The Red Highway by E. Robert Dunn
My Rating:
I received a free copy of The Red Highway in return for an honest review.
At first I found The Red Highway a struggle, not because it wasn't enjoyable but because there was so much to take in. However, once I got into the flow of the writing style and got all the characters straight in my head, I couldn't put it down.
There is a lot to The Red Highway, it covers lots of topics such as racism, the porn industry, sexism, transgender, faith, abuse, police brutality, alcoholism and more, and it's done very well. Many of these topics are hard to read or a bit risqué to approach within a story and the author has done an excellent job. If I had been informed beforehand that race was going to play such a significant part in the story I'm sure I would have thought twice about reading the book. Usually I'm not comfortable reading books where race and racism are present, I normally find myself getting irritated and angry as it's major a pet peeve of mine - but I didn't find that at all with The Red Highway. I commend the author for going places that many would find uncomfortable or see as too risqué, it was a brave move and one that makes for excellent reading.
The characters are well portrayed and fleshed out. They are normal everyday people who are down on their luck, outcasts, struggling to survive yet ready to take that leap. Real people that are willing to step up and become the true heroes that every reader can sympathise and root for.
The pacing was consistent, there's always something happening that has you turning just one more page, then another, and although I stumbled a little in the beginning I was soon hooked and flying through the pages dying to know what came next.
The Red Highway is by no means a easy read, it's a book to get your teeth into. A book that requires you to pay attention and to really digest the pages before you. It's thrilling, it's tense, it's risqué and it's one that I really enjoyed and would recommend highly so be sure to check out the giveaway further down this page!
-------------------------------------------------
The Red Highway, SynopsisNecro Publications/Bedlam Press
PAGES: 282
ISBN: 978-1-939065-82-7
UK: Kindle Edition £1.99 / Paperback £8.45
US: Kindle Edition $2.99 / Paperback $12.95
Distribution: Trade Paperback: Amazon, LSI and CreateSpace eBook: Kindle, Smashwords, Baker & Taylor, Nook, LSI, Apple, Kobo, Sony and others
In 1992, as Los Angeles begins to simmer in the heat of racial injustices, one dark man appears everywhere, spreading his message of race war. At the same time, Paul Souther, a homeless drunk, joins a strange group of outsiders. Some black and some white, they all carry the weight of broken lives and lost faith. They are all drawn to LA, for the arrival of a child, impossibly carried by Mary Prince, a sterile porn star.
Through back roads and freeways everyone is pulled into LA and Mary's side just as the baby is born. None of them have any idea that the city is a ticking bomb of anger. As riots explode, the mysterious man reveals himself to be an ancient, dark spirit using the rage of the people to stoke his own, literal, fires. He demands Mary’s child as sacrifice to keep the city, and perhaps the nation from burning. It falls to Paul, a faithless man, and a drunk with blood on his own hands, to make the impossible choice between the child and the city, and to save the people he has come to care about.
-------------------------------------------------
Biography, Robert E. DunnRobert E. Dunn was born an army brat and grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. He wrote his first book at age eleven, stealing, or novelizing, as he called it at the time, the storyline of a Jack Kirby comic book. His college course of study, philosophy, religion, theatre, and film/TV communications, left him qualified only to be a televangelist. When that didn’t work out, he turned to them mostly, honest work of video production. Over several years he produced everything from documentaries, to training films and his favorite, travelogues. Still always writing for the joy of it he returned to writing horror and fantasy fiction for publication after the turn of the century. It seemed like a good time for change even if the changes were not always his choice.
He lives in Kansas City with three daughters, a young grandson, and an old dog. He tweets sometimes as @WritingDead but makes no promises how interesting those little posts will be.
-------------------------------------------------
Praise for The Red Highway
“The Red Highway is not one of the best books that I’ve read so far this year, or that I’ve read in a long time…it’s one of the best books that I’ve ever read! It was an incredible read, one that has so many layers that I was completely enthralled with the story.” –2 Book Lovers Reviews
"A thoroughly gripping read. Dunn is a writer with guts and the chops to grab his readers by the eyeballs and dare them to look away." –Hunter Shea, Author of Tortures of the Damned
-------------------------------------------------
Giveaway!!!
Enter for your chance to win either a copy of The Red Highway, Behind the Darkness, or a print of the beautiful cover artwork from The Red Highway done by Erik Wilson! You can do multiple things each day to gain more entries! Just click the rafflecopter link. Forward any questions to Erin Al-Mehairi, publicist, at hookofabook@hotmail.com.
Media, information and review copy provided as part of the Hook of a Book blog tour by Erin Al-Mehairi from Hook of a Book Media & Publicity.
Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
Facebook | Twitter | G+ | BookLikes | Leafmarks
No comments:
Post a Comment