Breaking a Sunbeam

by Geoff Hunter

Juel is a beautiful young woman but had a cruel and abusive childhood, spending many years in a psychiatric hospital where she suffered further deprivations. She is now an amoral killer, seeking to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1425107451
• ISBN13: 9781425107451
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Next Quentin Tarrantino Movie?

I want to thank the author for providing me with a reviewer copy all the way from the UK! I found this book a highly entertaining read that reminded me a lot of a combination of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. I was sorry when the book finally finished. Jake and Kay are a couple on the way to see their friend Peter. They arrive at his store as some robbers that have just murdered Peter are leaving. The robbers then botch killing Jake and Kay in their attempt to leave no witnesses which leads them to later kidnap Kay and draw Jake and Kay into their type of life. The killers are made up of Carl, a cowboy type, his serial killer brother Roy and the wild Juel who controls them both and she has a list of people that have wronged her that she wants to kill. It is not long before Jake and Kay are starting to be like the crazy trio. The book is full of a lot of tension and action and is quite different from most action thrillers.

FOR SOMETHING A BIT DIFFERENT........

I must say, this was a rather startling book. While the story is different, it plays to the same theme as the 1971 movie staring Dustin Hoffman, Straw Dogs. The question is; at just what point will an ordinary person, break, and do quite extraordinary acts in defense of himself or those he loves, even if the acts are against his basic nature? This scenario has always been fascinating to me and this work by Geoff Hunter certainly filled the bill. Now reader please be warned. There are portions of this work that are extremely violent, extremely sadistic and for lack of a better term, just down right gory. On the other hand I am happy to say that all this gore and mayhem is not necessarily gratuitous in nature. This is what the book is about and it would have been rather pointless to write the story any other way. Yet, if the reader is offended or feels uncomfortable in this area, then they should be warned. The narrative is quite graphic and detailed. That being said..... The basic plot of the story is that a man is forced to perform horrid acts of revenge in order to save his wife who is being held prisoner and will not be released until these acts have been performed. There is always hope in his heart that he will be able to rescue her and part of the fascination of this story is the writers ability to have our leading character justify the acts that he participates in. This novel is well crafted, and after a slightly slow start picks up speed and quickly becomes a real page turner. The author is quite a good descriptive writer and has well mastered the difficult art of good dialog. The story seems real and there is nothing happening that you feel is out of place and could not happen in real life. Actually the author has been able to tell this story so well that you feel down right uncomfortable at times. This is good. This makes for good story telling. All in all, this is a good action thriller. I promise you it will hold our interest and that it is a well written read. As I stated above, it may not be for everyone, but then again you probably won't know if you don't give it a try. Actually, this one could probably be turned into quite a nice movie. I do recommend this one!

Riveting action, heart-pounding suspense, an unbeatable thriller

Just how far would you go for the person you loved? Jake proves hard to beat with his steadfast love for Kay in this action-packed, horror-tinged thriller. In response to his wife's ransom kidnapping following a robbery-gone-awry, Jake agrees to assist a trio of law-evading gun-wielders in their leader Juel's quest to seek revenge on the enemies of her past. But what seems like a simple house-burning leads straight into a chain of shoot-outs and murders that even CSI would be puzzled by. And while the plot seems relatively straight-forward, the inner turmoil of each character is anything but. The book starts off a bit slow, but much like a rollercoaster ride, once it reaches the top and starts speeding downward, the speed picks up and it will be hard to put down. The details of each person's past tribulations make for gruesome, Krueger-ready altercations, including a medieval approach to beheading. Those particular parts may not mix well with your lunch. That aside, Hunter's twisted tale of tested love is worth a read. Those who favor Tom Clancy's writing will love the minute-by-minute gun-shooting action, while those who favor a unbreakable love story will enjoy the story's underlying drive. A great novel, just begging for a sequel. - T.C. Robson

Getting sucked in deeper and deeper...

