Blog Tour: Feedback By D.L. Richardson (Review + Giveaway)

I would like to welcome D L Richardson to The Avid Reader today. Thanks for stopping by D L. Please be sure and check out D L's novel Feedback. Check out my review of Feedback. Oh and be sure to enter the giveaway before you leave for 1 SWAG pack. The giveaway is international and ends on Jan. 3rd.

Book Title: Feedback

Author: D L Richardson

Genre: YA Paranormal

Publisher: Etopia Press

Ebook:

Words: 65,000

Release Date: 10/5/2012

PURCHASE
Feedback

Amazon

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OmniLit

BOOK DESCRIPTION
Feedback

Ethan James, Florida Bowman, and Jake Inala need organ transplants. When they receive the organs of a dead CIA agent, Dylan Black, they take on more than the task of completing the mission of deactivating bombs that threaten millions of lives. Kidnapped, their lives under threat, the memories stored in the CIA agent's mind begin to awaken within each of them, except the one piece of information they are abducted for - the location of the bombs.

EXCERPT
Feedback
Chapter One

Wednesday, November 9th, Ethan James

AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" blared through the speakers. Apt music considering the weather conditions. Rain pounded the windshield of the Lamborghini. Crushed beneath the noisy rain, the music took a beating, too. I flipped the volume control to the max, drowning out the steady slap of water on the roof.

The dark shroud of night cloaked the striped lines to my left and right. Street signs blasted yellow warnings to drivers to slow down on wet roads. I ignored them. Instead, I pushed the car to 120 miles per hour. Coming around a curve in the road, I flew up on a van and sharply jerked the wheel to avoid ramming the Lamborghini up its rear end. I owed my life to my quick reflexes.

Pity.

I drove for another half mile at suicidal speeds, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel to the rhythm of the guitar riff. Another half mile. Then another. Just when the buzz of the ride plunged to a level of indifference, the car hit a pothole, veered me across three lanes, and like a punch from nowhere, it was game on.

A tsunami-sized wave of water fell from the sky. Momentarily blinded by the useless wipers, I sucked in my breath when two rows of lights cut through the haze. Two white lights on the bottom and six or more yellow ones on top-the bright circles headed straight at me. Semitrailer. Not good.

Gritting my teeth, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. The truck swerved at the last second, missing killing me by about half that length of time. The driver blasted four long bleats of the horn.

I laughed out loud as I spun around.

I accelerated till the car caught up to its former 120 miles per hour. The chorus kicked in, and I helped with the backing vocals. "Thunder. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Thunder."

Whether driving under a dome of blue, or a sky darkened by storms like tonight, I liked to push cars to their limit. It didn't matter what sort of car, but slow cars tended to break apart sooner under extreme pressure. Fast cars handled the punishment of driving at stupid speeds much better.

Speeding made the rush last longer. It filled a void and carried me to a place where I let go of the angst over a waste of a life spent waiting to die of kidney failure. The rush reminded me that seventeen-year-old kids should wish for a professional ice hockey career instead of wishing to still be alive by Christmas.

The song ended, and in that second of silence, my thrill took a dismal nosedive. Images of the hospital I attended every week flickered across my vision. So, I increased the speed. Bad enough the bleak place filled my head and haunted my dreams, but to interrupt my fun-not going to happen.

The next song on the CD kicked in, and it did the trick of hauling me back to the driver's seat, where I replaced the hospital corridor for a rain-slicked freeway. I figured if I had to die young, I'd do it on my terms. No doubt the doctors would have something to say about this philosophy. If I crashed the car and ended up in the hospital, I'd tell them I reached out to touch life. Better than dwelling on my postpubescent life spent hooked up to a dialysis machine.

I'd probably get pulled over by the cops first, and I couldn't have that. Aside from speeding, I'd stolen the Lamborghini from a mall parking lot half an hour earlier, and I didn't have a license.

A crack in my concentration appeared like the lightning bolts streaking the sky. The car drifted into the next lane, and I let it go. A set of lights rushed toward me, and I expertly got the car under control, but at this speed, and despite the car's sporting capability, the Lamborghini was all over the shot.

Buzzed from pushing the car, I kept going.

At 120 miles per hour, streetlights floated like satiny, white ribbons. The rain-slicked road made it impossible to judge the lines marking the lanes. Curves were hard to anticipate.

Sometimes I oversteered; sometimes I didn't steer enough and had to yank the wheel to the left or right at the last second. Other drivers blasted their horns. I didn't care about the rules of the road. Rules were for pussies.

For each minute I survived this suicidal cruise, I'd get two points. So far, I'd accumulated over two hundred. Fifty were up for grabs, if I made it home alive. I had a lot to lose if I crashed the car. I had nothing to lose if I killed myself.

I jumped in surprise when a car came up on my left and honked its horn, whizzing by in a blur of chrome. "I don't think so, buddy."

