Genre-busting literary fiction by Vermont writer J. Kilburn
BEFORE by Vermont writer J. Kilburn takes your average teenagers, gives them family and community, and then plausibly and seamlessly drops them into international intrigue in a small college town. These teenagers go about their sweet and sordid adventures blissfully unaware of their role in larger and more complicated regional events. BEFORE is a Coming-of-Age story, but it's also a story about international Organized Crime and the role that small-town folks, your neighbors, your loved ones, and even the Honors Student next door might play in that dark and dangerous world.
Coming-of-Age / Crime Fiction - 500 pages - 2022
PUBLISHER’S CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION INFORMATION:
LCSH: Teenagers - Fiction | Parenting - Fiction | Organized Crime - Fiction | Career Development - Fiction | Moral Development - Fiction
BISAC: FICTION / Action & Adventure | FICTION / Coming of Age | FICTION / Crime
ISBN - 9780578379180 (KDP Paperback) $16.99 - $19.99 SRP
ISBN - 9781005477080 (Smashwords EPUB) $6.99 -$9.99 SRP
BEFORE, the E-book, is FREE TO PUBLIC LENDING LIBRARIES... ask for it at your local library! Libraries: Smashwords titles are stocked by major and popular library distribution services…check with your own distributor!
Want to see the reviews?
Scroll down to see excerpts from the Editorial Reviews!
(Direct Links to the reviews are included!)
"...a unique, inherently entertaining, and impressively memorable literary experience."
- Julie Summers for Midwest Book Review in May, 2022 Issue of MBR's Reviewer's Bookwatch
- Jamie Michele for READERS FAVORITE, January 2022 - 5 stars!
"... Kilburn weaves this teenage story with threads of secrets.... the tension is thick."
"With a slow but tantalizing pace, this coming-of-age story is going to be tough to put down for fans of character-driven fiction."
- Manik Chaturmutha for INDEPENDENT BOOK REVIEW
- Jennifer Shepherd, IND'TALE MAGAZINE, April 2022 Issue
Writer J. Kilburn introduces three teen characters in this book: one of them will soon become a mother, one a father, and one of them will be dead before the arrival of their twenty-sixth birthday. Readers shouldn’t make any early assumptions as to which end will befall whom - Kilburn weaves a tangled web of fate and circumstance that will leave readers shocked and delighted in equal measure. A large and loveable supporting cast fleshes out the lives and adventures of these central characters. Readers will finish the tale hand-in-hand with a community of new Old Friends who will be fondly remembered long after the book is closed.
The tale starts with money - lost and scattered cash that is loose to the winds on a tree-lined rural Vermont road. The money scene ends with a clean segue into the introduction and character development of Bruce Sutton, a young man scouting potential college choices.
Other characters are gradually introduced, and along with them come romance, international intrigue, and an array of moral conflicts. By Chapter Three readers are absorbed in a family and community drama and have likely forgotten all about both that money and the looming fate that awaits one of these endearing characters. There are many inter-woven tales told in this book, but they all coalesce in the final two chapters, where readers once more see the wind-blown money and realize that they have been happily consorting with the maker of all this ill-gotten gain throughout nearly every page of this remarkable and well-crafted book.
CLICK BELOW to visit BEFORE, a Novel by J. Kilburn at GOODREADS!
BEFORE is a fun and edgy novel that follows the adventures and misadventures of Just Regular Kids as they come of age in a pastoral and peaceful college town. Buckle your seatbelts - all may not be as it seems. Events in a far-away Organized Crime empire lurk in the background as these teenagers take their first steps into adulthood. Adventurous readers will discover that two Sweet Sixteens have a lot more in common with hardened criminals than you - or they - might realize. Surprises are in store for everyone! Writer J.Kilburn brings readers a sweet and whimsical coming-of-age adventure with roiling dark edges.... Crime/Coming-of-Age, 500 pages, 2022
Scroll down for Direct Links to Online Retailers who stock the E-book - BEFORE is available from major and popular booksellers!
Amazon is the exclusive distributor of the Paperback Edition. BEFORE is available from Amazon as a KINDLE E-book, too!
BEFORE is available for B&N's NOOK E-Reader platform!
Get the book directly from the E-book distributor!
BEFORE by J. Kilburn is available as an E-book at Canada's biggest bookstore!
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Press Release poster for the Advanced Reader Copy Edition of BEFORE, released to Reviewers and Advanced Readers in April of 2022.
Interested in becoming an Advanced Reader? Send an E-mail with contact information and credentials to: jkilburn@cerealnovel.com
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