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Shades of Gray by Andy Holloman

Saturday, January 12, 2013
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Thriller / Suspense 
Rating – R (for language)
Connect with Andy Holloman on Facebook & Twitter
September 2012 –  Finalist, Reader’s Favorite,  Fiction-Suspense
July 2012 – Kindle Book Review,  Semi-Finalist, Thriller/Mystery
April 2012 —  #1 BestSeller, Amazon, Men’s Adventure 
“Debut novelist Andy Holloman speeds us on a journey with punch, twist, and emotional dilemmas straight from our worst fears.  Shades of Gray is a colorful, rollicking ride from start to finish.” - Franz Wisner, New York Times bestselling author of “Honeymoon with My Brother” and “How the World Makes Love”  
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How far would you go to save your child’s life?  Could you break the law?       
What if your  business was suddenly in danger of going under because of 9/11 ?        
  
 A single father decides to partner up with woman from the opposite side of the tracks.    
                                                                                                                                                  
Can their partnership deliver the cash they BOTH desperately need?
Could they fall in love?
And will they survive to see the Summer of 2002?
In the Fall of 2001, John’s life has fallen off a cliff.  His six- year-old daughter,  Lucy, needs a kidney transplant and his Durham, NC  travel agency has been wrecked by the events of 9/11.  He must find a way to secure a large amount of money quickly in order to pay for Lucy’s surgery.  He’s been in tight places before but he’s currently out of solutions.
Wanda, a client of John’s travel agency, has had her livelihood hit hard by 9/11 also.  She can no longer transport cocaine via airline flights due to increase airport security.  Like John, she is a single parent  and has wanted to get out of her line of work for several years.   She needs more money to allow her and daughter Tonya, to move from Durham to California and break free of her boss, Jamel.
John and Wanda form a partnership around a plan to smuggle cocaine via cruise ships.  His industry knowledge and connections would remove the transportation risks and she could handle the distribution and selling once they brought the drugs back to Durham.
Despite being nearly killed on their first run, it worked.   Wanda coaxes John into another trip while Jamel  is becoming suspicious of Wanda.  John’s half-brother Travis, a Durham police detective battling his own demons, can’t connect the dots between John and Wanda . He continues to line his pocket with ill-gotten gains.  Lucy and John are the most important people in his life and he would gladly provide them with financial help, if only John would ask.
How far should a father go to save his child?  Can a man and woman from completely different worlds help each other?  Could they fall in love?  And which one of these people will live to see the summer of 2002?  Find the answers in Shades of Gray, a debut novel by Andy Holloman.
 (Combine “Breaking Bad” and “Cops” with a disturbing, dark remake of “The Love Boat” and you have all the flavors of  SHADES OF GRAY)
 
 
 Summary

 John Manning is a desperate man.  He owns a good business, one that he is proud of.  He happens to own a travel agency, however, at a bad time.  9/11 happens and the nation is in shock, many are afraid to travel, especially to fly.  Naturally, John's business suffers and he must look elsewhere to support his family.  When he learns that his daughter requires an expensive organ transplant, he knows he must forgo his usual morals.  He becomes entangled with a woman who knows the value of money...and was raised with little of it.  Their entanglement will feel very natural and realistic to the reader.  They decide to help each other through this financial crunch...and they find unexpected ways to ease the financial burden.

The characters feel almost as if they could be the readers' friends or family.  The author spends just the right amount of time expanding their characters, making them dynamic.  The plot it very fast-paced and makes the book hard to put down.  The author has a good way of words, though sometimes it felt like a couple words were used too often.  At the end of this book, the reader will find the characters are plot hard to forget.  There are more than a few twists and turns that will surprise the reader.  Overall, this book is recommended to adult readers.

3 1/2 Stars

This product or book may have been distributed for review, this in no way affects my opinions or reviews.

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