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    Paths
    Paths
    Paths
    Ebook53 pages1 hour

    Paths

    By Dean Skinner

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Derek is living the perfect life. Great job, big house, two beautiful children, designer dog. He even married his high school sweetheart, just like everyone thought he would. But…what if he hadn't? What if he hadn't done what everyone thought he should do and instead, took a much different path? The one he relives in his mind time and time again. In this short, contemporary, sci-fi meets supernatural mystery, Derek gets his answer to "What if?"…whether he's ready for it or not.

    Paths is the second book written by modern portrait artist, Dean Skinner. Described by one reader as "It's a Wonderful Life meets Twilight Zone," Paths has a surprising spin that you won't see coming. It follows Dean's first book, Broken, which continues to receive 5/5 ratings on Amazon reviews and has climbed as high as #134 on Amazon's list of 90-Minute Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Short Reads. If you enjoyed Broken, you will definitely love Paths.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDean Skinner
    Release dateOct 3, 2020
    ISBN9781393791782
    Paths
    Author

    Dean Skinner

    Dean is an artist and an author of supernatural thrillers. His last book, Healed, was number one on six of Amazon’s best seller lists and remained within the top spots in multiple categories well over a year since it was published in 2021. And his first book, Broken, held multiple top ten spots, including number one in Horror Short Stories, four years after its release in 2019.  Dean is also an artist who has painted over one hundred large-format portraits. His work has been featured in galleries throughout the US and UK and he has been commissioned by numerous NFL athletes, including Derrick Henry, All-Pro running back. If you’d like to see Dean’s artwork, please visit instagram.com/deanskinner. In November of 2018, Dean went to 20Books Vegas, a yearly gathering of some of the publishing industry’s most notable self-published authors. Here, Dean was so moved and inspired by this talented group of people that three months later, he finished writing his first draft of Broken and published it later that year.  Dean is originally from Bridgeport, West Virginia and now lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, two children and giant, fluffy Sheepadoodle.

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    • 3/5
      Paths is the third book I’ve read from Dean Skinner, after Healed and Broken. I must admit, it didn’t resonate with me as much as those other two.

      It’s a profound story about a man who imagines how different his life could be if he’d just made one or two decisions differently. And on that score, I think we can ALL relate, because we’ve all got regrets. Or, if not regrets, let’s call them curiosities, at least.

      The reason it didn’t resonate so much with me is no fault of the author or the story itself; it’s just that it’s about American Football, which is a sport I know nothing about and have almost no interest in.

      Paths is also not as overtly Christian as Healed, or even Broken. Towards the end of the story, there’s a brief mention of the narrator thanking God for something, but other than that, God’s name doesn’t even come up except in vain.

      In my reviews for both other books, I mentioned “shoddy editing”. Either the editing in this one is much better, or I’m just getting used to the author’s style. It’s still riddled with redundancies, to be sure: things happen at the “exact same” time as other things, for example, and the narrator still “thinks to himself”. But I think by now I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this is the author’s personal style. And it sort of works anyway, seeing as this is a story told in the first person.

      Dean Skinner can definitely tell a story, as I’ve said before, and all his stories have deep meaning and are meant to be prayed over, contemplated, and used to teach us something. This one’s no different, and even if you’re not into American Football, you will get something out of it.

    Book preview

    Paths - Dean Skinner

    The present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own.

    – Charles Caleb Colton

    Chapter 1 – State

    I was good. Really good. All-state two years in a row good, which rarely happens in small-town West Virginia. Broke our school’s all-time receiving record my senior year. A year when we weren’t as good as we were supposed to be. Projected to be. Needed to be, for that one last ride. That final year. A year when a small high school football team, made up of mostly seniors, seniors that made state freshman year, were all playing together again for one last time. One last season. And everybody, EVERYBODY predicted us to win. Expected us to win. Win it all. Coaches, parents, teachers, students. An entire community. An entire city. An entire county that has seen better days, when the coal mines were flowing with both jobs and hope, everyone was now looking to us to lift the trophy and lift their hearts. Even the local newspaper and our two local television stations predicted us to win it all. The Big Green Machine, they called us. Due to our colors being green and gold and that the belief was that we, this team, was going to steam-roll all of our opponents. Flatten them. Flatten anybody that got in our way. Our way to state. It’s a given. It’s automatic. It’s our destiny. And it never, ever happened. Not this time. Not that time. Not...ever. Not in this lifetime. Five and five. Didn’t even make the playoffs...the God damned playoffs! Yet in spite of the shattered dreams of this small team and this small town, I was still able to pull down more receptions than any other wide receiver in Notre Dame High School history. Thirty-two to be exact. On a 500 team. That’s not easy to do. It’s one thing to pad your stats when you’re rolling over everybody, but another when you’re just...engggh. Again...I was good. Really good. Good enough to get looks from small colleges. Good enough to get invited to play in the North-South game – an all-star game made up of the best seniors in our state. Invite only. One final hoorah in my sticker ridden, paint chipped helmet and brand-new fancy turf shoes that we had to drive all of the way up to Morgantown to buy (they don’t sell turf shoes in small-town West Virginia). The North-South game was played on turf. AstroTurf as we called it back then. A big difference from our ankle twisting, cow pasture field shared by three high schools in small-town West Virginia. I was even good enough to get invited to walk onto a couple Division One programs. Me. A small-town kid. From a small-town high school. Official letters. Official invites. Not scholarships, but still...me...Division One. Yeah me. I was that good.

    Oh, what could have been. Should have been. If I just took another path. This wife. This life. These kids. All of it would be different. All of it would be better. If...I just took another path.

    ––––––––

    Chapter 2 – State

    I was good. Really good. All-state two years in a row good which rarely happens in small-town California. Broke our school’s all-time receiving record my senior year. Man, that was fun. That was different. Playing just for the pure joy of playing. Not like now. Not like today. Not like being a piece of meat. Damaged meat. Bruised meat. Old meat. Meat that has seen better days. I miss it. Miss my friends. My family. My me. It’s not the same now. It’s a job. It’s business. And it’s more gore than glory. The things I’ve seen. The injuries I’ve faced. The bodies I’ve seen destroyed. The lives I’ve seen destroyed. The sacrifices I’ve made. I had to do it. Everybody was counting on me. Wanting me to go to college, play in college and show the world that a small-town kid, a kid from Bear River High School, can make it in the big leagues. In Division One. Everybody was counting on me and I couldn’t let them down. And then the pros. God, the pros! Who’d a thought? Lord knows I didn’t. And when the chance came, even to make the practice squad, how could I pass it up? I mean, I couldn’t pass it up, right? This is what every college player dreams of: making

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