What You Don't Know Review Tour! (+$20 Amazon GC Gift Card Giveaway)

Title: What You Don't Know 

Author: Elka Ray

Series: N/A

Pages: 148

Date Published: 2016

Publisher: Hoffman Press

Format: Kindle

Genre: Suspense 

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours

Synopsis:
An American lawyer dreams of killing his trophy wife in Thailand. A Vietnamese soldier goes mad in a haunted forest. A bereaved mother's trip to Cambodia ends in tragedy - or does it?

One of Asia's top crime writers takes you on a spine-tingling journey from the jungles of Sumatra through Bangkok's seedy bars to the seemingly sedate streets of Singapore. Your traveling companions are a slew of dark emotions - fear, grief, jealousy, greed, lust and revenge. And your destination?

With flashes of black humor and hard-to-forget characters, these stories shine light into some of Southeast Asia's darkest corners.

~My Thoughts~

I really enjoyed these stories. Elka has a writing style that's very passionate and detailed. Her storytelling is compelling and enjoyable at the same time. I loved the dialogue  because you really feel like these characters are speaking to one another. The movie in your head never gets interrupted and you can feel the flow instantly. 

I'd like to spend some time just playing around in Elka's imagination, as she's got a lot going on in there! Then again...maybe something unfortunate would happen because most of these stories have teeth and edges that are a bit blacker than I'm used to. Still, very enjoyable and different. 

Although the stories were full of a juicy kind of tension, they were still the safe kind of tense where you enjoy yourself. I really enjoyed that the South Asian flair brought me into experiences and cultures that I'm unfamiliar with but loved learning about. 

~Try an Excerpt!~

“Kyle?” I yell. I’m sure my son is gone, sucked down to the bottom.

Blinking against the blood, I see him lying face down on the deck. He’s got himself wedged against the boat’s sides like a rock climber. I call again and he twists his head. I must look pretty bad, because he gasps. “D—dad?”

The boat is still rocking, but not enough to tip. Water sloshes back and forth. Kyle pushes himself onto his hands and knees. We both look around. Beneath the streaks of rain, the sea is dead calm. No swell. No big whitecaps. Nothing.

“Shit. What happened?” says my son. His face appears bleached. “What was that?”

I’ve been boating in these waters for going on two decades but can’t explain what hit us. If it was the wake from a big cargo ship there’d have been more waves. That wave came from nowhere. Was it a whale? I shake my head. “I…I don’t know,” I say.

The engine has stalled. My hands are shaking so hard I have trouble restarting it. It roars to life once, twice, only to cut out.

"Daaaad! You're flooding it," says Kyle, his voice a hysterical whine. "It won't start! It won't start! You've flooded it!"

I grit my teeth. "Fine, you try."

If he hears, he doesn't respond but just hugs his knees. "My god. My god. She's here. She's here." He says it over and over again.

"Shut up!" I yell, and my son stops. He presses his palms to his cheeks. I force myself to count to ten before trying the motor again, terrified that Kyle's right: If the motor is flooded, we're stuck out here.

~Meet Elka!~ 

At the age of eleven, Elka Ray co-founded the Double Trouble Detective Agency. She’s been on the lookout for mysteries ever since. Elka’s latest book, “What You Don’t Know: Tales of Obsession, Mystery & Murder in Southeast Asia”, takes readers on a darkly suspenseful tour of the Far East. Her first novel, a fast-paced romantic adventure titled “Hanoi Jane”, was published by Marshall Cavendish in English and DT Books in Vietnamese. Elka’s next novel, the thriller “Saigon Dark”, will come out with Crimewave Press in November 2016. Elka is also the author and illustrator of a popular series of bilingual kids’ picture books about Vietnam.

Elka divides her time between Hoi An in Central Vietnam and Canada’s scenic Vancouver Island. When she’s not writing, drawing or reading she’s in - or near -the ocean.

Elka will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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