"The best revenge is revenge. Getting it is all that matters." And thus begins the blurb for Ryan Lawrence's Vindictive. I love that line. Today I'm bringing you an excerpt from this thriller and the author tells us about crafting his fictional world. Be sure to check out the rest of the tour and best of luck in the giveaway!
The best revenge is revenge. Getting it is all that matters.
Jules Cartell has it all: wealth; beauty; a handsome, loving husband; a partnership in her father's law firm; and the top executive position at one of Canada's leading corporations, Cartell Worldwide. Aside from her secret, problematic desire for the married owner of the internationally renowned Château Bergé, Jules believes she and her life are pretty perfect. But the discovery of an unforgivable crime perpetrated against her family by her husband, Phillip, years before the two met sets Jules down the path of revenge. There is no option for forgiveness. Phillip has to pay. An eye for an eye.
It is said that when seeking revenge, you should dig two graves. Someone from Jules's past, someone aggrieved by her actions, seeks vengeance for themselves. This is an enemy without compassion, without morality, without mercy. An enemy who will accept no restitution short of Jules's death.
In the city of Fairporte, ON, secrets, lies, and betrayal can be found everywhere. As adversaries close in, will Jules get revenge before her past catches up with her? Unexpected allies may be instrumental to her success. They may also be the key to her very survival.
Read an excerpt:
“You’ve grown sloppy and let your instincts, your muscle memory, become soft, flabby. Your responses should be instinctual. Even our sparring last night was—meh.”
What! Jules almost ran her car off the road. Her anger towards Amanda’s castigating words and unexpected lack of empathy towards her plight ran hot and potent, and it nearly got the best of her. She visualized Amanda’s admonishing finger waving furiously in the air at her over her phone.
Pointed criticisms due to failings and mistakes took Jules back to her early training sessions with the woman. Amanda had been relentless and unforgiving in her attempt to mould Jules into a version of herself.
Thankfully, Jules managed to keep her head clear, her eyes focused dead ahead, and she remained on the road. She wanted to get to her midtown condo as fast as possible without killing herself in the process. She was almost there, and this was not the time to get in an accident. Jules took a deep breath before countering the unwanted chastisement.
But countering it with what? Anger? Curses? Resentment? She would not be fooling anyone with her self-righteous indignation, least of all herself. Amanda was completely and unequivocally correct in her observations.
Jules realized something significant. Having been so preoccupied for so long with Phillip’s destruction, she absolutely had a lax attitude toward her physical training to keep her skills sharp. She had even put her sessions in Toronto with Master Hiroki on hold. What disrespectful behaviour. His time was priceless. His knowledge? Invaluable! Jules felt terrible regret and shame.
Also, she was shocked by how much she had forgotten about Amanda, about how astute and perceptive she was. Why am I surprised? It’s why I knew she could help with William. This is her life, always prepared, focused—apparently, even more than I am. Dammit, Jules, get it together.
PURCHASE LINKS
(affiliate links included)
Crafting the Canadian World of Vindictive
It is often said to write what you know. Sometimes, there is a strong desire to write about where you know.
From the beginning, before laying a finger on my keyboard, I knew my novel, Vindictive, would take place in Canada. While I absolutely planned to set scenes in several well-known Canadian locales, my primary objective was to create a totally original city to position the bulk of the story in.
The desire was present, the innovative passion robust, but truthfully, the idea to create this city did not burst from my noggin like Athena from Zeus’s head, dynamic and unexpected. Instead, it was inspired by Mark Frost and David Lynch’s quirky, totally original town of Twin Peaks. The notion that I could craft a place wholly from my imagination and fill it with sexy, crazy, and dramatic—okay, melodramatic characters greatly appealed to me.
Growing up in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, I read many books set in non-Canadian cities, from Charles Dickens’s London to James Baldwin’s Paris to Anne Rice’s New Orleans to countless books set in New York. Rarely did I get taken to a Canadian landscape; if I did, these novels usually took place in the rural prairies, small-town Northern Ontario or the bucolic countryside and fishing villages of the Maritimes.
While these stories were entertaining, their settings authentic to many Canadian voices and experiences, I wanted something to reflect a landscape nearer to my personal urban upbringing. I yearned to read stories where a location I was more familiar with was brought to the forefront. And while Hugh Garner’s Toronto-set Cabbagetown was a high-school requirement, its depression-era backdrop did little to resonate with my relationship/familiarity with contemporary urban life in Canada.
In University, during my early twenties, I complained to anyone who would listen, professors and fellow students alike, that I was desperate to read something modern set in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. Something with nary a cliff or prairie thistle to be found.
Thanks to the suggestions of amazing people, I discovered Tanya Huff and Brad Fraser, two Canadian writers who set their work in Toronto, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta, respectively.
The use of modern locales, familiar cultural settings, and trendy establishments in Huff’s Blood Books series and Fraser’s play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love blew my mind with how contemporary and urban they felt. It was a different Canadian flavour, a welcome change, and one that wholly resonated with me. This was the engaging fiction I was looking for.
When the time came for me to breathe life into Vindictive, I knew I wanted my readers to feel that same kind of connection to contemporary urban Canada as I had felt reading Huff and Fraser’s work. Crafting a Canadian setting for Vindictive was not only important to me as a Canadian writer, born and bred, but it was pivotal to the authenticity of the book. The reader had to know unequivocally that this book possessed a modern but still accessible Canadian self-identity.
Vindictive takes place primarily in the fictional city of Fairporte, Ontario, Canada. Like I write in the novel, Fairporte is “a city very much like Montreal, but one drenched in its own unique blend of French and English culture.” While writing Vindictive, it was important to me as a Canadian to acknowledge the unique duality of our French and English culture, which is why the novel’s text encompasses both English and Quebecois dialogue (with English translation following). If anything aside from Poutine, Nanaimo bars, and Jimbo the Drag Queen reflects the uniqueness of the Canadian identity, it is our official bilingualism.
Vindictive takes the reader on a journey across Canada. From the snowy landscape of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley to the student hub of downtown Montreal. From Toronto’s upscale residential neighbourhood “The Bridle Path” to the LGBTQ-oriented corner of Church and Wellesley. Danger, adventure, and romance flow in abundance across this diverse Canadian terrain, converging at the nucleus that is the enigmatic city of Fairporte.
Vindictive states that: “No form of revenge is petty; all revenge is reasonable.” Setting a novel entirely in Canada is also reasonable—and quite entertaining!
Since 2002, Ryan has lived in London, Ontario, with his husband, Todd, together since 1997, their cat Dora, and his massive comic book collection that once fell on Todd. He’s okay.
CONNECT WITH Ryan Lawrence
WEBSITE - ryanlawrenceauthor.ca
FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/RyanLawrenceAuthor/
INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/ryanlawrenceauthor/
TWITTER - https://twitter.com/RyanLAuthor
GOODREADS - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22020369.Ryan_Lawrence
Ryan Lawrence will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds very intriguing.
ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt
ReplyDeletenice cover
ReplyDeleteI love the wicked weapon on the cover.
ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt and giveaway. :)
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good read. Great cover!
ReplyDeleteThe book sounds very intriguing. Love the cover. Very effective.
ReplyDelete