Win a $50 GC: Juche by Adria Carmichael

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Can you describe your dream home?

Up on a hill in a tropical country with a view over a green valley. It has a big patio where I can sip coffee and write my novels.

If we were to come to your house for a meal, what would you give us to eat?

Pulled pork with fried plantain, refried beans, and homemade tortilla

Tell us about the absolute BEST fan letter you have received.

I have never received an actual letter, but some DMs on Instagram have really kept me going. There is no better feeling than a reader telling you how much they love your books. It’s an awesome feeling.

Say your publisher has offered to fly you anywhere in the world to do research on an upcoming book, where would you most likely want to go?

Since most of my book ideas are set in North Korea, I would probably have to come up with a story that is set in a tropical country that preferably is not a totalitarian dictatorship. My daughter wants me to write her a pirate story, so maybe that could be a good opportunity :)

Who designed the book cover for the book you are touring?

David Collins (covercreator.uk). I used another design company before, but had to change because they were impossible to work with.

Just when Areum - daughter of a privileged family in the totalitarian state of Choson (North Korea) - thought she was free from her personal prison, her world collapses around her as her family is taken away in the middle of the night to a hell-like camp in the mountains where people who have strayed from the righteous path are brutally re-educated through blood, sweat, tears, and starvation.

There she has to fight for survival together with the family she hates and is forced to re-evaluate every aspect of her life until then: her deep resentment toward her twin sister; her view of her father in the face of mounting evidence that he is a traitor with the blood of millions of fellow countrymen on his hands; and even her love and affection for the Great General - the eternal savior and protector of Choson, whom she had always considered her true father.

Note from the author:

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like when seen through an indoctrinated mind?

This is a topic that has intrigued me for as long as I can remember, so when I came up with the idea to write a book many years ago, I decided to create it from the viewpoint of a victim of indoctrination… which in the end became Areum (the protagonist of the story).

What I try to explore in this story is how deep the indoctrination of a 14-year old girl can run and how much “reality” it can be exposed to before breaking… if it will break at all. As a comparison, the defectors from North Korea who arrive in South Korea are isolated for three months in a de-programming facility called Hanawon before they are allowed to join society where they go through this process in a more controlled (and less brutal) way than Areum.

I hope you will enjoy this slightly different take on the dystopian genre!

Enjoy an Excerpt

My father’s words echo in my head.

“Hamhung”

“Hamhung”

I’m standing in a long wide street. There are tall houses on both sides of me.

Where am I?

I don’t recognize anything, but still, everything looks familiar.

Then I notice there is something on the ground around me. I try to focus, but my vision is blurry. There is something there. Some kind of objects.

Or…

Now the focus is getting clearer. They are bodies! They are everywhere. I jump in panic. I want to run away, but my feet are stuck to the ground.

I’m standing in a sea of sun-scorched, dried up corpses - as far as the eye can reach. Then I feel it. The stench of their decay stings my nose. I feel nauseous. I look down at the corpse closest to me. A man. He looks so strange. Like all his muscles and fat has been removed, and his skin tightly wrapped around his bare bones. All the corpses look the same.

All of a sudden, there is a movement in the corner of my eye. I turn my head.

Paralyzed with fear I watch one of the corpses rising until he stands before me a bit further down the street of death. He doesn’t move, just looks at me with his dead silvery eyes. My blood is freezing to ice inside my veins. I look closer, squinting against the distant sun. The features of the man look strangely familiar. Then I suddenly see it. I gasp, and a flash of ice rushes down my spine.

About the Author:

Adria Carmichael is a writer of dystopian fiction with a twist. When she is not devouring dystopian and post-apocalyptic content in any format - books, movies, TV-series and PlayStation games - she is crafting the epic and highly-addictive Juche saga, her 2020 debut novel series that takes place in the brutal, totalitarian nation of Choson. When the limit of doom and gloom is reached, a 10K run on a sunny day or binging a silly sitcom on a rainy day is her go-to way to unwind.

Goodreads | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | BookBub

Juche 1 – The Demon of Yodok, Juche 2 – The Weeping Masses, Juche 3 – The Storm of Storms, Juche 4 – Freedom or Death, or the box set are available from Amazon.

a Rafflecopter giveaway