Living the American dream, Jason believes he is playing by the rules. Blessed with Callie, a loving wife, and a successful career; life is good. However, an ambitious nature has turned to obsession rarely decorated with other aspects of a fulfilling life. Over the years, a desire has become a behemoth – ethically based and ruthlessly applied. But this week, something is different.
Unsettling dreams have morphed into traumatic experiences real and restless enough to feel in the marrow of his bones. Jason’s nights have become a life-threatening thrill-ride that remains an enduring psychological burden by day. What has brought this on? The empath and the expert call the dreams a paranormal phenomenon—internally triggered by tension between mind and spirit – and warn they cannot go on indefinitely.
There are only Seven Full Days to find answers and now some of them have passed. As time grows short, Jason must find clues while it’s daytime because when the night comes…
Seven Full Days is not directed at assigning blame. The author is careful to portray the El Mina dream experiences as realistically as his imagination, aided by that very strange feeling he encountered while visiting El Mina would allow – and to do so as benignly as possible. This is not ‘who did this’ but rather ‘what happened.
A debut novel tells the story of a rising Atlanta businessman visited by disturbing dreams of the slavery era.
…Shelton writes in a descriptive prose that captures his characters’ emotional states in vivid detail: the waking Jason…(is) forced to mete out increasingly demeaning admonishments to his black co-workers on behalf of his white managers. At night, however, Jason watches from inside the head of his ancient black host—without the ability to comment or control the man’s actions—as the figure is captured, placed in chains, and marched to a dungeon…While the premise of the book might sound heavy-handed, the author shapes it with a surprising amount of grace and nuance. —Kirkus Review
