An Embarrassment of Riches: 'Reunion: A Story' Not Only Gets a Video Trailer, But Also a New Review!

 Hi, everyone! 

Well, as the header for this post points out, I was fortunate this week because Reunion: A Story now has a book trailer on YouTube! 

This two-minute-long video was created by my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez and Popcorn Sky Productions, with some input from me (I provided the excerpt in the narration, and I got to pick the musical cue), and an awesome voice performance by Juan's son, Anthony James Hernandez. Everyone who's watched it and given me feedback on it has said they like the video because the mix of images, music, and narration pulls them into the story. 

Whether the video will help boost sales of Reunion, I haven't a clue. I hope it does...cos it's really a brilliantly done promo!

Ah, but wait! There's more!

This morning, my friend and fellow former Epinions reviewer, Patti Aliventi, posted a review of Reunion on her WordPress blog Thoughts from the Mountaintop. It wasn't her first go-round at reviewing my novella; when I published the somewhat flawed first edition of Reunion five years ago, she wrote a short review of it on Amazon (she has the Kindle e-book). She gave it five stars and a nice write-up then. 

The review she published this morning on her blog is just as positive as the one on Amazon, but because she does more in-depth reviews on Thoughts from the Mountaintop, Patti delved more into the plot and her impressions of her story than she did in her Amazon review. 

Here's an excerpt from Patti's new take on Reunion: 

Author Alex Diaz-Granados is excellent at painting a picture with words. I can see Jim Garraty in the cemetery, in his school office trying to draw the day to a close, and in his apartment that was decorated by his ex-wife that he still hasn’t had the inclination to change. This gives Jim the quality of a person who ignores the details in his own life while meticulously researching the details in the lives of others, particularly those in a book he is ostensibly working on. Jim seems restless, however, even in his work on the novel. He cannot get to a point in writing that book that he is satisfied with.

Does all of this stem from the “what ifs” of a life he never got to live? As the reader is brought back through those days in high school when the world seemed filled with possibilities for the future, it would seem Jim is haunted by his inability to ask the girl he had fallen for out on a date. The author faithfully recounts the details of those days as Jim reflects back on them prior to his trip back to his hometown of Miami, making it seem that indeed, the decision to not pursue the girl of his dreams has haunted the rest of his life. 

Anyway, if you're so inclined, you can read Patti's blog post here.

And if you want to buy a copy of Reunion, just click here to go to the novella's Amazon product page!