VINDICTIVE: This One Is Going to Hurt

I’ve been deep into the development of my next psychological thriller, VINDICTIVE, and I think it’s finally time to give readers a little update on where this book is heading.

And I’ll say this right now.

VINDICTIVE is going to be intense.

Not simply because of the violence. Not because of the darkness. And not because I’m trying to see how far I can push a scene.

This book is being built around something far more uncomfortable:

How much can you take from a good person before they stop caring about being good?

That question has become the heartbeat of this novel.

At its core, VINDICTIVE is about betrayal, money, family, broken promises, manipulation, and the damage caused when people repeatedly believe there will never be consequences for what they’ve done.

But this isn’t going to be a simple revenge story.

I don’t want readers opening this book and immediately knowing who the monster is.

I want you questioning people.

I want you noticing details that don’t seem important until much later.

I want you forming theories, abandoning them, coming back to them, and wondering whether the person you trust most in the story is actually the person you should fear.

And when the violence comes, it will come hard.

There are scenes being developed for VINDICTIVE that are considerably more disturbing than anything I’ve written before. But the goal isn’t gore for the sake of gore. The psychological element matters more.

The anticipation.

The helplessness.

The moment someone realizes exactly why they are there.

And the terrifying understanding that whoever is doing this has thought about it for a very long time.

That is where I want the horror to live.

One of the biggest decisions I’ve made during development is how the story will be told. You will not be sitting comfortably inside the killer’s head while everything is planned for you. You’ll be standing on the outside, trying to figure it out with everyone else.

You’ll see the consequences.

You’ll hear different versions of what happened.

You’ll discover the betrayals.

You’ll meet people who may have deserved accountability, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether what happens to them could ever be called justice.

Most importantly, I want VINDICTIVE to put the reader in an uncomfortable position.

Because there may come a point where you understand the person responsible.

Maybe even sympathize with them.

And then something happens that forces you to ask yourself why you ever did.

That is the book I’m working toward.

Dark. Fast. Psychological. Violent when it needs to be. Unpredictable throughout.

And underneath all of it, painfully human.

We’re still in development, and there is a lot of work ahead. The story is being constructed carefully because I don’t want VINDICTIVE to simply be another thriller about revenge.

I want this one to stay with you.

I want you to finish the last chapter and still be thinking about one question:

If someone takes enough from you, how long can you keep choosing to be the better person?

More soon.

Carter Vale

Author of AUTOBODY, LIPS, HOLLOWAY and ABOVE THE DEEP 6

Deep 6 Media