Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Book Spotlight/Giveaway: On the Threshold

 


Check out this New To Me Author, M. Laszlo's new book, On the Threshold, today. Make sure to check out the tour wide giveaway as well as the author is giving away a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card to one lucky reader. The tour is sponsored by Goddess Fish Promotion and you can find all the tour stops HERE.

Chatting with M. Laszlo

If you could have one paranormal ability, what would it be?

It’d be great to be able to touch an inanimate object and to automatically learn that object’s history.

 

What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to learn about you?

My writing includes an obsessive attention to details and little things, so people might presume me to be a rather acquisitive person. In point of fact, though, I own almost nothing.

 

When writing descriptions of your hero/ine, what feature do you start with?

It’s best to begin with deciding just what it is the character wants. Kurt Vonnegut says that every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.

 

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Careful plotting and awareness of structure are absolutely crucial. If you plot and maintain structure, you are a writer. If not, you’re little more than a typist. Writing is not typing. In saying that, of course, I’m referring to Truman Capote’s famous criticism of Jack Kerouac.

 

Did you learn anything from writing this book? If so, what?

I learned that one ought to follow strict form but not let structure and form take the reader to a predictable place. By experimenting with form and structure, the storyteller can lead the reader in circles. And that’s necessary for a story about someone struggling to learn something. By going around and around in circles, my protagonist echoes the frustrations of any and all of us.


On the Threshold

by M. Laszlo

GENRE: Historical Science Fiction

Buy HERE

Obsessed with learning the origins of the cosmos, the actual meaning of life, and the true purpose of civilization, a fine Scotsman named Fingal T. Smyth dedicates himself to the study of Plato’s most extraordinary ideas. Convinced of Plato’s belief that humankind possesses any and all innate knowledge deep within the collective unconscious mind, Fingal soon conducts a series of bold, pioneering occult-science experiments by which to resolve the riddle of the universe once and for all. However, Fingal forgets how violent and perilous the animal impulses that reside in the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind. And when Fingal unleashes a mysterious avatar of his innate knowledge, the entity appears as a burning man and immediately seeks to manipulate innocent and unsuspecting people everywhere into immolating themselves. Now, with little hope of returning the fiery figure into his being, Fingal must capture his nemesis before it destroys the world.

 

Excerpt Two:

 

Fräulein Wunderwaffe did not return the smile. Hand on heart, the little girl drew a bit closer. Then, as the hot, animalistic presence undulated all across Fingal’s body, the little girl’s eyes grew wide. Until the little girl’s expression turned to that of a vacant stare.

 

A moment later, her feet pointed inwards, she removed her hat and undid her long, flaxen hair.

 

Again, he cringed. “If you’ve noticed something, ignore all. This hasn’t got anything to do with you.” A third time, he cringed.

 

A most ethereal, lyrical, incomprehensible hiss commenced then: from the other end of the winding, decorative-brick driveway, each clay block shining the color of blue Welsh stone, a sleek Siamese cat with a coat of chocolate-spotted ivory had just appeared. And now the creature raced toward his shadow.

 

As he looked into the animal’s big, searching, blue eyes, the chocolate Siamese studied the off-center tip of his nose. Then the animal turned away, as if to compare the peculiarity with that of some disembodied visage hovering in the distance.

 

Out upon the loch, meanwhile, a miraculous rogue wave suddenly arose—and now the swell crashed against the pebbly strand.

 

Not a moment later, a cool flame crawled across Fingal’s throat. The strange fire rattled, too—not unlike the sound of fallen juniper leaves caught up in the current and dancing against the surface of a stone walkway.

 

Crivens. By now, the alien, pulsating presence held him so tight that he could barely breathe. Before long, he fell to the earth, and as the dreamlike flame continued to move across his throat, he rolled all about—until the illusory sensation of cool warmth wriggled and twisted and dropped into his neck dimple.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links: 


M. Laszlo is an aging recluse who lives in Bath, Ohio. Rumor holds that his pseudonym is a reference to Victor Laszlo, a character in the classic film Casablanca. On the Threshold is his first release with the acclaimed, Australian hybrid house AIA Publishing. Oddly, M. Laszlo insists that his latest work, On the Threshold, does in fact provide the correct answer to the riddle of the universe. 


7 comments:

Goddess Fish Promotions said...

Thank you for hosting today.

M Laszlo said...

Thank you for hosting me!

Rita Wray said...

I liked the excerpt.

Marcy Meyer said...

I enjoyed the post. Sounds like a good read.

Michael Law said...

I'm excited to read this novel. Thanks for sharing and hosting this tour.

Sherry said...

Looks like a interesting book.

traciem said...

What's your favorite writing-related quote?

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