His code-name is Atcho. He leads guerrilla
fighters through the US-supported insurgency that rages at the Bay of Pigs in
the early days of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Captured and cast into the island’s
worst dungeons, Atcho learns that a phantom-like officer of the Soviet KGB
shadows him. Inexplicably released from incarceration and still dedicated to
his country, he battles through the bowels of the Kremlin in Moscow, into the
granite halls at West Point, and finally to highest levels in Washington, DC.
Atcho’s rise opens doors into US National Defence even as the seemingly
omniscient KGB officer holds unflinching sway over his actions. His public life
clashes with secrets that only he and his tormentor share, isolating him in a
world of intrigue among people whom he is determined not to betray – and then
he finds that he is the trigger that could spark thermonuclear war.
Bio:
I write Historical Thriller
Fiction - particularly surrounding the Cold War. Having lived in Morocco,
Germany, Costa Rica, and of course in the United States; and, having been
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan for a combined 38 months, I've been up-close-and
personal with many different cultures. I graduated from West Point and Boston
University, resulting in a front row seat on many pivotal events. I live in
Texas with my wife. My first novel, "Curse The Moon" is due out on 5
December 2013. I publish under my own name, Lee Jackson.
Buy Links:
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/curse-the-moon-lee-jackson/1117661583?ean=9780989802574
Social
Media:
Twitter: @Stonewall_77
EXCERPT:
In this chamber, Atcho
reflected on the comparative merits of life and death. He decided that death
had a greater advantage. Every hope he clung to now came with a price so high
it seemed impossible to pay. Death
became a morbid fascination. He longed to welcome it, and imagined various ways
he could achieve his demise. But there was no escape. In his torment, Isabel
came often to his mind, and he obsessed over her well-being. But Govorov had
been clear in what his suicide would mean for Isabel and her husband.
By the end of the first
week, he was gaunt, his clothes hanging loosely on him. His body began to
devour itself. Why not allow my darling
daughter absence from suffering? He though. If I die, I will end her misery as well.
Since he felt a profound
sense of having failed her, the thought comforted him. From the day she was
kidnapped nearly twenty years ago, he had been excluded from her life. But now,
he could expedite her passage to a state completely free of strife and pain.
Through his delirium, he snickered at having upset Govorov’s plans while
advancing Isabel’s welfare. He exulted over the Russian’s imagined rage, and an
image of the Lubyanka fracturing at its base.
Diane Donovan from Midwest Book Reviews
Curse The Moon: Atcho Rises
Lee Jackson
Stonewall Publishers, LLC
9780989802574
Price: Print: $15.95; eBook: $2.99
Curse The Moon: Atcho Rises centers around a West Point graduate
and guerrilla fighter (code named Atcho) who leads revolutionaries at the Bay
Pigs during the early days of Castro's Cuba, and opens with his imprisonment
and subsequent release, where his political encounters with Moscow and the U.S.
become key to his brand of warfare - and to a mystery overshadowing his
struggles.
Trained to overthrow Castro
and his regime, Atcho seems to hold the upper hand; but Soviet agent Govorov is
equally determined not to let this happen, and holds Atcho's young daughter
hostage. Now it's a personal as well as a political struggle that tests Archo's
limits and commitment.
Curse the Moon is loosely based on the life
of Jackson's Cuban-born father-in-law, who fought during the rise of Fidel
Castro. The history behind Atcho's struggles is impeccable, weaving facts and
insights based on a pivotal point in history and injecting the characters of
Atcho, his comrades, and his oppressors with realistic components that
personalize the struggle.
A quick overview of the
novel's cast of characters, an explanatory prologue of history, and a map
of Cuba deftly introduce background and setting, paving the way for a
survey steeped in political intrigue and the atmosphere of 1960s Cuba.
It's this attention to the
details of atmosphere and setting that contribute to Curse the Moon's
realistic, you-are-there feel: "Atcho could still scarcely believe that
he was cutting sugarcane by hand with a machete. He had been in the fields many
times here at the family plantation in Camaguey, on horseback, racing with
his father through the rows of cane, even while field laborers swung their
sharp, steel tools during the harvest. Fidel Castro, worried about losing the
crop while the country was still in chaos since his coup, had issued an edict
that all citizens would go into the fields to help harvest."
Combine this with a dual
focus on how personal lives become entwined with political purpose and social
change and you have a historical novel packed with not just intrigue and
tension, but with the ability to understand social change, the roots of
revolution, and how one insider's struggles can affect not just one nation, but
the world.
Curse the Moon has it all, packaging its tense
thriller in the cloak of understanding motivations both political and personal.
Interplays between protagonists assume chess-like proportions as goals change,
obstacles rise and fall, and emotions run deep.
It's all about danger,
sacrifice, and how even would-be romance bows to the pressure of a covert operator's
obligations. In the end the personal moves into political realms and comes
full-circle to promise Atcho a life he could barely have imagined at the
novel's beginning. The warrior's façade may soften, but can it transform to
something more than constant struggle and fighting?
Curse the Moon charts this change and promise and is a
powerful read for any who enjoy political intrigue tempered by personal
transformation.
Our Midwest office will also archive the review on
our web site for 5 years and will send it to Cengage Learning for inclusion in
the Book Review Index that goes out to thousands of school and community
libraries throughout the US.
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