Saturday, April 24, 2021

What is the point of resisting me? Give it up, will you?

“So, are you ready to spend your last moments with me? I promise not to disappoint.” Vlad leans over me from behind, his left arm tightening around my waist, his right elbow resting over the tip of my shoulder so as to steady his wrist, his control of the knife. 

I try to swing my arm back and hit him, which only serves to make his grip more painful.

“What is the point of resisting me? Give it up, will you? I’m going to tell you a little story.” Vlad gives me one rough shake after another, which brings me to the verge of fainting. 

When I come to, he presses on. “Long ago, when I was a child, my mother used to be a seamstress. I would watch her pluck pins out of the pincushion and mark the design on the fabric.” 

His story sounds nostalgic, at first—but I know it is a prelude for a kill.

Next to my ear, he’s grinding his teeth. “Oh, how I hated her customers for nudging her to hurry! How I hated her for bowing down before them like a common servant! All for a few meager rubles. I was embarrassed by it. Infuriated.”

I say not a word, as I recall him sharing a childhood memory with Linda before slitting her throat.

“By the way my darling Mamushka averted her eyes from me, she probably knew how I felt,” he says, his voice cracking. “But she never acknowledged my hurt; never shared her own. Instead, she focused only on the stitch, on executing it with absolute precision. In a barely audible hiss, she would quote this Russian proverb, which has guided my hand ever since. ‘Measure seven times, cut once.’”

I can’t see his smile—but feel it, somehow, at my back, leaching into my flesh, sinking into my bones. He lets the blade hover over the base of my neck, barely coming into contact, barely imparting its cold touch. 

“For you,” says Vlad, “I am willing to take things real slow, real gentle—not like I did with Linda.”

With effort, I find my voice. “Let me go.”

“Later.” He scores my skin, ever so lightly. “This is going to be real easy. Like slicing through butter.” 

Hoping someone out there would hear me, I scream at the top of my lungs. 

Vlad draws in a deep breath, which tells me how aroused he is, preparing for the slash. Just then, a sudden noise outside catches our attention. My body trembles; his shakes. 

“What the hell was that?” he asks.

And now, here is that sound again, only louder. A second rock hits the window, this one busting it wide open, shards of glass sent spinning across the floor, one of them catching a dim ray of light. 

Caught by surprise, Vlad inadvertently loosens his hold on me for a second, which is time enough for me to slip out of it, fall to my knees, and grasp the sharp fragment from the floor—at long last, a weapon!—which I slam, with all the power I can muster, right into his foot.

Yowling, he folds over. He tries to take a step, but the shard pins him in place. Tearing his foot away would free him—at the cost of cutting open the wound and causing even more damage. In torment, Vlad seems to have no courage for that.

Just in case he manages to muster it, I crawl away as fast as I can. Hands bleeding, I gather more glass splinters from the floor so if he comes after me, I can use them to fight him off. 




Overdue

(Volume IV of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)

 Paperback Hardcover

Audiobook


""This is a thriller which will have the reader gasping for air multiple times throughout The action starts out at a fast pace and continues to the end of the novel... Buckle your seat belt and settle in for an exciting ride." 
~Serenity, Hall of Fame Reviewer

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Overdue: The art of voice narration

 I am ever curious about what going in the art of voice narration, and as soon as my narrator, Heather Jane Hogan, completed her beautifully evocative work on our newest project, Overdue  I asked her for a glimpse of what it took her to come up with the voices. 

This is what she wrote:

Narrating one of Uvi’s books is always a treat! I find her writing fits well with my narrative style; her characters are relatable (Ash’s mother is my personal favorite), and her turn of phrase will often catch me off-guard in the most delightful way.

There are a few new characters in this book, and new characters equals new voices! One in particular stands out. She has a more raspy sound than our Ash, and in one scene, Ms. Raspy needed to pretend she was Ash! I decided to adopt an “Ash” sound, but put a little more tension in my voice to make her sound like Ash, but obviously not her. I think Uvi liked the outcome, and I hope you do, too!

