The Suspense Thriller

Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.

This book is a comprehensive study of one of the most popular genres in the cinema. From a perspective sympathetic to popular culture, this study analyzes a large number of primarily American and European films by a variety of distinguished directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Chabrol, John Frankenheimer, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Costa-Gavras. Indispensable to anyone interested in understanding how suspense thrillers work and what they mean, this book provides insightful analysis of hundreds of memorable films, while at the same time working as a virtual how-to manual for anyone trying to write a Hitchcock-like thriller. The first section of the book is primarily theoretical. It offers a bibliographical survey and then explains why we so profoundly enjoy these suspenseful films of murder and intrigue. A chapter on "Thrills: or, How Objects and Empty Spaces Compete to Threaten Us" explores the psychological concept of the thrill and relates it to the psyche of the spectator. To what extent does the suspense thriller represent a symbolic and vicarious experience of danger? A chapter on "Suspense That Makes the Spectator Take a Breath" explores the crucial narrative concept of suspense and relates it to the psychological mechanisms of anxiety incited in the spectator. Why do we like to be scared? A final theoretical chapter offers a dynamic definition of the suspense thriller derived in part from Edgar Allan Poe and based primarily on content analysis. The second section of the book is more of an historical survey and devotes one chapter to each of the suspense thriller's primary sub-genres. These chapters provide close readings of more than 150 major films and detailed analysis of the suspense thriller's conventions, themes, and recurrent iconography. Sub-genres include The Postman Always Rings Twice, Body Heat, The Manchurian Candidate, The China Syndrome, Missing, The Passenger, Spellbound, Obsession, Marathon Man and Blue Velvet. A final chapter explores areas for further research and offers concluding insights.

“A well-crafted debut . . . horrifying . . . Psychological thrillers fans won’t be disappointed.” —Publishers Weekly "Unsettling, compelling, elegantly paced . . . A slick, contemporary novel that explores the wispy, nagging memories of childhood.” —Julia Heaberlin, bestselling author of We Are All the Same in the Dark In this compulsively readable novel of domestic suspense, a young woman takes comfort in reconnecting with her childhood nanny, until she starts to uncover secrets the nanny has been holding for twenty years. Sue Keller is lost. When her father dies suddenly, she's orphaned in her mid-twenties, her mother already long gone. Then Sue meets Annie. It’s been twenty years, but Annie could never forget that face. She was Sue’s live-in nanny at their big house upstate, and she loved Sue like she was her own. Craving connection and mothering, Sue is only too eager to welcome Annie back into her life; but as they become inseparable once again, Sue starts to uncover the truth about Annie's unsettling time in the Keller house all those years ago, particularly the manner of her departure—or dismissal. At the same time, she begins to grow increasingly alarmed for the safety of the two new charges currently in Annie's care. Told in alternating points of views—Annie in the mid-'90s and Sue in the present day—this taut novel of suspense will keep readers turning the pages right up to the shocking end.

A 14-year-old girl is butchered in a high school shooting. A 72-year-old woman is throttled at home. A 7-year-old child is crushed into the concrete by a trash dumper. The only thing common between all of them: their name. Someone is slaughtering every woman, girl, and child named Natasha Mehra . . . Which is what Natasha Mehra, the most unpopular girl on campus, discovers. Though she' s always hated her name, she would' ve never imagined that it would be the reason she would be on the run from a gruesome death. But these murders aren' t random acts of madness. Rather, they are part of a conspiracy hatched by the Kul, an all-powerful secret organisation with tentacles everywhere. And the success or failure of this 2000-year-old mission will determine the future of humankind . . .

The murder of a world-famous physicist raises fears that the Illuminati are operating again after centuries of silence, and religion professor Robert Langdon is called in to assist with the case.

The waves still crashed against the rocks. The moon still bathed the sandy beach with its light. And the piano still played on. But, amidst all this, just like that, Sally Sequeira had disappeared. With its pristine beaches and clear turquoise waters, the picturesque hamlet of Movim in Goa seems like the perfect holiday spot for detective Janardan Maity and his friend Prakash Ray. But when the father of a local teenage girl receives a letter asking for a large sum of money in exchange for his daughter, Maity and Prakash find themselves in the thick of an unlikely mystery. For, they discover, the girl has not been kidnapped at all, and is safe and sound in her house. As they begin to investigate, the duo encounter the mysterious characters who inhabit the tiny village, each hiding a secret of their own – not least the frail and shy Sally Sequeira, who keeps to herself but steps out at night to dance to the notes of a piano. What truth does Movim hide? And how will Janardan Maity solve a crime that has not yet been committed?

From the Amazon bestselling author of The Prediction and The Shattered Conscience ‘The characters were rich, the plot was believable and the twist was downright wicked!' CINDY ROBERTSON A girl missing for twenty-five years. Presumed dead. Until now... Twenty-five years ago, Chelsea Thomson disappeared after a party in the American seaside town of Hyannis. Her body was never found, yet the evidence that amounted against high-school dropout Hector Sims led to his life imprisonment. When Chelsea’s former sweetheart Jimmy Quinn arrives in Hyannis for a conference—his first trip to the U.S. since her murder—it unleashes a rollercoaster of raw emotions. Discovering an old journal belonging to her, Jimmy makes a shocking discovery that suggests she could still be alive. Detective Bryan Myers has never been able to dispel the shred of doubt surrounding the murder case. While he welcomes the new evidence that Jimmy has uncovered, it unwittingly puts Myers on a tumultuous trail to a psychopath who is willing to kill to keep the truth concealed... ____________________________________________ PRAISE FOR SHRED OF DOUBT: ‘The twists and turns surprised me so that I gasped.’ LORI BINDER ‘This is a character driven story with a well-developed plot and delicious twists and turns.’ KELLY KNAPP ‘Fast reading, believable. There was nothing I didn’t like about this book. I finished it in two days.’ KENNETH WILLIAMSON ‘One of the best books I have ever read.’ MIGDALIA BURGOS ‘Shred of Doubt will have you constantly trying to solve a twenty-five year old crime. The unraveling of secrets will cause pure disbelief.’ PHYLLIS KRALL ‘Read it in one sitting! The characters were rich, the plot was believable and the twist was downright wicked!' CINDY ROBERTSON

A weekend away deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in this suspenseful and compulsive debut psychological thriller. Sometimes the only thing to fear...is yourself. Leonora (Lee to some, Nora to others) is a reclusive writer, but when an old friend unexpectedly invites her to a weekend away in an eerie glass house, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But a haunting realization creeps in to the party: they are not alone in the woods. Forty-eight hours later, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?” she tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. In order to uncover secrets and reveal motives, Nora must revisit parts of herself that she’d rather leave buried where they belong: in the past. In the vein of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl, this gripping thriller will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.