Tag: suspense

thai cave

Scramble Begins for Book and Films Rights for Thai Cave Rescue

They were trapped. There was no way out. Floodwaters were rising. Both air and time was running low. Then, against all hope, divers emerged from the churning water, guiding them to safety. Almost everyone made it out alive, and the one man died, did so a hero.

 

And now it’s time for the book deal.

 

The dramatic stranding and rescue of a group of young boys and their soccer coach in a flooded cave in Thailand enthralled audiences around the world. The race has started for the rights to tell their story, both on the page and screen.

 

Desperate people trapped in dangerous places are cinematic gold for producers and guaranteed page-turners for publishers. Recall the thirty-three Chilean miners stuck underground for sixty-nine long days in 2010. Their official account of the events was written by a journalist to whom the miners collectively gave exclusive access while still trapped. Development of the film version started not long after the rescue ended, with the movie released in 2015.

 

Producers hit the ground early in Thailand, aiming for the soccer team’s life rights. The co-founder of a production company on the scene of the rescue said: 

 

You get their stories, and then it’s a matter of making sure the writer can tell the story in a dramatic and inspirational way. At the same time, these stories still have to be entertaining and moving.

 

Discovery quickly ordered a documentary about the rescue once all the boys and their coach were pulled out. Operation Thai Cave Rescue will premiere Friday July 13th.

 

While there might not be enough substance in the events of the story to fill a 300-page book, publishers aren’t doubting there’s a million dollar deal to be made out of the harrowing events of the rescue.

 

“The question is whether we will we learn anything in the book that we aren’t getting in these incredibly dramatic accounts in the media,” said Jamie Raab of Celadon Books. “Months from now, will it still captivate an audience?”

 

Featured Image Via Wall Street Journal

oprah

Oprah to Produce Movie Adaptation of ‘An American Marriage’

Back in February of this year, Oprah announced on Twitter that she was working on adapting her Book Club pick An American Marriage to the big screen.

 

Bustle is reporting that the announcement has resurfaced recently with the novel’s author Tayari Jones retweeting Oprah’s original tweet and clarifying her enthusiasm. All of this suggests the project is moving forward in development.

 

An American Marriage is both a suspenseful romance and an exploration of a married life in shambles, seen through the lens of letters sent back and forth between a black man falsely convicted in prison and his wife on the outside who must carry on alone while dealing with the romantic interests of a longtime friend.

 

 

Featured Image Via USA Today

flynn

Female Rage Is Real and Shouldn’t Be Minimized, Says ‘Gone Girl’ Author Gillian Flynn

Female rage is at the forefront of Gillian Flynn’s novels. Her memorable female protagonists, including Amy Dunne (Gone Girl) and Camille Preaker (Sharp Objects), exemplify the complexities of emotion and behavior as well as how female anger is oppressed by societal gender rules. Through her complex protagonists, Flynn hopes to open the floor about female anger and cease ignoring and minimizing it. 

 

In an interview with Vanity Fair, In Flynn expressed her views towards female anger, why we ignore it, and why we need to let women voice their frustrations.

 

“I think there’s a deep societal fear of female rage, partly because it hasn’t been experienced a lot,” Flynn told Vanity Fair. “Men—I speak in vast generalities—are often very afraid of what they don’t know how to handle. And they haven’t had to handle female rage a lot, and they think they need to handle it.”

 

so

Amy Adams as Camille Preaker in Sharp Objects (2018) | HBO

 

Flynn also discussed female anger, or lack thereof in regards to the #MeToo movement, a phenomenon which has heavily exposed the gross sexual harassment many women have experienced. According to Flynn, though the movement would be as an appropriate time as ever to voice female anger, many females have been urged to react differently.

 

But I’ll tell you what concerns me: there’s a lot of shushing going on. I keep doing these panel discussions where I hear women advising that we shouldn’t be angry, that we shouldn’t be approaching this [#MeToo moment] with anger, that we should embrace this moment with care and gentleness. And I think that’s insane.

