I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the DEJA VIEW by Michael
Thomas Perone Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Michael
Thomas Perone
Pub. Date: October
6, 2023
Publisher: Wheatmark
Formats: Paperback,
eBook
Pages: 275
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/DEJA-VIEW
Twelve-year-old Bobby Dalton doesn't
want to grow up. All his life, he has relied on the imaginary games of
childhood with his best friends Joe and Max to get him through the tough times.
But this all changes when his Seventh-Grade class buries a time capsule to
commemorate the end of the 1980s. Now Bobby is being haunted by visions:
ghostly doppelgangers of himself, his friends, and others. He calls them
"déjà view." Are these visions real, or has his imagination finally
gotten away from him? And if they're real, what do they want? Bobby needs to
figure this all out to survive his childhood…and his life.
From the author of the
award-winning Danger Peak, Déjà View is a darkly
funny coming-of-age dramedy with a sci-fi twist, cranked up to eleven. But even
more, it's at once a pulse-pounding thrill ride and a haunting portrait of
paranoia, mental illness, and the unbearable sadness of growing up.
Déjà View Excerpt
by
Michael Thomas Perone
I picked the
following excerpt from my new novel, Déjà View, because for one, I just
think it’s funny, but also, it’s the first sign to the reader that things are
not quite right in Bobby’s world, and it foreshadows the strangeness to come.
Finally, this excerpt reinforces the major theme of my book, which is the death
of childhood.
An hour later,
Bobby’s guests were seated around a table in the party room, devouring towers
of pizza. Bobby and his friends had a front-row seat to the stage of Chuck E.
Cheese’s band, an assortment of animatronic animals: a chicken, a dog, some
kind of purple monster that resembled McDonaldland’s Grimace, and, of course,
Chuck E. himself. Bobby often wondered why anyone would make a rat the mascot
for their kid-friendly pizza restaurant; it seemed unsanitary. It mattered
little, though. He came for the food and games, not the dinner entertainment.
Every year, these robotic animals would mortify him by crooning “Happy
Birthday,” their voices becoming craggier as the robots got older, worn from
singing over a thousand birthdays to over a thousand boys and girls.
“Mom,” he asked,
leaning in conspiratorially so his friends couldn’t hear, “can we skip the
Chuck E. song this year? I’m getting a little too old for it.”
“It’s tradition,
sweetie,” she replied in a singsong voice to keep up appearances. Before he
could respond, Chuck E. came alive, as if possessed by some ancient curse.
“Hey everyone!”
it began. “I hear it’s somebody’s birthday!” Derrick and Joe, seated next to each
other, offered sardonic, golfer’s applause. The twitchy robot tried reaching
for its guitar as his “bandmates” grabbed their own respective instruments. But
the twitching suddenly became a trembling as the robot’s arms flailed past his
guitar and bonked the chicken, who in turn bumped into the dog. Now all four
automatons were shaking as if caught in their own personal earthquake.
“Uh, is this part
of the show?” Derrick asked Joe.
“Nah,” Joe
replied. “I think Chuck E.’s had one too many birthdays.”
An announcement
came over the loudspeaker that there were some “technical difficulties,” but the
perverse show continued unbidden. At once, a comet of sparks burst out of the
robotic rodent’s back; for a split second, it resembled a flame-spitting
sprinkler. Bobby briefly wondered if the thick red curtain behind the performers
would catch fire, but fate was kind, and the sparks receded. In the throes of
its last herky-jerky movements, Chuck E. finally keeled over and died, its head
collapsing onto the floor with a clunk to stare directly at Bobby with one
glowing dead eye.
“Hep-pee...burth-dee...,”
the mangled voice managed to eke out one final time. Bobby stared in horror as
the beloved childhood mascot bit the big one. He was never a huge fan of these
robot shows, but he never meant to attend Chuck E.’s funeral. Bobby turned to
the end of his table to spy Derrick and Joe snickering to each other in a
private conversation, and he felt an aloneness he had never experienced before.
About Michael Thomas Perone:
Michael
Thomas Perone is an award-winning author who has written for The Baltimore Sun,
Baltimore City Paper, Long Island Voice (a spinoff of The Village Voice), and
The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), among others. Online, he has
written for Fatherly, Yahoo!, WhatCulture!, and other websites that don’t end
with an exclamation mark. His articles for WhatCulture! covering the world of
entertainment alone have been viewed over 374,000 times, and his expertise on
critical writing in the music industry has been cited on Wikipedia and featured
in national press kits. He currently works as a Senior Editor in Manhattan and
lives on Long Island with his wife and two daughters. For more information,
please visit www.michaelthomasperone.com.
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Giveaway Details:
1 winner
will receive a finished copy of DEJA VIEW, US Only.
Ends December 12th, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveawayTour Schedule:
Week One:
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11/27/2023 |
Blog Spotlight |
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11/27/2023 |
Excerpt |
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11/28/2023 |
Interview/IG Post |
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11/28/2023 |
IG Post |
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11/29/2023 |
Excerpt/IG Post |
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11/29/2023 |
Excerpt |
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11/30/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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11/30/2023 |
IG Post |
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12/1/2023 |
IG Review/LFL Drop Pic/TikTok Post |
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12/1/2023 |
IG Review |
Week Two:
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12/4/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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12/4/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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12/5/2023 |
Guest Post |
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12/5/2023 |
IG Review |
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12/6/2023 |
Review |
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12/6/2023 |
IG Review |
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12/7/2023 |
Review/IG Post |
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12/7/2023 |
IG Review |
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12/8/2023 |
IG Review/TikTok Post |
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12/8/2023 |
IG Review |
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