Biography

J. G. Sandom, often referred to as the "Father of Interactive (Internet) Advertising," co-founded the world's first interactive advertising agency, Einstein and Sandom Interactive (EASI), in 1984, before launching an award-winning writing career.  He is the author of ten works of fiction, including THE GOD MACHINE; GOSPEL TRUTHS; THE WALL STREET MURDER CLUB; THE WAVE; KISS ME, I'M DEAD; and CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BODY SNATCHER.

 

EARLY LIFE
Born in Chicago (December 19, 1956), the youngest of three children, of a Danish immigrant mother (Else Hvingtoft) and father of Lithuanian ancestry (Zane Joseph Sandom), J.G. Sandom moved to Weybridge, England, at nine months.

The author's first passport photograph. Note the drool and Timothy Leary eyes.

Zane Sandom worked for American Express and the family was transferred to France, where the author first began attending school at St. Martin's, in the town of Jouy-en-Josas, near Versailles. Less than two years later, Sandom moved to Rome, Italy, where he attended St. George's British International School during the next four years. While in Italy, Sandom performed on the legitimate stage at the Goldoni theatre as a mouse in the English pantomime Cinderella, and in a full-length major motion picture called Il Giovedi (Thursday), as a boy in a cowboy suit.

Click on the photo above to view a clip from Il Giovedi featuring J.G. Sandom (in the cowboy hat).  Note also Else Hvingtoft Sandom, playing a "German" nurse who gives Walter Chiari a look that the author saw all too frequently as a boy!

Sandom then moved to San Rafael, California, where he attended the 3-Rs school, and where he first developed an interest in writing. After less than two years in San Rafael, the Sandom family was transferred back to Europe; they resided at the Wentworth Estate in Surrey England, not far from Virginia Water. Sandom attended The Fernden School in Haslemere, Surrey, and Winchester College, in Hampshire, over the next five years, through his O-Levels. During this period, the author’s family was transferred back to the United States, while he remained in boarding school in England.

Sandom returned to the United States at the age of 15. Following two years at New Canaan High School in Connecticut, Sandom entered Amherst College in 1974, where he completed his first novel, THE SEED OF ICARUS. Sandom took a semester off from college in order to work on a freighter (The African Dawn) which traveled to Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique, and then returned to graduate from Amherst with honors with a double major in English and philosophy. While in college, Sandom helped launch a literary magazine called Writing at Amherst, won both the Corbin prize and the Academy of American Poets prize, and studied under a variety of visiting writers, including Robert Stone, Julian Symons and the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.

Following graduation, Sandom spent several months traveling throughout the Sahara, primarily in southern Algeria, while researching his second novel, THE BLUE MEN. Sandom then moved to New York City where, for the next five years, he worked as a freelance copy writer, public relations and advertising executive, and corporate spokesperson trainer for such companies as Hill & Knowlton and Ketchum Inc.

 

INTERNET PIONEER
In 1984, Sandom co-founded Einstein and Sandom Interactive (EASI), the nation's first interactive advertising agency. It grew to become the largest digital marketing services firm when it was purchased by D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles in 1994. Sandom continued to manage EASI on behalf of DMB&B through 1996. EASI clients included: Procter & Gamble, General Motors and Mars Incorporated/Uncle Ben's Rice, among others; plus several non-DMB&B clients such as Citibank, Fannie Mae, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Compaq, McDonnell Douglas, Merck & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb and Miles Laboratories, among others. 

From January 1997 through October 1999, Sandom served as Director of Interactive at OgilvyOne Worldwide, a division of Ogilvy & Mather, where he grew the company from a loss of $2M to an estimated $100M in revenues in 30 months, and from 12 “permalancers” to 650 digital marketing specialists worldwide, with worldwide billings of $300M. In 1998, OgilvyInteractive was named “Best Interactive Ad Agency” of the year by Adweek, and won two premier Cyber Lions awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival for Campaign Magazine On-line and the IBM Olympic Luge Game. OgilvyInteractive's clients included: IBM, GTE, Perrier, Sears, Ameritrade, Ford Motor Company and Jaguar Cars, among others.

 

 

The author ... as Worldwide Web "poster boy" on the cover of Forbes Magazine's high-tech supplement, Critical Mass, in the Fall of 1999.

