Tuesday, June 07, 2016

What is Gina Wohlsdorf reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Gina Wohlsdorf, author of Security.

Her entry begins:
First, a confession: I don’t read fiction while I’m writing it. It’s probably an unfounded superstition, but I’m scared others’ styles will bend my voice. So, between my novels, I gobble up fiction like Cookie Monster at a Chips Ahoy factory. But when I’m writing a novel, I stick to nonfiction.

And, with the exception of about two weeks while my editor read my second book for Algonquin, I’ve been writing for six months.

In those two weeks, I stuck my head into Tim Johnston’s Descent. Bombs could have exploded in my apartment building and I wouldn’t have noticed. Compelling, textured characters. A nifty, nervy...[read on]
About Security, from the publisher:
The inventiveness of A Visit from the Goon Squad meets the down-the-rabbit-hole suspense of The Girl on the Train in this chilling, pulse-racing thriller from an electrifying new writer.

When the gleaming new Manderley Resort opens in twenty-four hours, Santa Barbara’s exclusive beachfront hotel will offer its patrons the ultimate in luxury and high-tech security. No indulgence has been ignored, no detail overlooked. But all the money in the world can’t guarantee safety. As hotel manager Tessa and her employees ready the hotel for its invitation-only grand opening, a killer is in their midst. One by one, staff are picked off with ruthless precision. And before the night is over, as Tessa desperately struggles to survive, it will become clear that the strangest and most terrible truth at Manderley is simply this: someone is watching.

With stunning ingenuity, Gina Wohlsdorf puts readers front and center as the elite resort becomes a house of horrors. Riveting to the final sentence, Security is fierce, wry, and impossible to put down. With a deep bow to the literary tradition of Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, and Daphne du Maurier, Wohlsdorf’s razor-wire prose blitzes readers with quick twists, sharp turns, and gasp-inducing terror. Security is at once a shocking thriller, a brilliant narrative puzzle, and a moving, multifaceted love story unlike any other.
Visit Gina Wohlsdorf's website.

The Page 69 Test: Security.

Writers Read: Gina Wohlsdorf.

--Marshal Zeringue