Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective

/ Ben

glasseye-sobieck-ebook-smashwordsNow available only on Wattpad: Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective.

Her psychic powers are fake, but the kidnapped girl she needs to find is real.

Zandra is an infamous “psychic” who grifts the gullible residents of her small Wisconsin town using her wits, not anything supernatural. Her skills are put to the ultimate test when the police tap her to help find a kidnapped girl.

But there’s a catch. The girl’s father apparently got away with murdering Zandra’s husband years ago.

Can Zandra put aside her grudge for the sake of a missing child? Or is this the perfect opportunity for revenge?

Read an Interview about this Novel

Head over here to Dana King’s blog for a terrific interview all about Glass Eye.

8 thoughts on “Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective”

  1. Hello Ben, I place this here so you can delete it. I wanted to paste it under Glass Eye over at Wattpad, but I leave that choice to you!

    Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective by Ben Sobieck.

    Dear Author, dear readers, welcome to my Review-Skeleton, by now revision 1.16, in theory & practice. Sadly without the HTML commands which I manually deleted in gratitude to Ben Sobieck. When I take the time of writing a detailed review, and even my review-skeleton is an investment of thirty to forty minutes per text, then there are reasons for it. Contrary to my own mindset some authors really care about those reasons. Luckily I avoided telling certain ones that I only reviewed because my favorite-lists were full? 😉 My traditional two main-motives for reviewing are 1: A text is so good, or so deserving of an improvement that I place a review, as all reviews have minor benefits when compared to unread authors. 2: A text is so miserable, outright stolen, or disgusting that I refuse to let it go unscathed.

    Type of Review (AMP = my whim, Request = paid for it, or Setting = forced by account setting): AMP, and gladly so!

    Reminder: Never forget that “OMG (Oh my God) U R so good!” has been review enough for thousands of files & ebooks.

    Title: Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective, seems to say it all. But I wouldn’t do this unpaid work at all, if Ben wouldn’t have managed to take the cliche up to entertaining heights, and with twists to enjoy. Originally I gave a tired and disgusted notion about TV series like ‘Psych’ or ‘The Mentalist’. Ben Sobieck did prove that wrong in a humorous and good way, and his story remains a radiant exception in the fraud & faked footage age.

    Description: Quoted: “Zandra is an infamous “psychic” who grifts the gullible residents of her small Wisconsin town using her wits, not anything supernatural. Her skills are put to the ultimate test when the police tap her to help find a kidnapped girl.” While I only excerpted one quote from the basic description I can verify that it is informing the reader well, and without that such would spoil the joy of
    reading the story oneself.

    Generic Hint: Consider that title&description are all, which a reader sees, before deciding whether to open the file, or not!

    Character-Cast: As the first ebook in a decade of my lifespan this book had characters I could accept as townsfolk without any exception. No overdosed superpowers, no sickening freakiness. The focus may remain on Zandra, but just as she realized in the story, it is those around her which made her possible, and necessary!

    Environment: All I knew about Wisconsin was ”That 70’s Show”. But I found it easy to access the writing, and enjoyed the atmosphere without any overstatement.

    Story-Flow: Consistent is the first word I consider proper. Fast without being superficial, gentle without being lethargic. Ben makes it easy to like his prose, and he keeps it a notch more decent than with Maynard Soloman, another character and protagonist created by Ben.

    Format: I made the acquaintance of Ben on a website named Wattpad dot com, and the gratis text there is the version I read. I had no complaints anyway (which is damn rare given my notoriety).

    Overall Impression: A subtle ‘early work’ which may later be seen as first signs of potential by that bestselling author and movie maker? May neither life nor God hold you down.

    Statements about my own first impression, opinion, and evaluation ( Return of the Prose ): Ben writes an English which I, as a Non-Native Speaker of Amercian English, found easy to access. Ben kept the prose decent enough for mainstream, but without fear of adding a sexist or vulgar or dark streak, IF he considers it proper.

    Technical Aspects (like Grammar, Punctuation& usage of Commas, or Apostrophes): As noted before: I had been so bombarded with demands, and the academic rules, which seem to legitimate those demands, that I harshly found enough time & health to start improving here myself. Ben’s work had no obvious flaws though, minor exceptions may be possible.