I accelerated. If the cops wanted to stop me, they'd have to use air support. Getting myself on TV only added to the thrill of the chase.

Concern over my reckless driving should have registered, but it didn't. The speedometer now read 140 miles per hour. AC/DC screeched about "Hells Bells," and the rain didn't lessen. If I lost control now, I'd smash into the concrete barriers lining the highway. It'd be game over. No way I'd survive the impact. What a shame this last train of thought wasn't on whether I'd survive or not, but on whether I'd care.

Lightning bolts exploded across the sky and lit up the windshield. In that brief flicker of visibility, I spotted the plane on fire, blocking the highway-and the spaceship blowing up a bridge with luminous green laser beams. I let go of the wheel, idly watching the Lamborghini plow into the concrete barrier. Metal fragments and orange flames danced in front of me. The sound of something exploding boomed through the speakers. The words GAME OVER flashed across the television screen.

The plane had been okay, but the spaceship insulted me. For sure, the makers of the game reckoned it'd be a hoot to throw unrealistic obstacles in my path.

I tossed the Xbox controller aside and scratched my numb backside. My life couldn't get any worse…might as well go to school.

MY REVIEW

Feedback

The following review is my opinion and not a paid review. I was given a free copy of Feedback from the author for an honest review.

Ethan James, Florida Bowman, and Jake Inala are all teenagers and all three are on a waiting list to receive an organ. Ethan and Florida both need a new kidney and Jake needs a new liver. They are waiting for that one call where the person on the other end of the line says "we have a kidney or liver for you".

I was sucked in to the story from the very first chapter. Did you read the excerpt of the first chapter up above? If you didn't you might want to check it out now. Go on I know you want to. I will wait til you get back. D.L. writes in a very mysterious way where you believe what you are reading is real. Ethan has stolen a car from the mall and now he is driving at 120 and 140 mph down a very wet road. He is flying around curves like there is no tomorrow. He doesn't care if he crashes and dies I mean he believes that he is going to die anyway. If he kills himself while driving to fast or if he dies from kidney failure makes no difference to him. I was so taken with Ethan feeling so very sad for him with him not caring if he killed himself or not. I kept thinking what has driven a teenage to think in this way. Has he been abused? Was he in love with a girl who didn't love him back? Did he just lose one of his parents? Did one of them die? What would make anyone feel like this? And then at the end of the chapter I read "Game Over flashed over the tv screen".

I felt somewhat better after reading "Game over" but it still kept me thinking about what someone in his shoes maybe be going through. I know there is no way that I could ever know what someone else is going through or how they feel because I have never or can never go through what they go through. You know that old saying "You can't know what someone else is going through unless you have walked a mile in their shoes"? I don't really believe that you can walk a mile in someone else's shoes even if you have experienced the same things.

Well Ethan, Florida and Jake all get that one call that they have been waiting on for so long. They get their new organs and get a second chance to live their lives. Their organs were donated by a guy that works for the CIA, Dylan Black. Dylan is killed in a car crash while trying to hide three bombs that are set to explode. If the bombs explode they will spread diseases and death over the whole plant. He is being chased by the second in command of the man who made the bombs.

Jake, Ethan and Florida are kidnapped by the man who made the bombs. He knows that their new organs came from the dead CIA agent that had infiltrated his company. He believes in memory of organs. He thinks that they can give him information that only the CIA agent, Dylan Black would know. He will do what ever is necessary to retain this information.

It is all in the hands of Florida, Jake and Ethan to find these bombs to disarm them and save millions of lives. But how are they going to do this while being held prisoner? How are they going to get away so that they can save all these people? Where will they get the info to disarm the bombs? How will they find the bombs?

Feedback was a phenomenal read! I really loved it. I believe that most or all of it could actually happen. Well I believe that the memory of organs could happen. I believe that diseases could be spread in the way that D.L. wrote in Feedback. I know that Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a genetic disease so I am not sure if it could be spread in this way. But I have not went to any extreme of researching it either. I enjoy reading books like Feedback well because I am a conspiracy theorist. The CDC is out there so anything is very possible in my opinion.

About the Author

Music first captured the creative interest of D L Richardson. She got her first acoustic guitar at age ten, and in high school she sang with the school band. When she left school she helped form her own rock band where she sang lead vocals, played bass guitar, and wrote all the lyrics. At age 26 she realized she wanted to write novels for the rest of her life, or die trying, so she sold her equipment, quit pursuing a music career and began writing instead. She currently lives in Australia on the NSW South Coast with her husband and dog. When she's not writing or reading she can be found practicing her piano, playing the guitar or walking the dog.

ONLINE LINKS

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GIVEAWAY

The giveaway is for 1 Swag Pack (International) and ends on Jan. 5th.

Each SWAG pack contains:

1 Signed postcard

2 Bookmarks

1 Code breaker

3 business cards with secret codes to decipher using the code breaker

1 Sticker