From November 1999 through October 2003, Sandom served as President and CEO, and then Vice Chairman of RappDigital Worldwide, the interactive arm of direct marketing/direct response agency giant Rapp Collins Worldwide, an Omnicom Company. Within a year of inception, RappDigital became one of the nation’s "Top Twenty" interactive ad agencies, according to Adweek. Sandom built the executive team, purchased equity stakes in off-shore Web production company Critical Mass (Calgary, Canada) and email marketing company Innovyx (Seattle), productized cyber-analytics and e-Care (digital call center) offerings, recruited the first clients, and managed the business until it was on its feet. He was responsible for executive management of the company, and its growth to more than $40M in revenues in the U.S., with 300+ employees worldwide, and offices throughout North America, Europe and Latin America -- at a time of industry contraction. RappDigital Network clients included SBC Communications, Mercedes-Benz, Philips Consumer Electronics, Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente and Reuters, among others.

 

AUTHOR
Following the release of THE SEED OF ICARUS (1975) and THE BLUE MEN (1981), GOSPEL TRUTHS was published by Bantam/Doubleday/Dell in 1992 (and re-issued in 2007). Since then, Sandom has written seven other novels, including THE WALL STREET MURDER CLUB (Doubleday/Bantam/Dell), THE WAVE (Cornucopia Press), and THE GOD MACHINE (Random House/Bantam).

Sandom is just finishing up edits on his new thriller, 404. If you want to read the first book in this series of thrillers — since 404 has yet to be released — check out THE WAVE. [NOTE:  The protagonist's name has been changed from Decker (in THE WAVE) to Carlsen (in the sequel, 404) as an homage to the author's Danish heritage.]

Kirkus said, "Sandom’s strength lies in the verve of his story, with writing that has both muscle . . . (and) brains . . . Races from improbable to crazywild, all in good fun, with Sandom always one step ahead . . . A story with enough manic energy to be worthy of a nuclear explosion."

When Cryptanalyst John Decker of the FBI is assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force in New York, he has no idea he is about to be thrust into a deadly plot of eco-terrorism masterminded by El Aqrab, a diabolical killer recently arrested in Tel Aviv whose calling card is to wrap his victims up with incendiary devices designed to produce flames in the shape of Koranic verses.  Some call it aesthetic destruction.

Following the theft of 8 kilos of Highly Enriched Uranium, an ultimatum is issued to the West:  Release El Aqrab or a nuclear bomb will be detonated. But, at the last moment, El Aqrab escapes . . . and the authorities never get the bomb.

While Homeland Security is convinced it's headed for New York, only Agent Decker â€” assisted by brilliant and beautiful oceanographer Emily Swenson â€” believes the bomb’s true destination is La Palma, in the Canary Island chain.

Now, Decker and Swenson have less than six hours to prove their theory, defuse the bomb, and prevent a mega-tsunami from annihilating the Eastern Seaboard.

For an excerpt from The Wave, click here.

To purchase your copy of The Wave, click here.

Click here to check out my Pinterest board. [WARNING:  Some of the images on this board may be disturbing to younger readers.]

 

 BEFORE THERE WAS 9/11 . . . THERE WAS 6/15

On June 15, 1904, over a thousand New Yorkers, mostly German immigrants on a Church outing, died when the General Slocum steamship was set afire and sank in the East River. It was the greatest mass killing in New York City history . . . until 9/11.

When her boyfriend is accused of the crime, an amateur teen detective, Mallory Meer, risks everything to solve the mystery behind the tragedy. Was Dustin guilty? Or was someone else responsible for the fire that killed over a thousand men, women and children â€” including Mallory's own baby sister?

Only Mallory can understand what this crime truly means, because she's not only one of the victims . . . she's one of the dead.

An extraordinary story of revenge, of the quest for justice, and of a love so powerful, not even death could extinguish it.

Mallory Meer is like any other teenage girl. She likes to have fun. She thinks her sister is ridiculous. Her parents drive her crazy. She's got a terrible crush on Dustin and follows him everywhere.

 Mallory even has a summer job — figuring out the truth about the fire on the General Slocum steamship, the disaster that killed her sister. Mallory is determined to get to the bottom of it, to find out who's guilty, and to finally bring them to justice.

Sometimes Mallory gets angry, very angry, and strange things happen when Mallory gets angry.

Yes, Mallory is like any other teenage girl . . . except Mallory is dead.

Twilight meets Titanic

Ranked one of the Top Ten Children's Books of the year by the Washington Post, Kiss me, I'm Dead was named a Notable Book for Teens by the Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee, a Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Teen's Top Ten, and nominated for a Cybils literary award, a Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA) by the American Library Association (ALA), and recently added to Horn Book’s list of Recommended American Historical Fiction.

