Novel two finally out, Cologne & Coffee

[Darcy]

Hey Guys, haven't been posting much as nothing exciting has been happening. Even Canadians find Northern Manitoba boring AF. Building power lines across the northland with a heavy lift utility Super Puma, 11,000 pounds on the hook! Having fun but the camps suck.

Anyway, finally got novel number two out, if anyone would care to give it a read:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL2K3HMP/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Kicks around Quebec, Manitoba, Gabon, Liberia, Azerbaijan, Somalia, Turkey, Romania, Kenya, Tanzania, Colombia, Cote D'Ivoire, Morocco, Uganda, Suriname, Trinidad.... venom smuggling, sex trafficking, counterfeit aircraft parts and other bad things.

From the back of the novel:

Two helicopter pilots traverse the globe in search of riches; Jacques, a womanizing rascal, and Ethan, a young lad finding his way.

In contrast to Jacques’s happy-go-lucky existence, Ethan seeps into a criminal underworld to sate his incipient greed. Saddled with a curse and a love for a married woman, he's thrust deep into events that threaten his moral fibre.

Follow the two men from the wilds of Manitoba to the deserts of Somalia, from the Turkish Black Sea Coast to the beaches of Gabon, from Azerbaijan to the shadows of Tangier, from the jungles of Suriname and Colombia, back to Canada’s East Coast… their lives intertwined, their fate inescapable

Reviews on Amazon much appreciated. Thanks!

[Kurt]

Congrats again.

I admire your writing "ethic".

[Darcy]

Nice hobby sitting on standby or on weather hold in some of the more remote locales. I enjoy telling stories. Seen enough to have plenty to draw from. I might over reach, but my two favourite writers are Cormac McCarthy and Kevin Barry (Night Boat to Tangier), where the prose often tends towards poetry, so there's my inspiration.

Here's the first passage, after the Prologue:

The brap, brap, brap and cough of the diesel generator severs the morning avian chorale. Jacques lays face up on a snarl of sweaty sheets, arms akimbo, and opens an eye. With a squeak, the rusty metal blades of the ceiling fan whirl slowly ‘round and ‘round, barely discernible in the soft morning light as it filters through the thick foliage of the forest, through the hessian cloth nailed across his window. The generator coughs again and quits and the fan creeps to a stop. Jacques inhales the thick air laden with must, heat and dust. He smells rank sweat and… he draws another lungful through his nostrils and smiles; sex. Still with one eye closed, he rolls his head to the side and there is a corpulent indigenous woman at his side, snoring softly. There is a murmur and a gentle hand glides across his taut belly. Surprised, he turns his head and there is another lithe and delicate form, so dark her skin soaks up the light that has snuck into the room. Jacques groans and puts his fingers to his temples and rubs. The diesel generator coughs anew, stutters, then quits, and it’s a moment of silence before the birds begin their quibble. There are mechanical noises, angry obscenities, then a loud backfire and the generator once again steals the feathered jungle denizen’s song. Jacques wills the generator to death but the motor labours on. The ceiling fan whirls voraciously and carries a gentle breeze to their sweaty forms. He reluctantly rises.

[Darcy]

Cologne & Coffee is a grim tale, a serious novel intended to incite emotion, the characters deeply flawed, bad things happen... First reviews coming in, and while there is praise for the prose, the darkness is unexpected. I guess people expect a happy adventure. Characters too flawed??? Hence the back of the novel has been ammended:

A dark and intertwining tale of two cocksure pilots traversing the globe in search of riches; Jacques, a womanizing rascal, and Ethan, a young lad finding his way. 



Trouble finds Jacques at every turn, as Ethan seeps into a criminal underworld to sate his incipient greed, and is thrust into events that threaten his moral fibre. 



Follow the two men from the forests of Manitoba to the deserts of Somalia, from the Turkish and Romanian Black Sea Coast to the beaches of Gabon, from Azerbaijan to the shadows of Tangier, from the jungles of Suriname, Liberia, Colombia… back to Canada’s East Coast… their lives intertwined, their fate inescapable.



Reviews/feedback much appreciated.

[Darcy]

Just got the best review I've ever gotten, but first, some helo photos, building power lines in Northern Canada (just below Hudson Bay):


9000 LBS mini excavator at 100 knots on a 150' line


Cool Sherpa we've been slinging around


Winter ops. Getting cold. Lots of caribou and wolf tracks around.


Setting a reel of power line in the yard


Bell 412 picking up his line behind our Super Puma

Sorry if it sounds like an ad but I'm proud of this one:

https://bookviralreviews.com/book-reviews/thrilling-action-and-adventure-novels/
The BookViral Review:

Sometimes there are novels that strike you in a certain way, haunt your memory and provide some of the terms with which you view your own life and Hoover’s latest release is certainly one of them. It’s fast-paced, consistently compelling and hugely readable but what distinguishes Cologne & Coffee most is its many rich characters and the size of its vision.

A read that grabs your attention from the very start it ranges from 1986 to 2007, from Gabon to Colombia and just about every hotspot in between as we follow the lives of freelance helicopter pilots Jacques and Ethan. Two diametrically opposed characters who are unwittingly on a path that will see their lives and fates intrinsically bound together because of the decisions they make. And on this level, Hoover achieves the difficult feat of following two intersecting story arcs, one in which everything goes right for Jacques and the other in which everything goes wrong for Ethan.

With several converging plotlines Hoover’s narration rarely falters and is easy to follow as Jacques and Ethan are brought into the focus. Both are well-nuanced and the overriding draw of the novel is that all the twists and turns that set their lives on converging paths are wholly believable.

In the main, this is because Darcy takes as much time to emotionally build his characters as he does to create credible and often seedy real-world settings. Often combining these with a deadpan degree of social commentary as Jacques reflects on his life and who even when flying into the jaws of hell, has an insouciance, a devil-may-care attitude, that undermines the drama.

The pace of Hoover’s novel is rapid, almost hectic at times, the touch glancing and he doesn’t linger on any of its settings too long. Shaping even the most casual scenes decisively as the lines between right and wrong become heavily blurred.

A wholly captivating read whilst being refreshingly devoid of genre clichés Cologne and Coffee proves a superb follow-up release to Hoover’s first novel and is unreservedly recommended!

[Chimborazo]

I really enjoyed the first one and have asked Santa for this one. I look forward to reading it!