Death in the Family by Lanny Larcinese - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hi, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host Lanny Larcinese and his new book, “Death in the Family”!  For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!!  Also, come back daily to interact with Lanny and to increase your chances of winning!

Thanks for stopping by!  Wishing you lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!

Death in the Family

by Lanny Larcinese

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GENRE: Crime Thriller

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BLURB:

Donny Lentini is a talented young man hungry for his mother's love. To please her, he becomes guardian angel to his mob-wannabe father. When the father is murdered and found with his hands hacked off, Donny is dealt a set of cards in a game called vengeance. The pot is stacked high with chips; the ante, his soul and the lives of loved-ones. With the help of friends—ex-con, defrocked Jesuit Bill Conlon along with former high-school nemesis, Antwyne Claxton—he digs for whether the murder had anything to do with the mob's lust for a real estate parcel owned by the family of Donny's lover. He's new at this game. He doesn't cheat, but plays his cards well. And he gets what he wants.

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EXCERPT TWO:

I slid my foot over to touch Dad’s. I had promised Mother I’d look after him.

“Is this about the money you lost at the table?” I said. “Should we play a few more hands?”

German pounded his fist on the desk. “Don’t try to second-guess me, you punk! You’ll talk when I say, got it?”

I kept my eyes fixed on German’s. Six…seven…eight…

Dad reached over and put his hand on mine. “I didn’t lose the cleaners,” he said. A bead of sweat meandered toward his jaw. “The union was working on ’em going back three years now. It was already a done deal by the time I got there.”

“Whatever,” German said. “Just don’t let it happen anymore. And tell Donny here to mind his manners or you’ll be back driving a truck.”

The baseball bat leaning in a corner near German’s desk was an exclamation point that punctuated his directives. If it ever came down to that, I’d slash his throat with a rusty knife. Yet I still had to walk a tightrope. Dad would have preferred the bat to the demotion. Dad was a climber and German his future.

German picked up a couple of coded folders and put them into a filing cabinet, slamming the drawer down its rails like a runaway train.

“Oh, and Joojy wants to see you. I don’t know about what.”       

“What about?” Dad said.

“You don’t hear? I said I don’t know! Maybe that thing. Now get outta here, both yiz. I got to take my daughter to ballet.”

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GUEST POST:

The Story of My Story Called Death in the Family

Death in the Family is the first novel I wrote but the third book published after success at winning prizes for short stories. Actually, I wrote it five times, or, considering I’m a pantser and do not outline, more like one hundred five times.

Why so much work? It helps to be an arrogant novice and believe you can just grind out a novel. Where the arrogance came in was to conflate my facility with language, even occasional eloquence, with storytelling. Folks, they ain’t the same! Fortunately, I learned through networking with writers that a developmental edit would be valuable.

Indeed it was. Twenty pages of single-spaced critique eviscerating the manuscript, but also encouragement that I was on the right track and the book had good bones.

I put it in the drawer, wrote another novel, I Detest All My Sins, wrote more short work, studied craft, re-drafted Death in the Family two or three times, decided to change the entire story from third person to first, changed the theme, and BANG! Things came together! Suddenly I could create likable good guys (albeit in need of maturing ---  sound familiar?) and realistic bad guys.

The obstacles I faced on the path to publication of Death in the Family were mostly technical: issues of coherence; leaner sentences; bringing main characters’ needs into higher relief, etc. But also coping with the frustration of knowing it could be a good book if only I found a few keys critical to the story.

One was, as I said, changing from third person to first person. In doing so, I discovered that while it limited the main character’s point of view and what he could know and therefore express, it also allowed for more intimacy; I could get deeper inside this character. From there I could explore deep needs and once I knew those, saw how to make them collide with others in his world. It opened so many more story doors than “this happened then that happened then this happened,” etc.

After final edits, after many false starts and traipsing the learning curve, I finally fell in love with my characters. I’m so proud that I stuck with it, undeterred but open minded.

I love this book.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Lanny Larcinese’s short work has appeared in magazines and has won a handful of local prizes. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’s a native mid-westerner transplanted to the City of Brotherly Love where he has been writing fiction for seven years. When not writing, he lets his daughter, Amanda, charm him out of his socks, and works at impressing Jackie, his long-time companion who keeps him honest and laughing—in addition to being his first-line writing critic. He also spends more time than he should on Facebook but feels suitably guilty for it.

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CONNECT WITH LANNY:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/lanny.larcinese

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18006379.Lanny_Larcinese

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48072517-death-in-the-family

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/38J8fce

Amazon Paperback:

https://amzn.to/38MOW22

Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-in-the-family-lanny-larcinese/1133349861?ean=9781733779326

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-in-the-family-lanny-larcinese/1133349861?ean=9781733779319

The Book Depository Paperback:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Death-in-the-Family-Lanny-Larcinese/9781733779319

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

Lanny will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this blog.  This does not cost you anything, it just helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**

This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.