Poor Boy Road
Jake
Caldwell
Book
One
James
L. Weaver
Genre:
Thriller
Publisher:
Lakewater PressDate of Publication: March 21, 2016
ISBN 978-0-9944511-2-5
ISBN: 978-0-9944511-3-2
ASIN: B019X3WELC
Number of pages: 251
Word Count: approx. 78,000
Cover Artist: E.L Wicker
Book
Description:
As
a mob enforcer, Jake Caldwell is in the dark business of breaking
kneecaps and snapping bones. But each job sends him one step closer
to turning into the man he swore he’d never become—his violent
and abusive father. Leaving the mob is easier said than done. When
his boss offers a bloody way out, Jake has no choice but to take it,
even if it means confronting ghosts of old.
Arriving
in his Lake of the Ozarks hometown, Jake has two things on his mind:
kill ruthless drug lord Shane Langston and bury his dying father.
What he doesn’t expect is to fall in love all over again and team
up with his best friend Bear, the Sheriff of Benton County, to take
Langston down. Racing through the countryside searching for Langston,
the web of murder, meth and kidnapping widens, all pointing toward a
past Jake can’t escape and a place he never wanted to return—Poor
Boy Road.
Excerpt
“Open
the door, Carlos,” Jake said, pounding the door twice. No answer,
but the shadow wavered as if its owner was uncertain if it should
stay or run.
Jake
sighed and stepped back. With his good leg, he exploded forward,
driving his heel above the knob. The lock assembly collapsed against
the splintered wood and the door burst open. Carlos cried out as the
door cracked his face, his wiry frame collapsing to the floor. He
landed on his ass, holding his nose. Blood poured through his fingers
and onto his stained, white T-shirt. Jake entered the apartment to
the stench of cigarettes and fried onions, and shut the remains of
the door behind him. Carlos pushed back toward a kitchen stacked with
crusted plates and glasses, his wide eyes fearful.
Jake
tucked the Glock in his waistband and picked up a dented baseball bat
leaning against a bookcase covered with dead plants. He held it with
both hands, testing the weight. Thirty-two ounce aluminum fat barrel.
He walked to Carlos and tapped him hard on the leg with it.
“Where’s
your daughter?” Jake asked. The last thing he wanted was a little
girl to run in screaming. It happened before.
“Hospital.”
“Still?”
Carlos
nodded. “They can’t figure out what’s wrong.”
“Sorry
to hear it,” Jake said. He didn’t wish that kind of heartache on
anyone, but Keats wasn’t paying him as a shoulder to cry on. “The
two grand. Where is it?”
“Ain’t
got it. No insurance and the damn hospital’s sucking me dry.”
The
bat burned in Jake’s hands. He didn’t want to, but his orders
were to liberally apply a blunt object to Carlos’ legs if he didn’t
have the money. There would be hell to pay otherwise. He raised the
bat, white knuckling the handle.
“Please,
Jake,” Carlos pleaded, tears rolling down his weathered cheeks.
“It’s my little girl, man.”
The
brief howl of air and hollow thunk of metal meeting bone echoed in
his head, a ghostly sound from long ago. The excruciating pain would
rip through the man’s body, so intense he would shred his vocal
cords from the screams. He knew because he dealt this punishment too
many times in the past. He could feel it because he was once on the
receiving end. As the bat barrel wavered and Carlos sobbed, Jake’s
cell phone vibrated for the fifth time in twenty minutes. Like the
previous four times, he silenced it.
He
glimpsed a picture on the kitchen counter of Carlos and his daughter.
Eight years old, cute as hell in a white dress with a daisy in her
thick, black hair. What would happen to her if Jake broke her daddy’s
legs? What would Keats do to him if he didn’t? His cell vibrated
again.
Jake
tossed the bat on the floor. It clanked toward the busted front door
and he yanked the cell from his pocket, checking the number. 660 area
code. Home, if there was such a place. He needed to think and the
call provided as good a distraction as any. Jake answered with his
left hand and pulled the gun out with his right, training it on
Carlos.
“Dad’s
dying,” Janey said. His sister’s first words to him in a year.
Like he was supposed to give a sh*t.
About
the Author:
James
L Weaver is the author of the forthcoming Jake Caldwell thrillers
Poor Boy Road and Ares Road from Lakewater Press. He makes his home
in Olathe, Kansas with his wife of 18 years and two children. His
previous publishing credits include a six part story called "The
Nuts" and his 5-star rated debut novel Jack & Diane which is
available on Amazon.com. Author note: a handful of the raters are
actually not related to him.
