin Pascoe (that’s a man’s name in the UK, apparently) gradually learns the details, like one of Raymond Chandler’s detectives.

Kirby makes his characters real through their words and actions more than through verbose descriptions. Bridges is actually not that likeable. He’s a liar, an imposter, someone more than willing to take shortcuts to get what he wants, no matter what they do to others.

Victoria Bletchley, Bridge’s love interest, is one of the most desirable and admirable women I’ve read in fiction lately. An English professor, she’s a long-legged looker, too. She loves “rutting” and reading, more or less in that order, and she’s smart. Even for an English professor.

Here’s my favourite passage featuring Victoria:

Strang [a cop] is sounding impatient ... “Pascoe is a suspect in at least one, possibly two, murders. Keep stalling like this and you’ll leave me with no option but to take you in for obstruction of justice. That’s if I don’t arrest you as an accomplice to murder.” 

I’m wondering how Victoria is going to get out of this when she uses her contextualizing skills to great effect. “OK. I do porn. Looks like I’m well off, but this is my mother’s place and I have expensive tastes.”

Smart, sexy, beautiful, brave and able to think on the spot of something sure to throw a cop off his game — what more could anyone, even a writer, want in a woman?

All the characters are believable, especially the villains, who range from London gangsters to corporate types. Again, Kirby is able to evoke them clearly in the readers’ minds with a minimum of words.

All the way through (it’s not a long book), Kirby keeps us hooked with tantalizing clues and a style that you just cannot put down.

Double Bind may not be Kirby’s best-known book, but if you want a read that won’t let you go, that tells a good story well and doesn't waste your time, download Double Bind now.

5*

Find Double Bind on Amazon

Seb Kirby's Amazon Author page

Seb Kirby's website and blog

David C. Cassidy's Velvet Rain: an independent novel review

What if you could go back in time and correct your mistakes? Would you?

What would the price be?

In Velvet Rain, David C. Cassidy answers that question imaginatively, realistically and fearlessly.

The answer, though, is difficult and terrifying.

As a skilled writer, Cassidy brings the answer out through the story. He begins with fictitious headlines that we know cannot be true, like Buddy Holly surviving that plane crash or Hitler being tried for war crimes. He then gets right into the story, answering a universal question with a particular story — the mark of the artist.


Kain Richards is a wanderer, a drifter with the strange ability to move back in time, which he uses to hustle pool.


Richards, though, is running from something or someone. He avoids even the most temporary relationships, because he must never be tied down.


Naturally, his heart breaks his rule, and he falls for Lynn Bishop, a single mom with two teenagers, Lee-Anne and Ryan. She’s estranged from her husband, the town drunk and iconic wife-beater, Ray. Her situation and family history cause a tangle of problems that are symbolic of far too many families in the world today. But Cassidy doesn’t preach: he remains focused on the story he’s telling.


Kain’s problems and pain become entangled with Lynn’s, but this never feels forced or artificial. If you can believe in Kain’s strange time-shifting abilities, then the rest of the story falls into place as naturally as rain. And the story reveals the pain and horror that are the price of Kain’s powers.


Cassidy’s story contains a great deal of pain, but the author also captures the simple, quiet joy and pleasure of a simple life, the humour and love of a county fair, an honest day’s work, of the connection between a man and a woman, between youth and maturity. The writing style is descriptive, but never heavy-handed, and it never drags.


And he delivers on the implied promise. What is the cost of the power to change the past? The new present you have created, because no matter what you do, everything has consequences.

5 stars.

You can find Velvet Rain as an e-book from Amazon, or in paper format through Amazon or through the author's own website.

Wodke Hawkinson on style

With six books, dozens of short stories and two blogs, the writing team of Wodke Hawkinson is widely recognized as a force in the independent author community.

Wodke Hawkinson is actually the writing team of Karen Wodke and PJ Hawkinson, two lifelong writers who, after each publishing a book on her own, teamed up to produce the thriller Betrayed, three collections of short stories, the genre-smashing Tangerine and their latest, Zeke, a novel of suspense and sexual tension.

The team not only writes in different genres, their individual works combine genres, cross genre boundaries and indeed invent whole new kinds of fiction. So naturally, I had to bring them back to Written Words to ask about their writing style.

How would you describe your own writing style?
K — I feel like we have a rather direct style of writing. We like to paint a clear picture of what’s going on (usually) and if we are vague about anything, it’s intentional. We like our books and stories to flow; we don’t want reading them to feel like work.

PJ — I agree with Karen. I personally don’t like something that hasn’t been in the story, or is barely mentioned, and then it ends up being a major part of the plot.

Are there any authors whose style you admire? Do you try to emulate them?