    Suggestions: Visit Ben’s homepage, as he does not just share quite a lot of his fiction, but offers nice information on several topics of mystery-crime types of stories. Direct LINK: https://crimefictionbook.com/

    Generic Helpful Link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/

    For Newbies: http://www.writing.com/main/tools/action/writingml

    Precious LINK: http://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/101_negative_comments

    Did I review something of a similar topic, or genre, which I could list here? No, as the specific genre and approach done by Ben Sobieck are not just unique to me, but noticably on a higher skill-level with much more humor and professional attitude.

    And to guarantee that the archetypal review does not lack it: 😉 “OMG! Ben Sobieck did so good!” He really did.

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  2. Hello Ben,

    my latest folly resulted in this ‘gift of sorts’. As I note in post skriptum feel free to delete or make use of it, permission, copyright wise, is granted to you in person. It is still pretty punky and I would advise you to ask more famous authors for a better one! 😉

    Foreword – Glass Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective by Ben Sobieck

    Whenever I am asked to write a foreword or preface for an acquainted author I am balancing my sympathy with my professionalism. I am an award-winning author, and an award-winning reviewer, but I am also a temper tantrum prone and bitching pariah and ex-bum after all.

    I write this foreword, as the humiliation of hiring someone to do so is not considered proper among professional authors. The real honor stems from bestseller authors voluntarily helping along with a foreword. The good news to the readers is, I write this because the book and ebook, just as the story in it, is worthy of your time and attention in 9 out of 10 cases. I, too, perceive it as a merit that Ben Sobieck, who has several books and ebooks published for sale, still shares full stories cost-free.

    The readers get a prose one can easily enjoy, atmosphere which fits the story and drives it onward, characters who could be living people with their mundane problems, secret vices and quirks.

    Originally I gave a tired and disgusted notion about TV series like ‘The Dead Zone’, ‘Psych’ or ‘The Mentalist’. Ben Sobieck did prove that wrong in a humorous and good way, and his story remains a radiant exception in the fraud & faked footage age.

    Description, quoted: “Zandra is an infamous “psychic” who grifts the gullible residents of her small Wisconsin town using her wits, not anything supernatural. Her skills are put to the ultimate test when the police tap her to help find a kidnapped girl.” While I only excerpted one quote from the basic description, and yes I used the same in my review of Glass Eye, I can verify that it is informing the reader well, and without that such would spoil the joy of reading the story oneself.

    The reader will benefit from Benjamin Sobieck’s expertise on several media jobs, and even though Ben’s focus on Weapons in Crime Fiction is not paramount here, his attitude and writing style, plus his time-efficient, uncomplicated prose, make the story worth a try. I felt honored, when Ben told me that I helped motivating him to restart writing the Sequel to it.

    But I daresay the reader gets more, if he or she can appreciate it. Ben writes what he considers worthy tales and facts, no awkward attempts to lure customers or make one more buck. All readers who visit his project over at wattpad dot com will have their own chance of verifying this themselves.

    And it doesn’t end with Glass Eye either. https://crimefictionbook.com/ is Ben’s chosen website on date of writing this. It offers even more cost-free articles, stories, and hints on several topics which often help readers understand and authors to improve. Thanks, Benjamin Sobieck.

    By now I check the rules, a book needing a foreword of a thousand words, plus or minus some hundred. But I write this for the ebook, tablet and smartphone version, and it starts to become a lengthy, and probably boring or distracting, sermon already… It is not about me or my own works after all.

    Therefore I hope that all potential customers and readers come to the decision they appreciate, and that my minor contribution was more helpful than harmful at least. I sincerely hope that all readers will enjoy the story as much, as I did, or even more!

    My regards

    Andrè M. Pietroschek

    post skriptum

    The foreword can be used or deleted by Benjamin Sobieck, as long, as no laws are violated or broken in doing so. Copyright wise I hereby grant permission to Benjamin Sobieck to use this as foreword for his book or ebook, if he chooses to do so.

    Note to Ben: This was my test-write about forewords. Wanted to see how much I can muster spontaneously. 😉 Even acquainted authors & writers will have to pay more of such over at http://www.fiverr.com from now on. DAMN, copying it in here spoiled all format!

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