Another challenge for me is always dialect. I always want to be SO GOOD at the dialect that I sound natural. It hurts my ears when I hear someone speak with an obviously phony dialect the same way it hurts to hear a discordant note in music; its all I can think about. So when giving a voice to someone with a dialect, and especially one I’m not natural with, I try to focus on their character, so to speak, in hope the listener will forgive any technical errors if I give them something else to consider In this way, my delivery is more important than my accent.

For this book, British and Russian were my main hurdles. My British is fair, tho I don’t think I’ll fool any Englishman. My Russian… is new. I like to use The Dialect Archive for all my dialect needs, and I also use YouTube, where there is a treasure trove of amateur videos on how to sound… like just about anything. In the book, there is more than 1 Russian character, and my challenge there was to make them sound different from each other, which was tough because my Russian is so new that I don’t know how to be flexible with it just yet and had to rely more on their character (as I mentioned above) to help tell them apart for a listener.

That being said, I hope you enjoy Uvi’s latest installment of the Ash Suspense Thrillers!



Overdue

(Volume IV of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)

 Paperback Hardcover

Audiobook

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Then, a single shot blasts out, this one at close range

I put on my VR glove. Its touch sensors will let me interact with the elements of this place not only by vision but also by feel. Then I push open the virtual door, relishing the sense of how heavy it is, how it resists giving way. 

On its other side, next to an IV pole, is an ICU bed. 

Empty. 

Bathed in unreal sunlight that streams in through a window, the bed is bare. Its air mattress platform, designed for pressure relief, has been stripped off. Soiled bedsheets are draped over a hamper in the corner of the space. This virtual model hasn’t yet been upgraded to include smell. Now that’s a relief.

I touch the bed, feel its corner bumpers, its castors. Strangely, it seems to have been stopped in the middle of performing its innovative tilting process, known to help turn the patient gently, minimizing physical effort. The plastic side rails have been dropped. There are no readout graphs on the overhead screens. No blinking lights, no beeps. 

Just an eerie silence.

“So? Where’s Vlad?” I demand, doing my best to contain a growing sense of disappointment. “I thought we’re about to see him.”

“So did I,” says Michael.

“What?”

“I was told he passed away quietly.”

“No fair. He can’t do that to me!”

Of all the possible things I feared might happen, this—to me—is the most dreadful. In my book, a criminal must meet his just punishment. How did Vlad manage to escape it? How brazen of him to die before telling me the name of his goon, the one who beat me senseless and who can now remain at large. The thug knows where Ma lives, so he can lay a trap for me there—but I have no clue about his whereabouts. 

That’s not how things were supposed to happen.

Greatly annoyed, I grab the cellphone from Michael and with a click, put an abrupt end to the phantom environment. “I drove us here all the way from LA after a sleepless night, for that?”

The hospital bed vanishes—poof!—into thin air, followed by the fluid med containers that hang from the IV pole, followed by the pole itself, followed by a last flash, shooting across a fading impression of its hooks.

Michael reaches for me. “Wait.”

I slap the cellphone into his palm. “There’s nothing to wait for, now.”

“Ash, wait, there’s more—”

“You don’t get it, Michael, do you? I’m so angry. I can’t even begin to tell you how angry I am.”

“Sweetheart—”

“Don’t you sweetheart me. How dare Vlad find a way out of my life without leaving me a hint of how I can put it back together?”

Michael tries to block my way, but my anguish makes me push him aside. I storm out of his garage and stomp across the street. The homeless, still probing through emptied garbage bags, glance at me from the corners of their eyes, as if to assess the threat I may pose to them.

Meanwhile, shots ring in the distance. I ignore them. Probably police forces sent to quell some riots. 

Then, a single shot blasts out, this one at close range. 

I run back to Michael just as he begins to collapse. My heart skips a beat as his head hits the blue cement floor, his shoulder smearing it red. 