Seems that I've been getting a number of requests lately to review novels, and this one sounded interesting... Breaking a Sunbeam by Geoff Hunter. If you like your storyline with plenty of gore and mayhem, this one will work for you. It was also interesting to see how the hostages changed during their ordeal. Jake and Kay Winter are an ordinary couple, young and in love. But their lives change when they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Juel, Carl, and Roy are pulling off the theft of some jewels from a old friend of Jake and Kay. The couple show up at the shop at the same time the situation deteriorates, leaving their friend dead and the criminals somewhat trapped. Juel shoots Kay, expecting that she killed her. But Kay does survive, and Jake, arriving just as Juel and company flees the scene, also gets a good look at the killers. That makes Kay and Jake "loose ends" that need to be tied up... After a couple of botched attempts to kill both of them off, they stumble onto an opportunity. They kidnap Kay in order to force Jake to help them "clear up" a few matters. The promise is that they'll let Kay and Jake go after Jake does the job for them. In reality, they'll both be killed off at that point. But since there's really no other choice, Jake agrees to go along. The first job involves killing a doctor and burning down his house. But Jake finds out that the doctor is really a child abuser, and he's tied into Juel's past. Jake handles the job well, and they decide to use him for another "clean-up" job. This one goes bad, and Jake ends up killing someone to defend Juel and Carl. And while he's still planning to get his wife back, he's now much more sympathetic towards Juel, even to the point of falling in love with her. Meanwhile, Kay is locked up in a cellar with no clue as to what's going on. Rather than sit and await her fate, she decides to try to escape. This becomes even more of a necessity when she comes face to face with Roy's fantasy world of medieval torture and control. She too undergoes a change in attitude towards Juel and Carl, and gets sucked into situations she would have never thought she could be part of. While some of the action scenes seemed to go on a bit longer than I thought necessary, the overall plot, pacing, and character setup was well done. Juel is a true psychopath, and it's hard to figure out why she's that way until you find out her backstory. The relationship between Juel, Carl, and Roy seems odd at the first, but again it builds well over time. Watching the change in Jake and Kay as they crash through social and emotional boundaries is also compelling. Bottom line, I found myself racing more and more at the end to see how it would all wrap up. If you can put up with some rather violent imagery, you'll likely enjoy this read.

Breaking A Sunbeam

In his thriller, Breaking a Sunbeam, author Geoff Hunter takes readers into a sinister and violent world where survival instincts are put to the test. The protagonist, Jake Winter, a happily married young man, becomes involved with three psychopaths by the name of Juel, Carl, and Roy. Jake's beloved wife Kay is abducted by the three criminals when she stumbles across one of their violent escapades. To ensure his wife's safe return, Jake is forced to join the gain and participate in their deadly activities. He becomes caught up in a dark and cruel world of violence, vengeance, murder, and unforgiving brutality. Jake participates in heinous acts that he never dreamed he would ever engage in. Kay, a prisoner in the ominous underground basement of her captors' home, finds herself facing Roy, an insane and brutal serial killer carrying out his innermost violent desires of torture and killing young women. Breaking a Sunbeam explores a number of dark themes. Juel, a psychologically damaged woman, exacts revenge on those who have committed terrible acts of abuse upon her as a child. To Juel, wiping her past clean is a form of self-healing. Jake finds himself in a moral and ethical dilemma; sympathizing with Juel as he takes part in her quest for revenge. As well, Kay finds herself in a situation where she must engage in violence to survive Roy's demented obsessions. The story is a fast paced thriller with many twists and turns that will captures readers' attention from start to finish. Readers will empathize with Jake's and Kay's predicaments as well as the compelling bond that develops between Jake and Juel. Juel and Carl have similar qualities to the two leading characters from the movie, "Natural Born Killers." Settings were well described although scenes about the location of the town are a bit vague. The insight into the mind of serial killer Roy's was rather ambiguous. His obsession with darkness and medieval torture could have been expanded to give a better understanding of how he developed his thirst for torture and killing. Breaking a Sunbeam delivers fast paced and action packed elements that make for a good thriller. It is highly recommended to fans of the Thriller Genre. Tracy Roberts, Write Field Services