Hey, lovelies!! It gives me great pleasure today to host David Pereda and his new book, “The Wall,” here on FAB!! 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 David and to increase your chances of winning!!
Thanks for stopping by!! Wishing you all lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!!
The Wall
by David Pereda
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GENRE: Mainstream Fiction, Thriller
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BLURB:
THOMAS BERTRAM is an American living in San Salvador with his fiancée CECILIA. They own a popular neighborhood restaurant and plan to wed soon. Thomas's dream is to obtain a resident visa for Cecilia and return to the United States.
DOMINGO JIMENEZ and his wife BLANCA own a small repair shop across the street. Domingo's dream is to move to America as well so that his seven-year-old daughter NANCY can grow up speaking English and having a good education and a better life than he and Blanca had.
When armed gang members invade their neighborhood to demand "protection" money and threaten them with death if they don't pay, Thomas and Domingo's dreams for the future take on a new perspective. They decide to flee the country with their families through Guatemala and Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.
But their journey is more challenging than expected, and they face a myriad of difficulties and must overcome multiple obstacles that put not only their dreams but also their lives at risk.
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EXCERPT ONE:
Thomas’s first impression was that Ciudad Juarez was a city suffering from schizophrenia.
Based on the Reforma newspaper article he was skimming before he fell asleep, the schizophrenia was even more severe than it appeared from the airplane window. According to the report, murderous dark forces moved underground through the city with impunity. Coexisting with a well-educated and law-abiding middle class breathed some of the world's most feared and violent drug cartels. And while the local police bragged about having achieved a drastic reduction in crime over the past decade, more than 1,000 women had been murdered—and over 3,000 reported missing during the same period.
The article hinted at a police-force cover-up—and even possible police involvement—and blamed the crimes on the transient population seeking to cross the border illegally into the United States. It ended with an impassioned plea to Mexican authorities.
It all read like blah-blah-blah to Thomas.
As the jetliner banked for a runway approach, he spotted some of the transient population described in the article. Small groups of people dotted the protracted chain-link fence, plastic bags either slung over their shoulders or resting on the ground at their feet. Thomas wondered how much the article's writer had been paid to blame those poor souls whose only desire was to find a better life in the United States.
Cecilia saw them too. “What are those people doing?”
“Waiting for night,” Thomas said as the plane straightened, and he lost sight of the fence. “To cross to the other side.”
The pilot landed with a jolt. After a couple of bounces that elicited frightened cries from alarmed passengers, the aircraft rolled to a stop on the tarmac in front of an oblong cream-colored building. Cecilia, Alex, and Thomas deplaned and were guided toward one of the doors by uniformed immigration officials. The sun was so hot that Thomas’s skin crinkled.
“We have to go through immigration?” Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought we were in Mexico.”
“Border towns in Mexico always check your documents,” Alex said. “I don’t know why. I guess it’s in case you’re planning to cross into the United States illegally.”
Cecilia
glanced at Thomas with concern, and he noted the dark circles under her eyes.
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BOOK TRAILER:
Check out David’s intriguing new book trailer below!!!
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GUEST POST:
The Difference Between Reading a Novel and Watching a Movie
The difference between reading a novel and watching a movie is like the difference between empathy and sympathy: empathy is feeling another person's misfortune, and sympathy is relating to another person's misfortune. The first feeling is pro-active, and the latter reactive.
An example is how people respond when seeing a beggar on a street corner. A person acting with empathy would feel the beggar's misfortune as his own and might get out of their car and try to help him; on the other hand, a person reacting with sympathy would feel sorrow for the beggar's misfortune, maybe give him a dollar--and move on.
That same difference exists between reading a novel and watching a movie.
When a person reads a novel, he is actively complicit with the author in creating the story; he's empathetic. When a person watches a movie, he's passively participating in a spectacle; he's sympathetic.
Let's further clarify those differences by comparing the six successful elements of fiction—character, plot, setting, point of view, theme, and style -- in novels and movies.
Character: Strong characters drive both novels and films. Main characters in both cases typically experience a transformation or change from the beginning to the end of the story.
So, what are the differences in characterization between a novel and a film?
In a novel, characters are often not described or described simply via dialogue or actions or described by a couple of characteristics. It is up to the reader to fill in the gaps and imagine what the character looks like, how he's dressed, how he walks, how he talks.
