novel – Cynthia D. Griffin

Book Review: The Hatch By Michelle Saftich

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Cynthia D. Griffin

The Hatch by Michelle Saftich is available in paperback and on kindle.

This is a science fiction novel with a twist of paranormal that is intriguing and thrilling to read. It follows the journey of Britta Tate from a young girl to young woman as she struggles with the loss of her mother and the disappearance of her brother. She also must tame her strong psychic abilities by joining the EASA. He brother warned her not to join the agency, but somehow she knows it’s going to lead her to the answers of what happened to her family.

Earth is on the brink of destruction as she sets out to an alien planet to contact another higher form of being. She’s being called there and she doesn’t know why, but she knows it’s important to help Earth and to discover more about her mother and brother.

Along the way she reunites with a fellow EASA member that she remembers meeting as a child. He used to be her brother’s close friend, and now she finds herself getting close to him as well, but in a different way. She also battles her high emotions as she gets closer to the truth of what happened to her family.

This is a masterful story told across space and time. It dives heavily into psychic phenomena as Britta astral travels to reach out to higher vibrational beings and even her lost family. But it is well-balanced with some awesome space travel technology to create a believable world that engrossed me right away.

This is one of the best space traveling books I’ve read in a long time, and I truly hope the author either continues this story with another book, or something close to it.

If you like a good space exploration book and highly character driven plot, this is the book for you!

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3 Ways to Make an Engaging Start to a Story, Chapter, or Novel

Posted on September 24, 2019September 20, 2020 by Cynthia D. Griffin

How does a writer start a story, chapter, or novel to make it engaging and keep the reader interested? After all, a story can be good, but are there are some key elements to making a story, chapter, or novel stand out? There are actually, and this post will address three of them, and I’ll give some examples of really fantastic starting lines I’ve come across in my reading.

Have you read some of the classics (even just dating back a few years ago) where the authors take the time to build a relationship with the reader? The stories start at a leisurely pace and it may take awhile to see any real action. That was nice and great, but unfortunately to be a writer in this day and age you have to forego the hand holding and get right into it. You can do the hand holding stuff, but do it while you are hooking the reader.

1. Start in the Middle of Action

One of the best ways to engage and hook the reader is to start in the middle of some sort of action. If you are starting a story or novel, then it should be bigger and more attention grabbing action.

What sort of action? Ask yourself this question. If you were starting to read a new book or story what would grab your attention?

Maybe your character is in the middle of fighting off a mugger? Or maybe your character is in the middle of a car accident. You can even do a smaller action like maybe a student just dozed off in class and smacked his head against his desk. Or maybe your character is driving down a dark road and the gas light is blinking and there’s not a gas station in sight.

How big the action is isn’t nearly as important as the action itself. Start with that blinking empty fuel tank light, or your character dodging a fist, and go from there. Engagement in this way creates interest, and then the details can be filled out as you continue further into the story.

Here’s an intriguing action line that opens the book The English Assassin by Daniel Silva.

Marguerite Rolfe was digging in her garden because of the secrets she’d found hidden in her husband’s study.

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Book Review: The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu

Posted on February 13, 2015July 14, 2019 by Cynthia D. Griffin

The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu is available on Kindle and in Paperback.

This is a freaking awesome book! A must read for science fiction and action-packed loving readers. The author had me from page one as we see Roen and Jill three years after The Lives of Tao and things are completely different. In fact, I’m quite shocked at how different things are and I just wanted to read to figure out how things got so messed up in the three years since we saw Roen, Tao, and Jill.

The incredible character arcs are heart-tugging as a clearer picture unfolds of the missing three years as the story progresses. The Prophus may have won the battle, but the Gengix are determined to win the war and Earth to boot. Things get dark and deep fast as the Gengix’s plan unfolds. Roen and Tao make huge sacrifices in an attempt to stop the catastrophic plan.

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My Writing Process (Blog Tour)

Posted on March 10, 2014March 10, 2014 by Cynthia D. Griffin

I was recently invited to be involved in a writing blog tour to discuss my writing process. Thanks Denise for inviting me! You can check out her blog and her responses here. I am supposed to pass this torch on to other bloggers, but dropped the ball (because I’ve been so busy working on my novel) and didn’t send out my invitations to other bloggers in time for this to post. So I thought I would open this up to any of my readers who would like to keep the flame going. If you would like to answer these questions and post on your blog (on next Monday), feel free to do so. Just post in the comments below or use my contact page to email your blog link to me, so I can post your link on this post.

So let’s get started with these questions…

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