Tangerine Dream [Paperback]

Ken Douglas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

"Oh, Lord!" Gayle jerks the wheel to the right, but too late. "Dylan," she cries as the oncoming car strikes them head on. Within minutes fire and rescue have her out of the car and on the way to surgery, but tragically her daughter Dylan dies in the hospital. Dylan's father can't be located. He's running for the Presidency of the United States and supposedly somewhere on the campaign trail, but actually he's I the arms of a teenage prostitute. Gayle decides to recover in New Zealand to avoid the media, but Nick Nesbitt, television newscaster, senses a story and will stop at nothing to get it.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Sometimes it's hard to classify a book. Ken Douglas writes thrillers, usually about a woman in trouble--the walls are closing in on her, bad guys are coming fast and furious, she has nowhere to turn. But, TANGERINE DREAM is a mainstream novel that reads like a thriller, holds your attention like a thriller, quickens your pulse like a thriller, but it's not a thriller, not in the usual sense. There are no demented serial killers here, no ticking clock, no building full of innocents about to blow, no sailboat about to sink.

However, there is a fair amount of tense action in this well plotted mainstream title that focuses on two young women, Haley and Taylor, who have to grow up fast when Haley's best friend and Taylor's twin is killed by a drunk driver in Wellington, New Zealand, half a world away from their Newport Beach, California home. The girls fly to Wellington barely in time to say a tragic goodbye. They are devastated.

Taylor's father is running for president and on the surface he is every bit the loving husband and caring father she believes him to be. However he is hiding a dark secret and there are even darker secrets in the family closet. He wants to use his daughter's death to further his candidacy and he wants Taylor, the surviving twin, to come back to America and appear with him at campaign rallies to remind the voters of his loss. But in their grief Haley and Taylor discover they have feelings for each other, forbidden feelings if your father wants to be president.

This is a love story, but not like any you're familiar with. There is tenderness and romance in this story, but it's definitely not a romance novel. Maybe you could call it a political thriller, as the book drips with suspense and anticipation and rushes to a climax as we wonder if Taylor's father is going to ride a wave of emotion into the White House or if he's going to get what he has coming.

From the Author

My name is Ken Douglas and I've killed Jack Stewart. It was hard, he was a nice guy, but he had to go.

When my books first came out, I had a problem. I'd lived several years on a sailboat in the Caribbean, writing away. Too many books, it turns out, to be released at onetime under my own name. So I invented Jack Stewart and released two of my books (SCORPION and HURRICANE) under his name.

Jack is a character in one of my stories, still unpublished, but someday. The photo I used on line was of my good friend Dick MacPartland, who passed away at a very young fifty-four. Dick was a smuggler, pirate, real shoot 'em up outlaw, who smoked too many Camels. Using his photo was a way for me to kind of keep him around.

I wanted my name on TANGERINE DREAM, but I got caught up in the mystic of Jack Stewart, so I shard the billing with him as I did on one other book. I thought I'd be able to keep Jack going forever, but a couple readers put it together, so I figured it was time to come clean and do in Jack. So sadly, I've changed the cover, changed the name on the book and killed of my fictional pal. I'll miss him.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bootleg Press (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976277921
• ISBN-13: 978-0976277927
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 4.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,403,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hysterically Bad!, May 11, 2005

By 

L. Schmiesing (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tangerine Dream (Paperback)

I've never written a review before but have been an avid reader for my entire life. I know my books and I've only come across a very few which are so poorly written that they make me want to throw them in the trash. I was tempted to do just that with this book, but it was so laughably, improbably done that I decided to finish it. In order to keep myself sane, however, I set another precedent by taking a red pen to the book and wrote my thoughts in the margins as the action took place.

Words like "Sweet!", and "what fun, I wish I were them", "ooooooopppps!", "why?", and "What a surprise! Now someone will find her naked!"....kept recurring. This book was obviously written by two adolescent men. There is NO depth. NO character analysis. NO plot explored. From my margins on page 149, "My they move along swiftly and recover quickly! The plot must go on!!! Let's get to the lesbian thing guys!! Hooray Hooter guys everywhere!"

But then again, maybe it's just me, and I'm not being a sport and going along for the romp, romp, romp. But I know better; and I bet this one will be a dog-eared favorite in all of America's finer prisons.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You have got to be kidding me, April 21, 2005

By 

Sarah "Sarah Sailor" (BVI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tangerine Dream (Paperback)

These other reviewers must be in 3rd grade, perverts or have never read a good book. This is the most poorly written book I have picked up in years. Now, I am a cruising sailor and understand all of the sailing "jargon" very well - and seriously, that is about the only believeable text in this book. The rest is a bunch of bunk. Totally undeveloped and thus unbelieveable charaters (and I don't mean unbelievable in a good way - I mean - there's no way you believe their actions). Basically, if you're a weirdo single handler with absolutely no social skills who gets off on lesbian twins and their lesbian friend getting off - then this might be a good book to take into bed with you and a bottle of hand lotion. If you have a brain and like to read good books - you will HATE this book. Here's the sad part - I wanted to love this book, I want these sailor guys to be successful, I wanted to support their writing and cruising. I love to cruise and wish I were doing it right now - but, this book just stinks. I guarrantee the other reveiws that gave it good marks are friends of the family or something - that's the only explanation. By the way - I've been an Amazon customer for over 5 years and probably buy 3 books a month and this is the first time I ever felt compelled to say anything.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tangerine Dream, January 2, 2006

By 

D. J. Golembeski "Love a Good Book" (Huntington Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tangerine Dream (Paperback)

The only thing I find more astonishing than how awful this book was, is the number of rave reviews it has received. The plot jumps in every direction; there is no plausibility in any of the characters or their actions. It was one of the rare books that I felt was a disaster from the first page but I kept reading hoping that at some point the authors would produce a shred of reality. The family reunions must be crazy in their world, since any family member by birth or marriage is a sexual opportunity. I couldn't wait to throw this garbage into the trash and then wash my hands, twice.