The Washington Post said, "(J.G. Sandom) writes with a precision and delicacy unusual for YA fiction," and called the book, "A subtle gem." School Library Journal said, "Kiss Me, I’m Dead tells a remarkable story in a remarkable way." Horn Book Magazine called the work, "A decidedly unconventional ghost story . . . (and) a tightly wound novel." Kirkus Reviews termed it, "A remarkable account." Romantic Times said, "Kiss Me, I’m Dead is a book you shouldn't pass up." Midwest Book Review termed it, "a wonderfully different kind of ghost story." And Bookslut.com said, "Kiss Me, I’m Dead scores on several levels, most notably as a drama that blows apart all preconceived notions of how history can be retold."

Click here to purchase your copy of Kiss me, I'm Dead!

Click here to check out my Pinterest board for Kiss me, I'm Dead.

 

The beggar children of London are vanishing. They're disappearing . . . right off the streets.

Some say it's got something to do with the business of body snatching, grave robbers digging up corpses and selling them to doctors for medical research.

Some say it's far worse.

Now, racing against time, only Victor — a poor immigrant boy recently ship-wrecked and sold into the bondage of beggary â€” can uncover the identity of the ghoulish murderer at the heart of London’s furtive trade in human trafficking.

They killed his best friend.

They kidnapped the girl that he loves.

Now, there's only one thing worse than their finding him . . . and that's him finding them first. 

Oliver Twist meets Breaking Bad

Previously named a Junior Library Guild selection, Publishers Weekly called Confessions of a Teenage Body Snatcher, “A haunting tour of London's underclass during the 1830s . . . Teens will likely be both captivated by Victor's harrowing story as well as his ability to prevail in the face of harsh injustices." VOYA said, "Teen readers will thoroughly enjoy the hair-raising suspense in this historical thriller." Kirkus Reviews called Confessions of a Teenage Body Snatcher perfect for, “audiences that relish historical fiction." KLIATT said, "Like M.T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, this look at sinister events in history makes the era come alive and lingers in the memory." And School Library Journal said, “Part historical fiction and part adventure story, the novel brings excitement to Victorian England . . . Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”

Click here to purchase your copy of Confessions of a Teenage Body Snatcher.

Click here for the Pinterest board.

 

Click here to purchase your copy of Two Teen Terrors!

 

Caroline Thompson (author of Edward Scissorhands) said, "Move over, Dan Brown . . . All hail J.G. Sandom . . . (The God Machine) is a thrilling and breathless, rapturously-written and mind-blowing read. It’ll keep you up all night, turning pages as fast as your little fingers can manage."  BookPage said, "Sandom has a knack for combining legendary gospels, ancient secrets, star-crossed lovers and Masonic puzzles to create a simmering stew of conspiracy, intrigue and danger that keeps the plot pot boiling until the very end." And the Historical Novels Review said, "History galore, violence, and intrigue fill the pages of this tightly plotted, twisting and turning adventure story . . . Those who love numbers, physics, and a truly unpredictable, suspenseful mystery will relish the facts and ponderings replete in this well-written, mysterious spin-off of The Da Vinci Code. The God Machine is a very impressive historical thriller!"

The Church insisted it didn't exist.

They lied.

They said it was just a Masonic legend.

It wasn't.

A two thousand year old secret.

Revealed.

The coded journal of Benjamin Franklin. A hidden map. A legendary gospel. These are the first pieces to an ancient puzzle so powerful it could destroy the very foundation of Christianity.

 

Once before, Joseph Koster unearthed one of the Church's most deeply buried secrets . . . and it almost cost him his life. But some treasures are too hard to resist. And as Koster puts the pieces of Franklin's puzzle together, he discovers something even more startling . . . and infinitely more deadly.

  

Now, along with beautiful Indian high-tech mogul Savita Sajan, Koster must race to decode Franklin's journal before it falls into the hands of those who would do anything, kill anyone to suppress it. But in a world of secret societies, ancient conspiracies and Masonic puzzles, locating the prize is one thing . . . staying alive, another.

 

For as Koster and Sajan are about the learn, the same key that unlocks the doorway to Heaven . . . could open the portals of Hell.

For an excerpt from The God Machine, click here.

To purchase your copy of The God Machine, click here.

Click here to check out my Pinterest board for The God Machine.

The novel has just come out in Spanish from LA FACTORÍA DE IDEAS. It's available in Europe and Latin America, as well as in the the US.

 

With the publication of La Maquina de Dios, Sandom became a #1 International Best-Selling author. As soon as it appeared in Kindle form in Europe, the book shot to #1 on the Amazon paid Kindle best-seller list.

 

The novel also made it onto a number of other best-selling lists at Amazon, including:

Contemporary Faction

Historical Fiction

Sci Fi, Fantasy & Horror

Thrillers & Mysteries

 

Spread the good news.  If you liked The God Machine, please pen a review at Amazon, BarnesAndNoble.com or Goodreads.