Blinded (15 Weeks Of Giveaways #7)

Want to win a copy of my seventh novel, Blinded? Go to my Facebook page to check it out.

Here’s my seventh overview of my seventh published novel.
Publication Date:

August 1, 2006

Where the idea came from:

This idea came when I was a the Denver airport at a Chili’s restaurant. Some ideas evolve, but this one was very specific. I had just visited a publisher and an idea had been proposed to me to cowrite a novel with a nonfiction author on the area of temptation. I had expressed my doubts in doing such a venture, but the ideas flowed nevertheless. While I was eating lunch on my own, I saw an attractive woman dining with her three or four year old daughter. My imagination began to run and ask the question “what if”. I wrote several pages of ideas on what would turn out to be Blinded.

One Line Synopsis:

What makes a happily married man succumb to temptation while he’s on a business trip?

Journey to publication:

I never did work with that nonfiction writer on this idea. But this was an easy one–I simply submitted the idea to my acquiring editor at Moody and he liked it. This was the second book in my three-book contract with Moody Publishers. Simple and easy, just like all books, right?

The Response:

I think at this point a lot of readers began to start questioning where I was headed with my writing career. I started out in the Nicholas Sparks vein but was getting darker and more experimental. And Blinded was certainly an experiment in many ways. Some people really liked it, but I’m sure a lot of people didn’t at the same time.

My Thoughts:

If I meet a stranger who asks me to recommend one of my titles to read, I never suggest Blinded. First off, it’s written in second person, which a lot of people won’t like. I like the fact that I did this and I still believe it works. It’s a shorter work–the second person point-of-view draws attention to itself, so you don’t want it to be 100,000 words. The story was a morality tale and I wanted readers to get in the shoes of the businessman. I see this as a cousin to The Second Thief, an episode of The Twilight Zone rather than a full length movie.

Interesting Fact:

I’ve visited New York city several times including one trip where I went specifically for research.