Zack's Choice is a fiction novel in the crime - heist - mystery, with a dash of humor and a bit of sex, genre. It is available as both e-book and print paperback.
Zackery Gresham has his life all planned. His mother is a lawyer; his father is a federal judge; and he is Pre-Law at Yale, with Harvard Law School to follow before he joins his mother’s prestigious law firm. He plans to marry his high school and Yale girlfriend once he graduates from Law School. During a school break Zack takes a once-in-a-lifetime motorcycle trip through the southern states. In New Mexico he has a chance encounter with a strange hitchhiker. The resulting chaos will bring Zack face-to-face with a choice that could alter his life forever.
Zack's Choice is a quick, fun read.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
Zack’s Harley headed into the late-afternoon sun as he glided across the highway engulfed by the vastness of the desert southwest when he first saw the hitchhiker. Zack slowed and eased to a stop a few yards from him. Zack removed his helmet, and the two slowly eyed one another, assessing each other’s potential threat. Zack spoke first. “Where ya headed?”
The hitchhiker stared at the Harley then replied, “West.”
“Anywhere in particular?”
“Just west.”
“How’d you get stranded out here in the middle of the desert?” Zack asked.
“My last ride was with a bunch of Indians. They let me off and headed for their reservation off that way.” The hitchhiker pointed south.
“How old are you, kid? You look like you’re too young to be traveling alone, especially to be hitchhiking. Didn’t your folks ever warn you about the perils of hitching rides with strangers?” Zack asked.
“I’m old enough. And I have no folks.”
“Well, climb on behind me, and I’ll carry you down the road a ways.”
As the youngster climbed aboard behind him, Zack estimated the boy’s age to be mid-teens. He was slightly built, and his denim jacket and jeans fit him rather loosely. A Boston Red Sox baseball cap covered his short, black hair. Zack asked, “You from
around Boston?”
“No. I’m from nowhere in particular.”
Zack cranked the Harley and gave it gas, making the motor roar to life. He pulled back onto the highway and soon reached cruising speed. Strange kid, he thought.
Little did Zack know how much his life would be affected by this “strange kid.”
Professional Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars - Outrageous Adventure
What develops in this story is unbelievable, fun, amazing and thrilling. This was my first of Harry Gilleland's books and I will be reading more. Zack is a little naïve but who hasn't been at some point in their life? Picking up hitchhikers can lead to some crazy adventures and exciting stories. Can't wait to read more. I received a copy of this book for my honest opinion, and it didn't disappoint.
4.0 out of 5 stars - good read,
Kinda hard to label this book in one genre - there's fantasy, some spy on spy action, some legal drama - couldn't put this down, had me intrigued from the get go - Ever had your life planned out and things go another way this story is like that. - Received a free copy of this book for review
5.0 out of 5 stars - Incredible story
“The best laid plans…” is an often-used expression that describes the plot in Harry Gilleland’s book, Zack’s Choice perfectly. Zack plans to marry his high school sweetheart and follow in his parents’ footsteps in the legal world. First, though, he decides to take a motorcycle trip through the south. In New Mexico his trip turns into a not-to-be believed adventure. He meets a young hitchhiker who convinces him to help save the world.
“Zack’s Harley headed into the late-afternoon sun as he glided across the highway, engulfed by the vastness of the desert southwest when he first saw the hitchhiker. Zack slowed and eased to a stop a few yards from him. Zack removed his helmet, and the two slowly eyed one another, assessing each other’s potential threat.”
What Bobby, the hitchhiker tells him is unbelievable, but Zack believes it anyway. Following Bobby’s directions, Zack’s journey takes him to California and then to Europe where he has to flee to stay out of jail. Don’t pass up a chance to read this incredulous story. The twists and turns and the subtly humorous dialogue combine to make you want more. Who knows? Maybe Dr. Gilleland will carry on the adventures of Zack. If not, you are left with a very unusual development that will make you wonder if something this fantastic could actually happen. Read it. Then decide.
I always enjoy Dr. Gilleland’s books. His imagination and writing style keep me enthralled from beginning to end – and this book is no exception. If this is your first introduction to Harry E. Gilleland, you will definitely want to read his other works.