His
limited free time is spent writing into the wee hours of the morning,
playing parental taxi cab to his kids' sporting endeavors, and binge
watching Netflix.
You
can read his blog at weaverwrites.wordpress.com and follow him on
Twitter @WildcatJim2112.
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/WildcatJim2112
Interview
Where
are you from?
I’m Kansas City born and raised. Go Chiefs and go
2015 World Champion Royals! I live in a suburb on the Kansas side of the state
line called Olathe, just 260 miles from the geographic center of the continental
United States.
Tell
us your latest news?
The big news is the release of my thriller Poor Boy
Road from Lakewater Press. I’m really excited to finally get it out there so
people can read it and I can get to work editing the sequel due to hit the
shelves in 2017.
When
and why did you begin writing?
I’ve
always enjoyed the process of writing, even as a little kid. As to the why I
write, I can only explain it like this. The creation of something from nothing
is an awesome thing. Whether you’re a writer, a composer or an artist, the mere
act of crafting a piece of your soul into something tangible for others to see
is both terrifying and exhilarating. There’s a thrill in knowing in your heart
what you have created is good and having someone affirm it. I find writing to
be a great stress reliever.
When
did you first consider yourself a writer?
That’s a tough question. I’d written a book and a
bunch of short stories only a handful of people ever read – some of it was good
and some not so good. I had a six-part fictional story called “The Nuts”
published in Bluff Magazine in 2005. I actually received a paycheck for it –
enough to buy a bigger TV at least. I thought then that I was a writer because
someone had paid me for my work.
Years later, I got an idea for a boy meets girl
story that I fell in love with. When the agents failed to beat down my door, I
self-published Jack & Diane three years ago to get it in the hands of my
dying mother so she could see the results of something she always encouraged. When
someone told me my book made them cry and I got mostly five star reviews from
it, I thought maybe then I was a writer because I had a tangible book out there
that impacted someone on an emotional level. Even then, I guess I didn’t fully
believe it until a stranger read Poor Boy Road and wanted to publish it.
You see, we writers are a self-doubting bunch. You
tell yourself your story is great and people will love it, but do they? Are
they just being nice? You vacillate between knowing your work is good and
knowing it’s a piece of shit. Sometimes, the little devil on your shoulder just
seems to put in a little overtime.
In the end, I don’t think it matters. If you put
words on a page to tell a story, you’re a damn writer. If what you wrote has
ever made someone laugh or cry or think differently about a subject, you’re a
writer. Tell the little devil on your shoulder who is whispering in your ear to
piss off. Just write whatever trips your trigger. Even if you never make a dime
off it, you’ve done more than most people dare to do.
What
inspired you to write your first book?
I wrote my first book in the early 1990’s after
reading a subpar NY Times Bestseller. I’d thought about writing for years and
decided I couldn’t very well critique something without having tried it myself.
So, I crafted a cop/serial killer novel and tried to find an agent several
times over the next few years without success. There were numerous short
stories along the way, but it wasn’t until the last five years that I really
applied myself and took the craft seriously.
Do
you have a specific writing style?
I don’t know, to be honest. I think it continues to
evolve as I mature and continue to learn about the craft. I try not to get
bogged down in too much description and keep the action moving. I don’t want my
readers getting frustrated or bored because I used a hundred words to describe
what my character wore in a particular scene followed by another two hundred
words blasting every last minute detail of the room he’s in. I want to get to
the action because that’s where I think the reader wants to be.
How
did you come up with the title?
My book is set in the real life town of Warsaw,
Missouri. It’s a small town in the Lake of the Ozarks, a beautiful part of the
country. I’d written about three-fourths of the book, but still didn’t have a
title. I had a few tentative titles bouncing around in my head, but I just
didn’t love any of them and a couple that I really liked were already taken
after a quick Internet search. When I went back to Warsaw to visit some family,
I took a drive down the winding back roads and ended up at the Turkey Creek
Cemetery where I have a number of family members buried. Coincidentally, my
main character has family buried there as well! As I left and headed back toward
the highway leading to my dad’s house, the name of the road where the cemetery
sat popped in my head. Poor Boy Road. As soon as I recalled the name, I knew I
had my book title.
Is
there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
That there’s always a way out. You can’t control the
shitty things that happened to you in the past, but you can choose how you will
face them in the future.
How
much of the book is realistic?
The setting is very real. Warsaw is a real town.
