You Dear, Sweet Man by Thomas Neviaser
| You Dear, Sweet Man by Thomas Neviaser | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: An intriguing story about a man who thinks that the woman in the advert is talking to him. Excellent plotting and a twist in the tale which I really didn't see coming. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: June 2017 |
| Publisher: Pecos Publishing | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0976018520 | |
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Bobby Fastow's journey to work on the subway was an oasis of calm in an otherwise exhausting day: nothing was required of him. He could sit and relax, gazing at the adverts until he got to his stop and went to his physically-demanding job. The ad for BurgerBlast caught his eye: a beautiful woman was sitting on a boardroom table, encouraging you to read about the business's move away from artery-choking food to a healthier menu, but it wasn't the message which caught Bobby's attention. It was the woman. She seemed to be looking directly at him and he could have sworn that she winked...
Charlie Hamilton was the founder and CEO of BurgerBlast. He'd finally got the board of directors he wanted - a group of yes men who agreed with every word he said, but they weren't going to be much use so far as the current problem was concerned. His revenues were falling. The fall was slow, but it was steady and there didn't look to be any way of turning it around. He needed a new name for the company and a new direction - and that was going to be healthy food. He wanted an ad campaign to get the new name noticed - and the campaign needed to be cheap. Very cheap.
Freddie Poole was an animator and Preston Neville was into holograms. Neither actually looked as though they were going anywhere soon: both were dependant on a parent and unworried by it, but between them they managed to design the ultimate action advert - and that was the start of Bobby Fastow's problems.
You'll warm to Bobby Fastow. He's on the chubby side despite doing a physically-demanding job: his diet wasn't what you'd call healthy, you see. But... he does his best. He does his best to be a good husband and father and he works hard and really makes an effort to develop the young men at work and asks little for himself, not even 'supervisor' on his office door. He doesn't even think about the woman in advert (he calls her Megan) in a sexual way: he's more intrigued about what's happening and then worried that what's happening is that he's having mental problems.
As for the woman in the advert, well, her name is really Samantha. I was going to say that she's Sam to those who know her well, but an awful lot of men know Sam well - and she wouldn't call them friends. She's a porn star, you see and she's only survived (and thrived) because she's more conniving than the rest of them. Is the move to be BurgerBlast's spokeswoman an opportunity to put her seedy past behind her, or does she have something else in mind?
The plotting is excellent and there's a twist in the ending which I really didn't see coming at all. There's an element of fantasy in the novel and normally I do all that I can to avoid fantasy, but it's so well done here that I really had to revise my opinions. The trick with good fantasy is to make the reader believe that it could happen and Thomas Neviaser pulls this off well. It's a book to buy and reread: you might know how the story ends but next time around you'll have the pleasure of seeing how it was done. I'd like to thank the publisher for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
You can read more about Thomas Neviaser here.
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You can read more book reviews or buy You Dear, Sweet Man by Thomas Neviaser at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy You Dear, Sweet Man by Thomas Neviaser at Amazon.com.
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