Ambition:
Be Careful What You Ask For
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Product Details:
ISBN: 0976189704
Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: March 2005
Publisher: M2N Publishing
About The Main Character
Johnathan explains, "I chose to make the main character a woman because I
have always had wonderful women of substance in my life - including my mother,
my grandmothers, my aunts, a cousin who is like my sister, female friends and
naturally my wife and daughters. My med school roommate was a female medical
student who through the years has remained a close friend. So it made sense to
me that I'd write about a woman."
"Using a female main character didn't appear to be a challenge until I actually
got involved in writing the story. Then I realized I didn't know what I thought
I knew about women. Melanie is a composite of women I've known, but as her
character emerged and developed I noticed things about her that I'd never
observed in any other woman. She took on a persona all her own."
"Melanie is a woman with old-fashioned moral standards yet she is of the
X-generation in her desire to be competitive at the highest levels in her
profession. She is confident as she moves among men in the board room and in the
world of high finance. She enjoys her work and is well-rounded in her love of
music, shopping, laughing and joking or relaxing with her friends."
"There are things I know now in particular about the way women communicate in
each others' presence that men are not privy to. Thanks to the wonderful women
with whom I collaborated during the editing process for this book, much insight
was provided. Melanie has unique qualities that I am certain others may
recognize in women they already know or may come to know someday."
Excerpt
She didn't hear them enter, but they had subdued Stenson and Mickey tying
them to wooden chairs. Their feet and chests were bare and their bodies
immobilized with rope and wide clear duct tape. They both had dirty, blood-
stained towels stuffed in their mouths and had been severely beaten. Open cuts
covered their faces and heads. Fleetwood lay motionless at their feet, with a
stream of blood running briskly from the back of his head.
The three men in the room looked familiar. Melanie had seen one of them at her
home the previous night, the one whose fingers Mickey had cut off. His hand was
wrapped in a bloody dressing. The other two men resembled Adam Wellington and
Franciose Baptiste. They were all dressed in black, standing at the foot of the
small bed where she huddled.
Sunlight from a small window appeared to create a halo around Stenson and
Mickey; in one motion, without hesitation or stimulus, Adam turned and placed a
gun to Mickey's head and pulled the trigger. Brain matter and body fluid covered
the wall as the impact pushed Mickey's head back when his body fell to the
floor. He lay motionless but remained in the chair, the towel falling from his
mouth, his eyes empty.
Stenson sat upright in his chair, rigid but not shaking, his soft brown eyes
connected to hers and closed as he fell backwards, his splattered brain matter
created a similar pattern on the wall as Mickey's. Melanie screamed but it was
inaudible and her eyes were tightly shut. The persistent barking of Kitty filled
her ears, but she could not see him in the room.
Her clothes were drenched with perspiration but the room was cold from the
breeze of the window air conditioning unit. She continued to hear the barking
dog and a voice calling her, which sounded like Stenson.
