Twenty-four-year-old Flair floats in a tank in suburban Indiana with a neo-psych rock sound track playing into the darkness. She cultivates visions from her subconscious to give her clues about life. What she sees changes the town.
Photo by Artem Furman http://artemfurman.com/
A novel about burgeoning psych rock musicians in an Indiana college town has 108 references to psych rock that you may know or enjoy knowing. SA's latest novel, which has been described as Lynchian New Adult, is more romantic than the previous ones, though they were all Psychological Suspense Thrillers as well. The previous books, by contrast, involve intelligence agents, history, complex requirements to piece together what's happening, international intrigue. This one is more easily sensual with some oceanic elements reminiscent of Jung and Tantra, but the local corruption still must be fought and the strangely almost familiar and similar people popping up in the field and disappearing need to be grasped.
Flair, an in-law-averse bartender attending college, is surprised at midnight by an intimate moment with a man hiding in the isolation tank in total darkness. He runs away naked, attracting the attention of the flirtatious small-town policeman, Officer Bradley. Why was the man in the tank? Who is he? Why would she cover for him to the police? And how can she find him again?
The best things in town are on the verge of extinction. The sensory deprivation tank where everyone goes to heal is danger of closing, The lounge where Flair works, which has open mics, poetry readings, karaoke, comedy nights, and music is fading away. A talented surveyor who loves to float above it all in the company helicopter may lose his license. Who is behind all this and what can be done to bring harmony to the Midwestern town?
Meanwhile, Austin begins to question whether he spent too many long weekends floating in the isolation tank since his youth that it's gotten to his mind.
Floating on Secrets board on Pinterest with 108 psych songs mentioned in the book.
Follow Tantra Bensko on FB. On Amazon, with other psychological suspense books as well.
Tantra Bensko's Seductive Psychological Suspense
Floating on Secrets won silver medal in Romance at ELit and 4th place in New Adult at Reader's Favorite. Encore, the other Romantic Suspense book, was listed as one of the year's best dozen Thrillers by BestThrillers.com and won gold at LiteraryTitan.com. Glossolalia won gold medal in Intrigue from Readers' Favorite. Various other awards, but that'll do.
ELit book awards invites all books published around the world in English from major or small press to compete in various categories. The vastly largest category by far that is published and purchased is Romance. Floating on Secrets won silver medal for all competing books in the entire Romance category, major or small press, you name it. Don't you want to read it now?
Excerpt from the review: Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite
"Floating on Secrets by Tantra Bensko is a novel that will give you an out of body experience unlike any other. When most people want to feel detached from the world, they take drugs but not Flair. A waitress by profession, Flair Montgomery chooses sensory deprivation tanks over the local drugs to give her the feeling of calm and tranquility. Everything was great, she was enjoying the feeling of isolation while also enjoying some music when she felt someone touch her. Terrified and surprisingly excited, Flair had no idea who it was and why this person chose her. Was it her imagination or was it someone else? However, when she learns that the owner of the place has issues with being robbed, Flair started questioning the situation. What is happening? Is Flair imagining everything or there is something more to this than meets the eye?" Floating on Secrets, in the New Adult category.
Movie, Author, Publisher James Morcan Reviews My Agents of the Nevermind Suspense Novel
"Tantra is obviously very well-researched. Virtually all of the subjects covered are Wikileaks-style truths such as Western nations controlling vulnerable Third World nations, the CIA and other intelligence agencies purposefully creating multiple personalities in some agents, illegal sex rings of the Elite, etc, etc. The reality-based story not only makes it all the more powerful, but it also means the reader is educated along the way…not in a laborious manner or dry fashion, but this book simply teaches you little known and shocking facts in an organic fashion as you experience the intense story."
Flair wants to induce visions by floating alone in a dark isolation tank enhanced with a neo-psych rock playlist. The only problem is, when she hallucinates a man touching her — turns out it’s not a hallucination.
Austin wants to catch a thief. The only trouble is, it might be his father.
No, really, those troubles are just the beginning. Check out what else is going on at the lounge, the strip club, the helicopter rides, the stake-out, Facebook music groups, the park at midnight, and the cornfield with the strangely narrow man walking through it against the grain.
Floating on Secrets: A Seductive Psychological Suspense -- Altered States meets the young indie-music scene in contemporary suburban Indiana.
Can these new adults clear up the corruption threatening all the best methods of entertainment in the town? And can they keep their sanity when things get dangerously surreal?
"The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir." -- Joseph Cambell
Like Encore: A Hypnotic Abduction, which involves a literal elixir, this novel involves the quest for learning about reality through non-ordinary states. And like Encore, Floating on Secrets demonstrates the mystical power of love. Dare to go far below the surface; plunge deeper into love with this novel by Tantra Bensko.
Additional Details
Floating on Secrets protagonists are contemporary New Adults finishing out college or internship. There is Gothic uncertainty about the motivations of the stranger floating in the tank in this hot hot hot Psychological Suspense novel.
The story-line about corruption in the small town in Indiana is more complex than simple romance. There is moderate violence and sex and swearing. Possible trigger in the first chapter. It is Close Third Person Past Dual Point of View, 80,000 words.
Encore is a contemporary Gothic novel with adult characters and concerns: moving ahead in career, world events, history, philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, the arts, and passion. The love relationship is intense, with a guaranteed HEA.
It is a Romantic/Psychological Suspense, both genres having arisen from the Gothic tradition. It takes place in England.
Factual international history of the juncture of propaganda, occult practices, and intelligence agents pervades the novel.
Readers interested in historical intelligence assets like John Dee and Edward Kelley, Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, Nicholas Roerig will be on familiar ground with the references, as will readers with an interest in the history of alchemy and the appropriation of foreign mythologies to forge military alliances.
This is a powerful death-defying, cinematic love story full of mistaken identity, longing for two men, manipulation, and applicable esoteric sexual practices.
There is violence, swearing and mystical sex. It is First Person Past Single Point of View, 110,00 words.
It is Book III in The Agents of the Nevermind series.
Other Psychological Suspense (Not Seductive Romance)
The Agents of the Nevermind series: The first two books in the series garnered positive reviews, and have strong romances. They are Psychological Suspense, not Romance genre. The theme is the heroism of exposing social engineering. Thrills for Thinkers.
Glossolalia: Psychological Suspense: Website. On Amazon. Book 1 in The Agents of the Nevermind series. What if your subconscious held the fate of nations?
Remember to Recycle: Psychological Suspense: Book 2 in The Agents of the Nevermind series. What if the homeless man going through your recyling bins knows more about your life than you do? Like who is going to die.
The Agents of the Nevermind series is Alternate History which takes a slight veer in the late 1980's: a President with the hormonal imbalance, gigantism, used the newly created intelligence agency to convince the public of the superiority of giants through history, such as in the mythical Atlantis. The intelligence agents, who network the United States and Britain, control the media to keep occult interests popular as they're handy for propaganda. Overall, the world of the novels is very similar to what we experience currently.
Encore: A Contemporary Love Story of Hypnotic Abduction Was One of a Dozen Best Thrillers of the Yea
BestThrillers reviews many books a month and chooses one each month as one of the best Thrillers of the year. What authors did my novel, Encore, beat out in the list of the dozen best Thrillers of the year? The authors' books were actively competing against mine, and these are a few of the names you might know: John Grisham, Barry Eisler, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Dean Koontz. Dig it.
Best Thrillers of 2018.
