The Deadening
by Kerry Peresta
Tour April 1-30, 2021

Synopsis:

OLIVIA CALLAHAN’S quiet, orderly life is shattered when she regains consciousness in a hospital and discovers she is paralyzed and cannot remember a thing. The fragmented voices she hears around her help her piece together that an apparent assault landed her in the hospital, but nobody knows who attacked her, or why.

Now, in spite of a brain injury that has rewired her personality, Olivia is on a mission to reclaim her life. As clarity surfaces, and she starts to understand who she was, she is shocked.

Could she really have been that person?

And if so, does she want her old life back?

Praise:

“A gripping read populated by likable characters. Peresta draws us into a colorful detailed world and makes us care what happens to the people living in it. We root for Olivia as she struggles to regain her memory, her bearings, and the identity she lost long before her injury. Excellent!”
– Susan Crawford, Internationally bestselling author of The Pocket Wife and The Other Widow.

“The Deadening is a captivating psychological suspense novel that will have you holding your breath with each turn of the page. Peresta has created a world chock-full of characters who are dynamic and unforgettable, for better or worse. Hold onto your seat.”
– Clay Stafford, bestselling author and founder of Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference

Genre: Psychological Suspense Published by: Level Best Books Publication Date: February 21, 2021 Number of Pages: 353 ISBN: 1953789358 (ISBN13:9781953789358) (ASIN:B08SVKLMZ8) Series: Olivia Callahan Suspense, 1 Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Guest Post by Kerry Peresta:

Ramblings about Character Development

It worked to my advantage, in the end, to have married men I wasn’t supposed to.

Multiple messy divorces and child custody issues have a way of hanging around in one’s brain for a long time. As do the legal bills. 

Alighting from these experiences as a frantic and focused single mom with four kids, I didn’t have time to think about how any of it could end up being a good thing, but it has turned out that way. Miraculously.

As I sit here and write guest posts for the promotion of my second book, and think about the next two I’ve been contracted to write, I’m darkly grateful for these experiences, because I can write my edgy, page-turning thrillers with the quiet competence and composure of “been there, done that.” As hundreds of thousands of other women before me. Single moms, I salute you. It’s not an easy task, or one that anyone would undertake willingly.

Thanks to my graduate degrees in divorce and overly complicated relationships, I can write with astute clarity about psychological warfare, passive-aggressive game-playing, righteous indignation, chronic deception, destruction of property…the list goes on. This makes for a really nasty bad guy, and to my utter delight, I find that most suspense and mystery writers love to write and explore the underpinnings of their bad guys (or girls) more than they like to develop their protagonists. This is both ironic and hilarious to me. I do write my bad guys with a focused contempt…my fingers fly across the keys and I have this little, sardonic smile that pastes itself on my face. With every stroke, I feel a kind of retribution, which is really sick because I should walk in forgiveness.

Oh well. God understands.

So I take these men and stretch and pull them in a thousand destructive ways, like a demonic manipulation of the Stretch Armstrong Action Toy. (Have you seen this guy? Why would kids need a stretchable bodybuilder to play with? Just wondering.) 

I give them my own form of retribution in the plotline, make them sag and sigh and work out their personal issues, because in my books, and it may be by the skin of her teeth, the woman fights back. She won’t stay down. It may look like the bad guy won. It may look like the woman has bailed for the tenth time. It may look like she has lost everything, but wait.

Things are not always what they seem.

And to this end, my current book, released in February of 2021, is titled The Deadening. The next in the series, releasing in 2022, is titled The Rising. I sense a theme, here.

Author Bio:

Kerry’s publishing credits include a popular newspaper column, “The Lighter Side,” 2009-2011; and magazine articles in Local Life Magazine, The Bluffton Breeze, Lady Lowcountry, and Island Events Magazine. She is the author of two novels, The Hunting, women’s fiction, released by Pen-L Publishing in 2013, and The Deadening, released in February, 2021 by Level Best Books, the first in the Olivia Callahan Suspense series, She spent twenty-five years in advertising as an account manager, creative director, and copywriter. She is past chapter president of the Maryland Writers’ Association and a current member and presenter of Hilton Head Island Writers’ Network, and the Sisters in Crime organization. Recently, she worked as editor and contributor for Island Communications, a local publishing house. Kerry and her husband moved to Hilton Head six years ago. She is the mother of four adult children, and has a bunch of wonderful grandkids who keep life interesting and remind her what life is all about.

Catch Up With Kerry L Peresta:
KerryPeresta.net
Goodreads
Instagram – @kerryperesta
Twitter – @kerryperesta
Facebook – @klperesta

Tour Participants:

These are the stops on the tour as of March 12 and are subject to change. Please, let me know if you have any questions.

04/01 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
04/02 Guest post @ Novels Alive
04/02 Showcase @ The Book Divas Reads
04/04 Interview @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
04/05 Guest post @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
04/06 Review @ Margaret Yelton
04/07 Review @ nanasbookreviews
04/08 Review @ Wall-to-wall Books
04/09 Interview @ CMash Reads
04/12 Review @ Books and Zebras @ jypsylynn
04/14 Review @ Quirky Cats Fat Stacks
04/14 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
04/15 Interview/podcast @ Blogtalk radio
04/15 Review @ Just Reviews
04/15 Review @ Novels Alive
04/16 Guest post @ Nesies Place
04/17 Review @ Cheryls Book Nook
04/18 Showcase @ EienCafe
04/19 Interview @ BooksChatter
04/20 Showcase @ Im Into Books
04/21 Review @ Book Reviews by Nikki H. Rose
04/22 Review @ The World As I See It
04/23 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
04/24 Showcase @ Brooke Blogs
04/25 Review @ rozierreadsandwine
04/26 Review @ The Book Review Crew
04/27 Review @ Spookys Maze Of Books
04/29 Review/showcase @ The Bookwyrm