In a movie, the director defines that character in detail to show him in the film. For example, Agatha Christie's famous novel, Murder in the Orient Express, has been made into multiple movies throughout the years. Each film has depicted the characters in different ways, including the main character, Hercule Poirot.
Plot: Plot makes up the action of a story and consists of a series of events that the main character must go through as the novel unfolds. Both in books and film, the plot generally begins with a hook that rapidly evolves into the main event and continues with rising and falling action leading to a climax and the story's resolution. The main character overcomes all obstacles in books and movies until, unexpectedly, a significant setback puts him in a worse position than the one he had at the start of his quest. At that point, called the climax, the hero must rise to the occasion and overcome this incredible adversity by himself – the antagonist, the weather, his doubts – and achieve resolution or the outcome.
In a novel, the reader must create those episodes with his imagination; in a movie, the director has interpreted each of those passages, choreographed the action scenes, and determined the story's pace and progression.
Setting: Setting dictates the location and period of a story. In a novel, the reader must imagine the environment based on the description of the author. Years ago, authors would spend pages describing the setting. Nowadays, unless the reader has lived in a cave somewhere without contact with civilization, he has seen or been to Paris or any other place. And if not, there's always Google. If the setting took place two hundred years ago, the reader imagines the location based on the author's description.
In a movie, that setting has already been recreated by the director and his staff. As a result, the viewer doesn't have to overwork his gray cells trying to imagine what Paris looked like two hundred years ago. The producer, director, and surrounding staff have already taken care of that.
Point of view: There are three main points of view possible in a novel: first-person, second-person, and third-person. Most stories are written in third-person or first-person point of view, though second-person is occasionally employed. The point of view from which an author chooses to write affects how a reader processes the story. A third-person narrator can bring a more objective tone to the narrative, whereas a first-person narrator can make the story feel more subjective and intimate.
A film is a little different. It can have a narrator of the story, usually in the first person—although contemporary films have distanced themselves from that point of view. Instead, they show the characters in action. Remember that axiom in writing – show, don't tell?
In movies, it's very much alive. So, it is in novels. But, again, the main difference is that in film, the characters are already fleshed out and visible. In books, they primarily reside in the imagination of the reader as stimulated by the author.
Theme: Theme is a larger message or motif that an author explores to make a more significant point about everyday life or the world around us. All other elements can work together to convey themes in a work of fiction. In a film, the theme can be an elusive concept, particularly in action films that often make no sense. Nevertheless, serious films have a theme too conveyed by the subject matter, the colors, the tone of the dialogue, and the background music.
And that is the main difference between novels and movies regarding the theme. In novels, the story's theme is felt and understood by the reader with his active participation; in the movies, the theme is impressed upon the viewer visually and with sound.
Style: Style in novels is like style in fashion—there are no guides that say this is the right style. In stories, it is conveyed to the reader by the word choices, sentence and paragraph length, subjectivity or objectivity of the descriptions, and the pace and progression of the story. In films, style is transmitted to the moviegoer through colors, pictures, and sounds.
For all these reasons, reading a novel is akin to empathy and watching a movie is like sympathy. Another analogy comes to mind: scrambled eggs and bacon. The hen is involved in the meal, but the pig is committed. That’s the difference between reading a novel and watching a movie.
Get the picture?
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AUTHOR BIO:
David Pereda is the award-winning author of eleven thrillers and mainstream novels. His books have won the Lighthouse Book Awards twice, the Royal Palm Awards, the National Indie Excellence Awards, and the Readers Favorite Awards twice. He has traveled to more than thirty countries around the world and speaks four languages.
Before devoting his time solely to writing and teaching, Pereda had a successful international consulting career with global giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked with the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, and Qatar, among others.
A member of MENSA, Pereda earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in California. He earned BA degrees in English literature and mathematics at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He loves sports and has won many prizes competing in track and show-jumping equestrian events.
Pereda lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where he teaches mathematics and English at the Asheville-Buncombe Community College.
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CONNECT WITH DAVID:
Website:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Pereda-Writer/345490998614
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/DavidPeredaAVL
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsC-0ZcCvjAT0wM2FV0-jOw
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/davidmpereda
Goodreads Book Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58483851-the-wall
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
Amazon Kindle eBook:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wall-david-pereda/1139536309
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
David will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
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