Q&A with Bruce A. Sarte discussion

This thread is about my second novel, Towering Pines Volume One: Room 509. Towering Pines is meant to be a three books series.

Towering Pines Volume One: Room 509 is a novel set in Ocean County, New Jersey. The story follows the story of a teenage basketball star who feels his life is over when he is sent to military school to commute an aggravated assault charge. Liam Rider's star quickly falls as he finds military school to be far more than he had bargained for. He finds the cadets harsh and abrasive; and the staff less than welcoming. When the guidance counselor tells him that he is going to be set back a year because of his remedial classes at public school, he feels like life couldn't get any worse.

When he meets Lisbeth Harrington, he feels like the tide may be turning in his favor. She is assigned to help him acclimate to his new surroundings in the middle of a semester and he quickly realizes that she is the only friend he has at the school. And when he begins having disturbing dreams of kids killing each other and seeing people in his room that aren't really there, he enlists he help to find out why no one has been assigned to room 509 for twenty years — and why he is being tormented by the ghosts of cadets past.

Suddenly pulled into the past of the historic school by nightmares of his own suicide, Liam and Lisbeth are catapulted forward into the
hidden history of ghosts, suicide and murder. Can they solve the mysteries of the military school before Liam becomes the next victim of the paranormal murderer?

Ooh - this started out sounding kinda droll (sorry - teen angst) but ended up sounding really interesting. I might have to check this one out.

Hey I'm not too far from Ocean County! This could be cool!

Ottilie -- you might see some spots you know in the book. Since I grew up there I put as much into it as I could (within reason of course). I do that with all my stories.

Anna -- I consider it Young Adult because of the main characters age. And there is a certain amount of age-appropriate situations within the story but it isn't about that at all. It has been compared in one or two reviews to Twilight and that makes me shudder since I barely consider Twilight a book... but that's just me. Twilight focuses very much on the relationships, Towering Pines DOES address teen relationships but it does not dwell on them. It moves between Liam and Lisbeth building a mutual trust and the ghost story -- which *is* the point of the book.

I try doing that too. Oh cool I'll check it out then :)

Good to hear that. I've read too many teen-angst stories of late. And if you don't analyze it Twilight isn't really so bad. It is popular, and it's not a bad thing to be compared to a popular book.

Anna, I agree that being compared to something so popular is not a bad thing. The only reason I shudder is because of the style of writing Stephanie Meyer uses... We are nothing alike. That being said, I know what he reviewer meant and they meant it very complimentary.

Family Ties was compared to Twilight! Both were the reviewers favorite books.