A Good Man - P J McIlvaine | Author Guest Post | Blog Tour | #AGoodMan @PJMcIlvaine @Bloodhoundbook @rararesources

He wants to remember. He’ll wish he could forget . . .

Decades after a brutal childhood trauma, a famous novelist finds his life shattered once again, in this unsettling psychological mystery thriller.

Brooks Anderson should now be enjoying life, but the persistent nightmares and sleepwalking still haunt him.

As hard as he’s tried, he can’t run away from the defining event of his life: the senseless murders of his mother and brother during a vacation in Montauk, which left the eight-year-old Brooks the sole survivor of the carnage and in a catatonic state. He buried his pain and eventually overcame his demons.

But now an unscrupulous journalist is threatening to twist the truth by digging up the past. To prove his innocence and exorcise his demons, Brooks must dig into his own psyche and the events of that fateful summer. His pursuit of the truth soon leads Brooks down a slippery slope that challenges everything—and will bring him face-to-face with the real monster of Montauk . . .

GUEST POST

A Magical Summer in Southampton by PJ McIlvaine

When Mom announced that she had gone in with a summer rental in the Hamptons with her best friend, my older brother and I had different reactions. I was excited about new adventures and keen to spend more time with Mom, who lived the single life in New York City while our maternal grandparents looked after us in rural Long Island.

However, Mikey hated the idea of leaving his girlfriend behind even for a weekend (which was one of the reasons why Mom had decided a change was necessary). Mikey grumbled and griped but realized he didn’t have any choice.

Friday evening or early Saturday morning, Mom made the trip out to Lake Ronkonkoma on the Long Island Railroad. We’d pack the Plymouth which had plastic seats that burned our bare legs in the summer, then head out East. It was 1969 and traffic then wasn’t what it is now. We’d pass tractors, potato fields, and farm stands. By noon or so, we’d be in Southampton. Once we went to the only market in town and unloaded the car, we’d head straight for the beach, weather permitting.

The charming cottage was a cramped two-bedroom/one-bathroom with a kitchen so tiny you could barely fit two people in. The television reception was lousy. The house was in the sumptuous backyard of a huge, older, Southampton manor close to Main Street. The entire time we were in the cottage, we never saw any activity in the main house. At night, when we barbecued under the stars and played badminton and horseshoes, I often daydreamed about who lived there. Fueled by my voracious reading, I spun many melodramatic stories in my head.

Not that there wasn’t any drama going on around me. Netta, Mom’s best friend, an extremely nice lady when she didn’t hit the bottle, was going through a rough patch with her husband because she couldn’t have children. There were whispers of another woman, one who was pregnant.

Mom’s other friends–most of them single–had their own soap operas. Mom was no different. She was embroiled in a torrid affair with a debonair man who, despite his grand declarations of eternal love, had one excuse after the other for not divorcing his wife.

Mikey was miserable and never had a good thing to say about anything we did. It didn’t help that it rained non-stop most of the time.

As for me, I was self-conscious about being pudgy and having braces. I felt inferior next to Mom, who was svelte and beautiful like a Goddess. And it was clear that Mikey was the golden child. I was the Ugly Duckling. Wherever we went, I kept my head down, my arms crossed over my chest and barely uttered a word. But in my imagination, ah, I was everything and anything I wanted so desperately to be.

Looking back, if there’s a summer that defined my life–and I also mean my writing life–it’s that one. The only person who took my writing dreams seriously was my beloved grandmother (Mame). She constantly reminded me of our proud French heritage. Of course, I could write. I was related to the great feminist and writer Simone de Beauvoir. Mame encouraged me to take risks and follow my dreams, much as she’d done when orphaned at a young age and pawned off on uncaring relatives, she became a child bride to a Greek who brought her to America. (Yes, that’s a whole other book).

Years later, at a crossroads in my writing, I decided to take a leap of faith into the unknown. In a hot fever, I began an adult thriller that was an insane mash-up of fact and fiction. I was so sure that I was doomed to fail that I didn’t even give my opus a title until I was halfway through. I tried to convince myself not to write it. It was above my skill set. I had no idea what I was doing. Who did I think I was? I was a fake. A pretender. But despite the nagging voices of doubt in my head, I persisted. I pushed myself farther than I ever had. The words poured out of me like a geyser.

That’s the short version of how A GOOD MAN, my debut contemporary killer thriller was born. I didn’t choose to write it. It chose me. And often, that’s the best writing of all.

PJ McIlvaine is a prolific best-selling Amazon author, screenwriter, and journalist. Also, her Showtime film with Mimi Rogers, Karen Allen, and Eric Stoltz was nominated for an Emmy. She’s been published in Crime Reads, Writer’s Digest, The New York Times, and numerous outlets. She lives in Eastern Long Island with her family and pampered fur baby.

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