Audiobook Review: Debt Reckoning: Teetering on the Brink by Jack Meyer
I am pleased to be welcoming Jack Meyer to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his audiobook, Debt Reckoning: Teetering on the Brink.
What if the greatest threat to America wasn’t war, terrorism, or China…but the trillions of dollars of debt we’ve pretended doesn’t exist?
U.S. Senator Rick Taylor has been warning anyone who’ll listen: the national debt is no longer a spreadsheet problem-it’s a ticking bomb. But in Washington, truth is toxic. Colleagues dismiss him, constituents scream about “cuts to my benefits,” and the media paints him as the villain who wants to gut Social Security.
Then the blackmail begins.
A shadowy network led by a ruthless operator making huge profits from unchecked government spending will stop at nothing to silence anyone who threatens the status quo. After Taylor’s wife is targeted in a terrifying swatting attack and a sniper’s bullet nearly ends Taylor’s life, the message is clear. Shut up… or die.
*****
The audiobook, Debt Reckoning by Jack Mayer is narrated by Dannul Daily.
Debt Recking is a hard-hitting political thriller which feels so close to reality that it is scary. Thought provoking and gripping, Jack Mayer weaves a complete plausible narrative which quite frankly kept me up at night. The plot had me guessing and I couldn’t see where it was going to go.
by 
Novel Kicks Fiction Friday: The Name on the Ticket
Welcome to Fiction Friday, our weekly flash fiction challenge.
Here’s how it works:
Set a timer for five minutes and start writing
Keep going for as long as you can once the timer goes off
No editing allowed—raw writing only
When you’re finished, feel free to share in the comments (but there’s no pressure.)
Today’s prompt: The Name on the Ticket
Your character arrives at a train station and buys a ticket for the next train. Everything seems ordinary until the ticket prints.
The destination is correct. The time is correct.
But underneath the passenger’s name is a handwritten message:
“Whatever happens, don’t get off at the third stop.”
by Novel Kicks Writing Room: 10 Week Character Challenge – Meet You Character
Welcome back to the Novel Kicks Writing Room.
Following on from the plot challenge we did, today is the beginning of a 10 week character challenge. If you’d like to take a look at the plot challenge, click here.
Over the next ten weeks, we’ll take a character from a simple idea and gradually develop them into someone with a personality, history, relationships, flaws, fears and a meaningful character arc.
You don’t need to be writing a novel to take part. Your character can be created specifically for these exercises, or you can use a character from a story you’re already working on.
WEEK 1 — Meet Your Character
The task this week is to create a character who wants something very badly.
First, answer these questions:
- What’s their name?
- How old are they?
- What do they do?
- What do they look like?
- What do they love?
- What annoys them?
- What do they want more than anything?
- What are they afraid of?
- What’s their biggest flaw?
- What secret are they keeping?
by Book Extract: All Or None by Clive Fleury
Please join me as we welcome Clive Fleury to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, All Or None.
Returning to Sydney, Detective Ramesh Ryan is promoted to the Homicide Squad. Zoe Yang joins him there. Now a detective herself, she is assigned as his junior partner. Straight up, the cops are off and running—investigating the discovery of a murdered company director. Following the clues, Detective Ryan finds that this and a second murder may be linked to past events.
As the pressure mounts for a quick solution to the case, the detective finds that he too, is in the killer’s crosshairs. But Ryan is distracted from the investigation by a romantic encounter with an old university friend. He also worries about his mother, Mumta, and her new obsessive desire for grandchildren from her only son. Could this be linked to her recent medical tests? And there’s another pressing problem—the plague of rats in his apartment block.
Detective Ryan’s hands are well and truly full.
Clive has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy.
beginning of extract
Tommy Clarke and his wife Anne are saving up to buy a house, so they need all the money they can get. However, despite this, Tommy is still not pleased to be working on Saturday. He is to drive a small group of demonstrators down to a rally in Sydney and so will miss the all-important grudge match between the Swans and the Eagles.
There were eleven of them squashed into the red Ford Transit van. All were in high spirits—except, that was, for the driver, Tommy Clarke. He wasn’t happy.
Tommy had thought long and hard about offering his services locally as a driver and wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Anne, his wife. She had heard that people were looking for transport into the city for a protest march and saw it as the perfect opportunity for them to earn some money—even though it was scheduled for Saturday, which would mean Tommy missing the big match: the Swans versus the Eagles.
by NK Chats To… Thomas Messel
Hello Thomas. Thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell us about your book, The Nightingale of Bath and what inspired it?
The plaque at Bath’s 11 Royal Crescent blandly says that from this house, Elizabeth Linley eloped with Richard Brinsley Sheridan on 18 March 1772 – but behind those words lies a much darker story.
Elizabeth was a stunningly beautiful teenager with a fabulous voice, ill-equipped for the adulation of stardom.
She was mercilessly exploited by her ambitious parents and prey to predatory men until she could stand it no longer and vanished, at the age of 17, on 18 March 1772. Her marriage to Sheridan proved to be no picnic, where her collaboration and authorship of two of his most celebrated plays, The Rivals and La Duenna, was given no credit, nor was any notice given to her involvement in his greatest Parliamentary coupin the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
Her passionate and loving nature was only fully recognised through tragedy.
The theme that strikes me strongly about her life was the shocking muzzling and disempowerment of women in this period, however strong and capable they were.
Her story, and that of her remarkable family, first came to my attention through an ancestral connection, through which I had several books recording her life.
What’s your typical writing day like? Do you have any writing rituals like needing
coffee or silence to write, for example?
Throughout my life, I have been an early riser in order to work undisturbed. So, for the writing of this book, my writing times would generally run from 4 am to 8.30 am, with a cup of hot chocolate to kick me off for sustenance.
How do you approach the writing process from idea, to research, first draft, editing
and final draft? How do you know when you’ve done research and editing?
by Book Club