K - I admire so many authors; it would be hard to narrow it down. I don’t feel like we consciously emulate anyone, but I’m sure that we’ve been influenced to a degree by some of the great books we’ve read.

PJ - Again, I agree with Karen. While I don’t try to emulate other authors, I think it is nature of the beast that authors can’t help but use someone else’s techniques on occasion. After all, writing is writing, and there are only so many ways to put words to paper.

Are there authors whose writing style you dislike?

K — Without mentioning names, yes. I dislike writing that’s so verbose it’s a chore to wade through. I also dislike pretentious writing or vague writing.

PJ — Also, without mentioning names, I find some writers to be overly descriptive. There’s no reason to beat a dead horse.

How important is your writing style to you? Are you happy with your style, or are there aspects of it you try to change during rewriting or editing?

K — PJ and I have very similar writing styles and this makes collaboration easier for us. I’m pleased with our works. That said, we are always looking for ways to improve the story during editing.

PJ — Karen mentioned the similarity in our writing style but I’d like to also mention the different ways we have at looking at a situation. While we basically think the same on most things, we have also led completely different lives and thus can each bring our own points of view to the table.

How can readers identify your writing style? Are there particular words or kinds of words that you tend to favour? Sentence structures? Or is it more in the story, the pacing or the characters?

K & PJ — We’re not sure we have a style distinctive enough it could be recognized sans our name. We tend to favor an approach that carries the reader along, with just enough detail to set the scene, and with characters who may not always be likeable but act like real people in believable situations.

Do you think writing with a female protagonist and POV, as opposed to a male POV, changes the style, in terms of word choice, sentence structure or other language elements?

K — Yes. Absolutely.

Karen Wodke, left, and
PJ Hawkinson

PJ — I think it depends upon the character you are writing about. Not all females act like one and nor do all males act masculine. Writing style, word choice, and sentence structure all come together with the character, not with the gender. And in my case, I worked with mainly men for many years and believe I can see, at least to a point, their way of thinking.

Do you think your audience responds to your writing style, consciously or unconsciously?

K & PJ — It depends on the book. With a couple of our books, Zeke and Betrayed, audiences tend to have a strong response, either positive or negative. But we believe that has to do with the content (violence) more than our writing style. Not all of our works are suspense/thrillers, but the ones in that genre garner more passionate reviews.

How important do you think writing style is to an author's commercial success?

K & PJ — It could be very important. We feel that style is defined by the way an author handles the telling of the story. That would include many elements. If you gave the same exact plot to ten different writers, the tale would be told in ten entirely different ways. So style does matter. But we also have to say that sometimes the story itself is what matters. Some stories are so compelling they are able to transcend poor writing and appeal to a wide audience.

About Wodke Hawkinson and their books:

Wodke Hawkinson is the name under which writing duo PJ Hawkinson and Karen Wodke produce their collaborated works. The authors have been friends since high school, and began their co-writing partnership in 2009. Before combining forces, each completed a solo project in addition to publishing various short stories and/or articles. PJ published Half Bitten, a novel of vampire revenge and teen angst, and Karen completed her book for young readers, James Willis Makes a Million.


Both PJ and Karen attended school in Kansas. PJ graduated from Hutchinson Community College, and Karen attended HCC and Kansas Wesleyan University. Both reside in different Midwestern towns, and do much of their collaboration via telephone and the Internet. However, they have been known to discuss ideas while casting their lines at a quiet lake, as they both enjoy fishing.

Along with several short story singles, the books they have published as a team include:

Tangerine — Romance and intrigue in a future where space travel is commonplace and aliens a part of everyday life.

Betrayed — Brooklyn is taken captive during a botched carjacking. And so her nightmare begins.

Betrayed — Alternate Ending — Written especially for readers of Betrayed, this publication begins at chapter 49 of the original novel and takes the story in a completely different direction.

Zeke — A dark novel of sexual obsession and psychological suspense. How could a man who looks so good be this wicked?

Catch Her in the Rye — Selected Short Stories Volume One — Thirty-one short tales from various genres.

Blue — Selected Short Stories Volume Two — Eighteen short stories, three of which are novelette-sized. A cross-genre reading experience.

Alone — Selected Short Stories Volume Three — Eighteen genre-spanning works of short fiction that include drama, humor, sci-fi, and paranormal.

Website: http://wodke-hawkinson.com/

Readers' and fellow indie authors' site: http://findagoodbooktoread.com/

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Wodke-Hawkinson/e/B00572KLX2/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Smashwords author page: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/wodkehawkinson

Barnes & Noble page: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/wodke-hawkinson

Yahoo Contributor profile: http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/1167577/wodke_hawkinson.html

Twitter ID: @WodkeHawkinson

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wodke.hawkinson