Smorgasbord Book Promotions – New Book on the Shelves – #Teen #YA #Coming of Age – The Art of Raising Hell by Thomas Lopinski

Delighted to welcome Thomas Lopinski to Smorgasbord with his Teen, Young Adult, Coming of Age novel The Art of Raising Hell.

About the book

“There are some people that walk around on two feet and others like me that run on all four.”

To most people, that’s a bold statement. I just wish I’d been the one to say it, but I wasn’t. In fact, until a few days ago, I wasn’t even sure what it meant.

Either you’re the type of person who lives within a set of boundaries or the type who knows none.

But life is never that simple, is it?

No, I’d say that the most important insights about who we are, what we say, and why we do things are not always the obvious ones. Instead, they’re discovered on the streets of your hometown, revealed late at night in a dark backroom, or sometimes forced upon you at knifepoint where your only choices for survival are between bad and worse.

In The Art of Raising Hell, Newbie Johnson has recently moved to Bunsen Creek, Illinois, when his mother is killed in a tragic car crash. His father does his best to maintain a normal household, but his broken heart is just not up to the task.

Newbie finds solace by hanging out with his three buddies in their clandestine Backroom hideout. Getting into mischief becomes their favorite pastime as they try to follow in the footsteps of Lonny Nack, who has perfected the art of running on all four.

Lonny fears no one, including The Law, and soon takes his peculiar sense of justice, along with his love of practical jokes, to new heights while entertaining the colorful characters of Kickapoo County.

“Running on all four” takes on a new meaning for Newbie when he finds his inner voice and begins to understand the difference between chasing life and being chased by it.

One of the reviews for the book

Amy 4.0 out of 5 stars A great story  – Reviewed in the United States

This coming of age story has a wonderful balance of fun, self-awareness, and profoundness to make it a rather moving story. In essence it is just about growing up in the 1970s but Lopinski makes it much more than that. Newbie tells the story with a sense of reflection and while a lot of the story discusses the various adventures and misadventures he and his friends had growing up, there is a great and meaningful story as well. It becomes about making deep and important friendships, about leaving childhood innocence behind and finding your place in the world, and accepting changes and challenges both big and small.

The tone is light but is very much one of being narrated to, Newbie’s voice reads like he’s telling someone his story, which essentially he is, and with that comes a certain type of language. It does work well, even the few places where it references that a story is being told to a reader, but these are minimal and getting caught up in Newbie’s storytelling overrides any minor narration quirks.

The time period covered crosses many years and can often skip months at a time, but Lopinksi maintains the flow of the story nicely and the narrative never falters, nor do you lose track of the story. It was quite interesting to see how the characters grew and changed over the years and the differences this had on their perspectives on life and the wisdom they thought they held.

Despite being told from Newbie’s perspective, Lopinski seamlessly weaves in the stories and lives of other people in the town in a way that feel natural and real and helps you get to know them as well. Characters are connected in ways you do not understand at first and by the end everything is wrapped up beautifully and loose ends and unanswered questions you had forgotten about or didn’t realise were unanswered are all addressed impeccably.
Lopinksi treats his characters right and everyone gets a decent representation. There are no one-dimensional sidekick friends or characters just for the sake of characters. Each character has their own story and even if their appearance if brief, Lopinski manages to still tell their story and bring a bit of life to them with a history and personality.

Lopinski doesn’t make this a happily ever after but he concludes it well and with a feeling that everything is going to be alright, even after all that has happened. I really liked this story, it is insightful and reflective without being too intense and over the top, and it is filled with surprises and moments, good and bad, that capture a moving tale about being young, growing up, and learning some of the harder lessons in life.

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK

Also by Thomas Lopinski

Read the reviews and buy the books: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK – Follow Thomas Lopinski: Goodreads – Website: Thomas Lopinski – Also: Facebook – Instagram – LinkedIn –Twitter – @ThomasLopinski

About Thomas Lopinski

Thomas grew up in a quaint small town in Illinois called Georgetown, which had one stoplight, one high school, one square, one lake, one police car and one hundred ways to get into trouble. It was a wonderful place to be a child. In his teens, he picked up a guitar and started playing in local rock bands while holding down a day job.

He studied at the University of Illinois and continued his interest in writing music, even though the signs were there that this was not his true calling.

His love for music led him to move to Southern California with his wife and daughters to work in the music industry. There he’s had a successful career in the Film & TV Music Licensing field with Warner Bros., Universal and the Walt Disney Company.

After the birth of his triplet daughters, Lopinski gave up playing out and focused on literature after joining a writer’s group made up of his peers in the music industry. In 2012, he self-published his first novel, “Document 512,” which won recognition and awards from Reader Views, Foreword Review, National Indie Excellence Awards and Best Indie Books.

His second novel “The Art of Raising Hell” was published through Dark Alley Press and won Best Young Adult Novel through Best Indie Books and was a semi-finalist for Best Literary Novel through Kindle Book Awards. Thomas is also a member of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC).

In 2022, Thomas released an album of original songs called “Unfinished Business” under the pseudo name “Pinski Thomas”. The album can be found on Spotify, iTunes and BandCamp. His third novel entitled “Zero Sum Conclusion” will be published in 2024.

 

Thanks for dropping by today and I am sure Thomas would be delighted to answer any questions you might have.. Sally.