Overdue

(Volume IV of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)

 Paperback Hardcover

Audiobook



"Overdue, by Uvi Poznansky, is a thrilling ride through pandemic-ridden Los Angeles with a fiery heroine, the nastiest of villains, and plenty of heart-pounding action." 
~Aaron Paul Lazar, Author

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Cover reveal: Overdue. The audiobook edition

Vlad clutches my wrist, forces me into the corner, and hisses in my ear, “Ashley Winters, did you call the cops on me?”
“No—”
“Oh, why do I even bother?” Vlad slaps my face so hard that it makes my skin burn. “I always knew you can lie with a straight face. Especially when your life depends on it.”
I try to wriggle away from him, but slip over the confetti strewn around. Vlad kneels by my side, puts his knee between my legs, and leans closer, his hand clamping my throat. And while my windpipe is pressed—while I’m fighting for air—he mutters, between clenched teeth, “Mamushka knows best.”
The last thing I see before my lights go out is Michael, punching him in the face. 
The first thing I hear when I regain consciousness is his voice. “Oh please, sweetheart,” Michael murmurs. “Please, wake up.”
I find myself in his arms. His touch feels so good. I’m so happy he’s here. At last, I’m not alone. But other than his face, I barely recognize anything else around us. Vlad is nowhere to be seen and, in the span of a few seconds, the entire space has fallen into chaos. 
I’ve thought that all hell breaks loose is an exaggerated figure of speech—until this moment. I see the old woman reaching to grab the handle, which must be scorchingly hot to the touch. With a sudden grunt, she tears open the inner door, then shakes her hand, shakes it fervently. It must hurt like hell. 
A roaring fire blows in her face. It seems almost human, the way it bends over as if to smell her hair, taste the sleeves of her dress, the hem.
In utter shock, Mrs. Komarov stumbles backward, one step, two. Falling to the ground, she screams in terror, and the flames recoil for a second before bursting out at her even brighter than before. 
Meanwhile, the first cop comes in. Others follow, weapons drawn. The gangsters step over Mrs. Komarov and over each other in a mad rush to flee. Confusion sets in as they scatter every which way, unclear where to go: away from the blaze—or away from the police?
Michael and I make our way through hissing smoke to save the old woman. We peer at the scene between one tongue of fire and another. A hairy leg is spotted here, an arm there, and on occasion—Voola—a snake, tattooed around an elbow. 
I suck in a deep breath and duck through the flame in search of Mrs. Komarov. I’m guided by her frantic shrieks as a burning beam has collapsed next to her. Her babushka, now removed from her head, is now held with her quivering fingers, covering her mouth and nose from the smoke. We grab her arms and drag her together step by step around the overturned table, across a puddle of spilled Okroshka soup, and out to the street, where an ambulance has just arrived. 
We carry her past the cops who surround the place and past the firefighters who are setting up their equipment. The old woman complains, her voice scratchy from smoke inhalation, about the stinging in her eyes. 
Medics arrive. They apply medication over the burn on her right side to relieve the pain. They also suggest we get tested for COVID-19. 
“Oh no,” says Mrs. Komarov. “I heard all about the nasal swab test.”
One of the medics explains, “It captures a lot of viral material concentrated in the back of the nose—”
“It is notoriously unpleasant.” She coughs. “You are not going to stick that thing up my nose!”
“No worries. We offer also a saliva test. It’s easy. All you have to do is spit into a sterilized container, which is then sent to the lab for processing. 
“Fine. Spitting I like.”
Strangely, the one person missing through all of this is her son. For a second, I think I see him across the street, watching us. A sudden rush of adrenaline sends me dashing over there, ready to point him out for the cops—only to realize there’s no one there. What I saw must have been a phantom of imagination, a dance of flames.

The cover depicts Ash as she escapes the fire she set in the LA headquarters of the Russian gang. My art is storytelling. In many thrillers you have the protagonist as a figure seen from the back, running away as if being chased or chasing. By contrast, I show Ash coming towards us, nearly falling into our arms, so we can directly relate to the daring it takes to do what she does in spite of the fear. 

I also gave a lot of thought to making each part of this cover shimmer with texture and light, creating an explosive, dynamic urban backdrop for her. 