 

“There’s a huge place for anger right now—particularly for the many, many women who’ve been violated—and this is a time to be angry. Let’s be very angry. Constructive anger is a very useful tool, and is a very important thing to express.”

 

Read the full interview here.

 

Feature Image Via Amazon/Meaww

agatha christie

10 Agatha Christie Quotes to Enlighten You

The Queen of Mystery, Agatha Christie, is one of the most significant authors in literary history and by far one of my favorite writers. With best-selling novels like And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express, Christie has managed to enchant millions of readers through her shocking plots and memorable characters.

 

 

Through her incredible writing, Christie has delivered some very important life lessons, such as walking through life with an air of questioning and not taking things (or people) at face value. Perhaps, however, the most important lessons learned through Christie’s writing are the small yet powerful pieces of advice. Here are 10 Agatha Christie quotes to enlighten you:

 

 

 

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

—Murder on the Orient Express

 

 

“One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.”

 

 

“The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”

—The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

 

 

“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it.”

 

 

“To every problem, there is a most simple solution.” 

—The Clocks

 

 

“I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.” 

—The Mystery of the Blue Train

 

 

“Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.” 

—The Mysterious Affair at Styles

 

 

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory – let the theory go.”

—The Mysterious Affair at Styles

 

 

“I often wonder why the whole world is so prone to generalise. Generalisations are seldom if ever true and are usually utterly inaccurate.”

–Murder at the Vicarage

 

 

“Fear is incomplete knowledge” 

—Death Comes as the End

 

 

 

Featured Image Via Smithsonian/ Amazon

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tablyn’s Debut Novel Set to Release This Month!

Popular film and television actor Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Joan of Arcadia) will be releasing her debut novel this month.

 

 

'Any Man'

Image Via HarperCollins Publishers

 

The book is entitled Any Man and details the story of one woman, Maude, as she hunts down men in bars, online, and even from within the comfort of their own homes and sexually assaults them in the most horrific of ways. The entire story takes place through the perspectives of the victims as they struggle against a justice system that doesn’t believe them, friends and family who shame and alienate them, and a media that hounds them while revealing their personal lives and the details of their assaults to the public. 

 

The novel is meant as a commentary on rape culture and a society that is so obsessed with views and the idea of celebrity that it doesn’t consider the lives it is damaging when it forces victims into the limelight. It also shows the ways in which victims of sexual assault are shamed, quieted, and tossed aside; along with the power and strength it takes to survive something so horrific.

 

It’s also interesting that the novel flips the story so the assailant is a woman and the victims are men. When asked about this, Tamblyn told Buzzfeed:

 

“By flipping the gender norms of rape culture, I hope to elicit some fresh, challenging conversations and examinations of who we are as a society while also allowing readers to relish in what I hope will be one of the most vile, heartless, and haunting female protagonists in modern American fiction.”

 

The novel sounds like it will be dark, unsettling, and all too relevant in a society in which, according to RAINN, an American is assaulted every ninety-eight seconds and one out of every six women will be the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

 

Sexual assault is so wildly prevalent in today’s society, new stories seem to appear in the media on a daily basis. The assaults are happening everywhere; Hollywood, Wall Street, the military, the NFL, the White House, and even within our schools.

 

The epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses was revealed in the Emmy-nominated documentary The Hunting Ground; showing how colleges fail to protect, acknowledge, and find justice for victims despite the fact that one in four women will be sexually assaulted while attending college.

 

This is why Any Man is extremely important and, as someone who has publicly spoken out against assault before, it’s no surprise Tamblyn would choose this as the topic for her first novel.

 

However, despite this being her first extended work of fiction, Tamblyn’s not exactly new to the writing scene. She has a collection of chapbooks she’s self-published and released over the years, along with a collection of poems she released with Harper Collins in 2015 that describes what it means to be an actor in Hollywood, many famous celebrity deaths, and how it feels to be constantly in the limelight, Dark Sparkler.

 

Any Man is set to release on June 26.

 

 

 

Featured Image via Variety