Michael Grothaus

I bought this book back in 2016, and I mainly bought it because I read an article online on a site called Vice, it was titled, How Fake Celebrity Porn Destroyed One Guy's Life and Saved Another from Suicide, just stumbled across this article, it was written by the author of the book, so I got curious, and I bought the book.

This is an amazing book, I enjoyed every moment of reading it, it was well researched, that was what that article had been for, research into the world of celebrity faking.

There were only a couple of mentions into celeb faking, the book was packed with action, and mystery in spades.

The characters are interesting, the main character hallucinates things, such as his sister, and various other things, and the other main character is an odd character who thinks they can speak to god, very interesting characters.

I honestly enjoyed this book right through, I would highly recommend this book to people, so please, support the author and buy the book, have a great day.… (mehr)

Epiphany Jones – A Highly Original Debut

It would be easy to call Epiphany Jones a stunning debut but it is better than that, it is jaw droppingly brilliant, highly original, thrilling and funny. How do you turn pornography, sex trafficking, Hollywood with a splash of comedy in to an exciting and inventive thriller? It should not work, but it does and that is down to the writing of Michael Grothaus proving that he is a talent that needs to be watched, as he will only get better.

This psychological thriller looks at the modern phenomena the addiction to pornography, through the aid of the internet, the centuries old sex trafficking still going on today and being able to atone for our past sins and those of others.

They say the opening line of a book should capture the reader from the start, and people will often quote the opening to The Tale of Two Cities as the classical opening. Well when Epiphany Jones opens with the sentence “Tonight I’m having sex with Audrey Hepburn” and then we find Jerry cracking one off to the pornographic image, it really is a case of welcome to the modern world, and an unspoken addiction many have.

Jerry has never been the same since his father, a Hollywood PR guru died in a car accident, while Jerry was in the car. At the same time his younger sister Emma had died through leukaemia, he and his mother had moved to Chicago to start over again. Jerry is a single young man, who lives with his imaginary friends alone, and works in an art gallery.

His mother’s ex-lover had helped Jerry get a job at the gallery, a job he does not particularly enjoy, but it is a job. While setting up an exhibition a priceless Van Gogh is stolen and one of the curators is murdered, Jerry is accused of murder and theft. He somehow has to head underground but not before he attacks his mother with a dildo, you will have to read to find that reason out!

When one of his figments of his imagination turns out to be real, but hears voices from God, can Jerry’s life get any worse? Epiphany Jones insists that she needs Jerry and that he needs to trust her as she leads him down to Mexico, then on to Portugal and France.

Does he really believe Epiphany Jones when she tells him his late father was a monster, one of many in Hollywood, and she needs Jerry to help find her daughter. When faced with a real monster, a trafficker who wants Epiphany, he knows he will never be safe.

As we see Jerry and Epiphany head to Europe in to the belly of the beast, Jerry falls in love for the first time and his imaginary friends start to behave themselves. But as always Epiphany seems to come crashing and thrashing about in his life, as he ultimately heads for an unlikely redemption, that even he did not expect.

What we see is a highly entertaining psychological thriller that looks at some of the taboos of modern society, mental health, addiction, pornography, celebrity and trafficking and tackles them head on. At times darkly humorous, but that is used to ease the reader through some of the very tough subjects dealt with, just as in real life we use humour to conquer bad situations.

This is truly my debut thriller of the year for some many different reasons, as Michael Grothaus has crafted a stunning debut that really will grab you from the start. Epiphany Jones is a rollercoaster ride of emotions, funny and disturbing all in one book with twists you cannot anticipate. This really is a highly original debut proving the Michael Grothaus really is a talent to watch.… (mehr)