Overdue

(Volume IV of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)

 Paperback Hardcover

Audiobook


Thursday, April 8, 2021

Listen 👂 Overkill 👂 Will Ash manage to identify him and have him arrested before he comes after her?

 


 Love Suspense? Prepare to be thrilled 

Overkill

(Volume II of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)

Audiobook US UK FR DE iTunes

Paperback Hardcover


The last thing Ash expects when she lands in Clearwater, Florida is to be stalked by a troubled teenager. If that's not bad enough, she is caught in a shooting spree next to the nearby elementary school. The cops think it’s an attempt at mass killing, but Ash wonders if the only victim was specifically targeted by the killer. Will she manage to identify him and have him arrested before he comes after her?



Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Kept my attention!

 LISTENER

Treasured2005


 Kept my attention! 

Overall  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️    
5 out of 5 stars
Performance  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️    
5 out of 5 stars
Story  
  
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 10-09-20

I could not put this book down! I loved the plot development and action sequences in the book. Overkill kept my attention from the very start. Ash impulsively relocates to sunny Florida hoping to escape the dark memories that haunt her back home. As she struggles to unpack and settle in, she begins uncovering secrets that just won't stay hidden. The narrator did a marvelous job! Her interpretation of Timmy is amazing. He is a little boy who gets thrown into a situation much bigger than any child should have to experience. I could see his face with his little mind working in overdrive. I felt his hug when he snuggled his mother. She brought this pivotal character to life in a spectacular way.

Monday, April 5, 2021

Come meet my author friends

My author friends have joined forces with me!

We bring you amazing stories

Narrated by great voice actors

just in time for Mother's Day! 

Join us as a going guest

for a chance to win our audiobooks:

Spring is in the Air



Uvi Poznansky


"I paint with my pen, and write with my paintbrush.”


@UviPoznansky

Blog

Art Site

Facebook

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Aaron Paul Lazar


“Addictive, award-winning fiction. You'll fall in love with the characters and love to hate the villains.”


@aplazar

Murder by 4

Facebook

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Allen Kent


Award-wining author of the popular Unit 1 thrillers series and the Whitlock Trilogy.

"Each book takes you places you have never been in ways you will always remember."


BookBub

Website

Facebook

@AllenKent19

BookBub

Angelica Kate


“Writing happily ever afters for life's toughest challenges!”


@AngelicaKate5

Facebook

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Cary Allen Stone


"I think like a criminal, so I write crime fiction.”


@CaryAllenStone

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Casi McLean


Escape into imagination ... discover the magic of Casi McLean—romance, suspense, & mystery thrillers.


@CasiMcLean 

Blog

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CB Samet


Facebook page

Facebook

@CBSamet1

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Chariss K. Walker


“I write to inform, delight, and inspire readers.”


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@chariss walker

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Colleen Mooney


"I live in a New Orleans where Mardi Gras Balls, festivals, parades, are always going on. The hardest part is to pick one thing to write about because there's no place like New Orleans to have a good crime!”


@Mooney_Colleen

Website

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Inge-Lise Goss


Award-Winning multi-genre author. In my former life I was a CPA and now I love the journeys where my characters take me.”


  @ngeGoss 

BookBub

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J.C. Fields


"Suspense Thrillers that keep you turning the page"


@TheJCFields 

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Libby Fischer Hellmann


“Author of compulsively readable thrillers”


@libbyhellmann

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Linnea Tanner


“An Epic Celtic Tale Weaving Forbidden Love, Sorcery, and Political Intrigue in Ancient Rome and Britannia.”


@linneatanner

Website

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Marisa Masterson


"I write sweet and suspenseful Christian romance to encourage and entertain.”


Facebook

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Mimi Barbour 


"Ms. Barbour knows how to pull you in to her stories. The characters are so real that I would really love to meet them."


@MimiBarbour

Website

Blog

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Patrice Wilton


Writes Romance and Cozy mysteries with a dash of humor!


@PatriceWilton

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S.R. Mallery


"History is woven into my stories with a delicate thread."


@sarahmallery1

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Katie Mettner


"Real love rising from the ashes."


@KatieMettner

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