Extreme A Novel

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Award-winning author Joan Gelfand delivers a fast-paced, fun, and edgy thriller with her debut novel, EXTREME A Novel (July 14, 2020; Blue Light Press/First World Publishing; ISBN: 978-1-4218-3651-5; $21.95, Original Trade Paperback). Set in a high-risk gaming startup peopled with world-class skateboarders and power-hungry executives, worlds collide when a Hollywood producer comes calling. Enter Hope Ellson, a talented, driven woman who has fought her way up in the tech industry.

Written with an insider’s view, EXTREME A Novel follows the journey of a startup—from a pair of skateboarder’s bold idea to building a site that can withstand a global audience and finally to crisis management. Featuring a dynamic pair of quirky founders, coding geniuses, intrepid fans, and hard-nosed deal makers, EXTREME A Novel is complicated by an app built on scrappy code, unresolved love affairs and the tension between authenticity and commercialism.

“Extreme” was listed as a Finalist for New Fiction for the International Book Awards.

Reviews

“Joan Gelfand has written a winner! I could not put Extreme down. It is exciting and sexy with excellent character development. Plus, Gelfand clearly knows Silicon Valley very well. She nails it down to the shoes, shirts, and drinks. Don’t start reading this when you have something else you need to be doing anytime soon!”

“With a poet’s sensibility and a novelist’s instinct for plot, Joan Gelfand has produced a whip-smart page-turner of a book, complete with startup fever, romantic intrigue, and a cast of sympathetic — and not so sympathetic — characters. Read Extreme and you’ll have a better sense of what really goes on in Silicon Valley, far better than TV shows like Silicon Valley could ever provide.”

“Joan Gelfand rips the shiny consumerist veneer off of Silicon Valley startup culture like a bandaid from a high tech scab. Extreme is written with the same rhythm as life at a startup: a lot happens and it happens fast. But make no mistake, this book is more than the story of a modern woman negotiating the Si Valley old boy’s club, it’s quirky, it’s cute, it’s packed with geek glitz, and it’s about real life and real people in an unreal culture. Enjoy the ride!”