Title: Trompe L’oeil
Author: Russell Bittner
Publisher/Year:Russell Bittner 1/4/14
Length: 362 pages
Overview
DANEKA SØRENSEN is a Danish transplant to NYC, where she manages her life from an Upper East Side apartment building by night and from the top floor of a mid-town skyscraper by day—ostensibly, all under tight control. KIT ADDISON is a fashion photographer with a sideline penchant for flora and poetry who lives on the Lower East Side. The distance between them, however, is about much more than a mere hundred city blocks.
The first sixty-five pages (other than the “erotic hook” of Chapter 1) are devoted to setting and character development. From that point on, all hell breaks loose.
That said, Russell has always believed that a woman’s most erogenous zone is between her ears. Whatever hell breaks should break only between each such pair of ears.
That’s as much as you need to know about the two principal characters and about the “nature” of this book. The rest will reveal—and unveil—itself in the eighty-two chapters of the story whose journey, incidentally, takes us from New York to Paris, to Lisbon and the coast of Portugal, to Rome and Positano, to Copenhagen and to Bornholm (an island in the Baltic Sea), then finally back to New York City.
About the Author
Russell is first and foremost a father—and quite happily so—of one boy and one girl. The boy is now working his way up onto the silver screen, while the girl continues to practice, practice, practice her way onto the dance stage. I suppose that our little household is not devoid of that special kind of lunacy that adheres to a family of aspiring artists, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s just the nature of life here in Brooklyn, New York—which is to say that we’re in no sense unique, unless it be in our peculiar brand of lunacy.
My Thoughts
So….I have to say that all that i’ve read about what this book was supposed to be compared to and then thorugh reading it to see what it actually was, i think that in my own opinion there’s a disconnect. I don’t know that i’d put it in the realm of FSOG or those ,but i think that there’s an interesting romance here, something that’s a bit more intellectual than most other books that i’ve read. I’ve actually had to think quite a bit while i’m reading and while i’m not opposed, it’s definitely something outside of the norm.
We have these 2 characters that are quite confident in their own stature and where they stand among other professionals in their circles, yet what they are to each other, that’s clear in some senses, but it’s certainly a game. One that i’m kind of enjoying a bit, but still i don’t know that i’m necessarily a huge fan of the overt.
Daneka is a woman who’s definitely ‘mature’ and she’s written to seem not just ‘old and wise’ which i mean in the best sense possible, but she’s established, she takes no prisoners and she’s the kind of woman that i’d be ok becoming when i ‘grow up’ since it’s not so much that i want to be able to manipulate people like she does, but i can see how it has it’s value.
Kit on the other hand, he’s quite smart, and talented but i’ve never quite been able to work him out and i think that’s part of the allure with this book. that you know his intentions but not necessarily his motivations.
We are on a nice journey and trip with these guys, trying to sort out what makes sense for them since their worlds are so vastly different from one another, but we see that through the development of a meaningful (of sorts) relationship, there’s a way to bridge that gap. Where the conclusion takes us, well that’s something that you have to invest yourself in the novel for to get there. so…on that note, i’ll leave you with a few links to find this book, the author and all sorts of other great stuff and hopefully you’ll enjoy!
Link to Trompe-l’oeil at Amazon: http://amzn.to/13dhh7Q
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Russell538
Facebook page: http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=64…
LinkedIn page: http://linkd.in/1cuX9Ei
Author Page at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/dash…
A-page at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Russell-Bittner…
A-page at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi…
Webpage for Trompe-l’oeil: http://www.russellbittner.com/
Bookbzz Page for Trompe-l’oeil: http://bookbzz.com/trompe-loeil-russe…
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/
Pinterest Page: http://www.pinterest.com/russell538/