Poor Boy Road is a real road. You can travel through the town and those
backroads and it will look just as I described it (a few literary allowances
aside). The meth problem is real as is the socioeconomic disparity. As for the
things that happen to Jake and some of the flashbacks that you’ll see, those
are literary exaggerations. Thankfully, my dad was nothing like Jake’s father, Stony.
Are
experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
There’s
no direct experiences, but there are shadows of them. I think writing is taking
what you’ve experienced and twisting it into something more interesting. I’ve
been in a rainy parking lot of a bar in Warsaw, but I never got into a fist
fight there. I’ve never been physically or verbally abused, but I’ve heard
stories of it by people I know. I’ve never been wrapped up in meth, but I know
people that have.
What
books have most influenced your life most?
Watership
Down was one of the first “adult” books I remember reading when I was in 6th
grade. Not only did the story and the writing blow my mind, but I think that
classic helped break through the barrier that a lot of kids have about books of
size. You can watch them weigh a tome in their hands like they’re picking out a
melon in the supermarket, too heavy means too much work. My dad was a huge
Stephen King fan and had all his books, so once that size barrier was broken, I
devoured King’s more sizable tales like The Stand, The Talisman and the Dark Tower
series. King’s book 11/22/63 was on my high school daughter’s reading list as
an option for her advanced English class and I almost had her talked into it
until she saw it was 880 pages! Game over. In the last decade I enjoy not only
King, but Lee Child, John Sandford, Gillian Flynn, and Janet Evanovich. I love
series with the same cast of characters that you can grow with and come to
know. I think that’s why I embarked on this Jake Caldwell series.
If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Just one? I’d have to go with Stephen King. His book
On Writing should be a required read for any writer and his scene setting is
second to none. A close second would be Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher
series. I’ve learned a great deal about story pacing from him.
What
book are you reading now?
I just finished the brilliant book All the Light We
Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. His writing is outstanding. Such an enviable way
of putting you in the landscape of World War II. He blends the perspectives of
three different characters and time hops without missing a beat. Excellent read.
I’m just a few chapters into an advanced reader copy
of A Falling Friend by fellow Lakewater Press authors Sue Featherstone
and Susan Pape. The novel is set for release in April and am enjoying it so
far. There’s another dozen or so books in my Goodreads queue.
Are
there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
I try to support new authors that I find on my
Twitter feed, but it’s hard. I don’t have a ton of free time between my day
job, my family and my writing so if they want me to invest in their story, I
have to know that they have invested in their story. I usually give it a couple
of chapters, but if I start completely redlining the book in my head, it gets
distracting and I can’t get into the tale.
Looking through my Goodreads list of books I’ve
read, they are predominately from established authors. That said, R.L.
Martinez, a fellow Lakewater author, and her book In the Blood definitely
caught my eye. I’m usually not one for fantasy, but her writing is extremely
strong and I was surprised how quickly I poured through the book. Kate Foster’s
Winnell Road is a YA novel that is a well-paced tale that leaves you wanting
for the next one.
I generally will read anything that comes with a
strong recommendation from someone I trust. So, if you have any new authors you
love, I’m always open to reading a great story.
What
are your current projects?
I’m currently editing the stand-alone sequel to Poor
Boy Road entitled Ares Road which is set for a 2017 release, though I’d love to
get it out at Christmas. I finished and polished it about six months ago before
I dove head on into prepping Poor Boy Road for publication. It’s amazing what
you find after letting your work sit idle for six months that you missed in the
endless read and editing sessions. So, I’ll finish that run through, send it to
Lakewater for their thoughts, re-write and polish and then get in the hands of
some beta readers for feedback.
In between that, I’m half-assed brainstorming for
the third Jake Caldwell book. I have a general idea of where I want to go with
it, but that process sometimes seems like trying to catch smoke with a butterfly
net. The beauty of this series, like the adventures of Jack Reacher or Lucas
Davenport, is that there’s no ultimate goal or prize, no linear path they must
follow. I can literally put them anywhere in any circumstance as many times as
the readers want to see them. I find that very attractive.
What
would you like my readers to know?
Support the authors
you love with not only your purchase of their books, but your vocal support as
well. Get on the sites that sell their books such as Amazon or sharing sites
such as Goodreads and post reviews, especially for the newer authors. We authors
are a self-doubting bunch at times and those positive reviews bolster us during
those doubting times. Your reviews and praise mean more than you know.
Tour
giveaway
1
copy of Poor Boy Road and swag pack
3
ebook copies of Poor Boy Road
No comments:
Post a Comment