Harry E. Gilleland, Jr. is an award-winning poet and author of nine published books, four books of his personal poetry and five prose books. He was born in Macon, GA, and has lived in Shreveport, LA since 1975, making him a proud and confirmed Southerner. He spent two long years in London, Canada in the snow, ice, and freezing - and I do mean freezing - cold. He moved back south to thaw out in 1975 and has no plans to ever leave the South again. Dr. Gilleland retired in 2004 after twenty-nine years as a Professor of Microbiology at LSUHSC-S's School of Medicine. Since his retirement, Harry has devoted his efforts full-time to creative writing, both poetry and prose, and to editing.
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Reviews for "Zack's Choice"
Reviewed by Ally McMahon
6/23/2014
Zack’s Choice is an exciting read from the first to the last page.
Author Harry Gilleland brings his talent to the forefront with this exceptional tale. We first meet Zack riding along on his Harley. He notices a hitchhiker and decides to stop. The hitchhiker looks way too young to be out there by himself. Zack takes a chance and picks up the hitchhiker, Bobby. You see from the beginning the charity in Zack’s heart as he picks Bobby up and then feeds and shelters him. Unfortunately for Zack his kindness is repaid by robbery.
Zack eventually ends up back on the road only to run into Bobby again, only now Zack discovers that Bobby isn’t who he says he is and it doesn’t stop there. This time Zack does not get off so easy. Though Zack’s life is all planned and laid out before him he is presented with a new road and a choice of whether or not to follow it. What ensues is a suspenseful and thrilling adventure that involves stolen property, the FBI, Vatican, mystery, suspense and fighting the good fight.
The dialogue flows eloquently drawing you deep into the story. The characters are solid and real leaving you to wonder what the truth really is. This story delves into coming of age, mystery, suspense, turmoil and ends with enlightenment. I highly recommend it!
Sure at the Crossroads - A review of the novel ‘Zack’s Choice’
“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way” – Henry David Thoreau
People are often not what they appear to be, the perception and imagery of our assumptions about their character are often wrong and misleading. And it is often said that you can find out a person’s true nature in the time of a crisis; when they are faced with important and critical choices, we get to see their real core, understand what they are truly made of. If this is true in life, then it’s truer in the case of fictional characters. The easiest way to reveal your character’s true nature is to present before them a choice and document the path that they undertake.
In author Harry E. Gilleland, Jr’s new novel, ‘Zack’s Choice’ the choice the namesake lead character Zack has to make is something that will truly test his character. Fiction often immortalizes its Heroes & Villains through films & books as moral characters who will make these moral & immoral choices, resulting in victory through sacrifices or by withholding it. But in Zack’s Choice, you have a protagonist who isn’t your archetypal goody two shows hero but more of a character who is at a crossroads in his life, wanting to break away from the secure and pre planned life back at home to take a chance, a chance at redeeming something, and that something maybe as simple as rediscovering himself in the bargain. So you have certain conflicted characters who might think they are the good guys or the bad guys until, when faced with a dilemma, they learn something new about themselves. This is the single most defining element of this novel that enables a reader to assimilate the fiction to his real life because similar to real life, in the novel too its only when the lead character is faced with hardships, does he discover his true self.
Zack’s not so ambitious plan to marry his high school sweetheart and follow in his parent’s footsteps come undone the day he meets Bobby Smith who turns his world upside down from the minute they meet and who even manages to convince Zack a farfetched tale about his role in saving the world from its imminent destruction. This is where he makes the first choice, and he soon realizes that our choices don’t affect only us but also those around us. They can affect our lives in unimaginable ways like it does with Zack whose detour takes him to California and across Europe all the while trying to avoid the law. It soon becomes a complex, cat and mouse game between Zack and Bobby and how their characters even after choosing different paths end up affecting each others lives.
This is the beauty and great quality of good fictional writing. Our past actions and words do come back to haunt us. An immoral choice made in the past by a character comes back to hurt him in the end. While a moral choice, made by a lead which often involves a sacrifice, actually ends up bringing great rewards to him in the end.
You can’t categorize and departmentalize “Zack’s Choice” into a hard and fast genre; it can be a thriller at times and a coming of age story otherwise. But what it is for sure is a first class page turner that is both an easy read but also manages to leave its impact long after you’ve turned the last page.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a short and cozy summer read that you can relax with and then prepare yourselves to fall in love with Zack and his naivety and innocence and monitor his growth into an introspective young adult with a good soul by the end of the novel.
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