31.8.2017

Läpimurtoni Ameriikan kirjamarkkinoilla?

Nyt ollaan jännän äärellä! Kirjoittamani jännitysnovelli (mysteeri/trilleri) THE OLD GOD kilpailee parhaillaan mahdollisuudesta saada julkaisusopimus USA:ssa. Romaani kertoo kansainvälisestä arkeologitiimistä, joka löytää suomalaisesta erämaajärvestä jotain odottamatonta - sekä mitä siitä seuraa. Yksi tiimin jäsen katoaa, kaksi valehtelee - mistä ja miksi? -, eikä kukaan osaa tulkita metsään ilmaantuvia merkkejä siitä, mitä tuleman pitää. Kirja yhdistelee kauhun ja paranormaalin elementtejä sci-fiin ja uskontojen historiaan.

Tarina pohtii lojaaliutta ja petosta, sekä tieteen ja yliluonnollisen rajaa. Keskeisimmät henkilöt ovat suomalainen arkeologi Anna, australialainen ammattisukeltaja Ben ja suomalainen arkeologian opiskelija Elina. Mukana runsaasti viitteitä suomalaiseen muinaisuskoon. Olen koulutukseltani taide- ja kulttuurihistorioitsija ja olipas lystiä kirjoittaa aiheesta, joka itseäni kiehtoo.

Kilpailun järjestää amerikkalainen Inkshares ja kirja on tällä hetkellä TOP 50:ssä. Jos se pääsee TOP 10:iin, on erittäin hyvät mahdollisuudet voittaa yksi neljästä tarjolla olevasta kustannussopimuksesta. Kirjan alun voi lukea täältä

Inkshares myy ennakkotilauksia kirjaan, eli jos kiinnostaa ja haluat tukea suomalaisen kirjailijan pääsyä Ameriikan markkinoille, niin tuki otetaan erittäin kiitollisena vastaan! Hinta on 20USD. Mikäli kirja ei pääsekään kustannetuksi asti, rahat palautetaan 90 päivän sisällä ostosta.

Suomi maailmankartalle! :D

Kirjan ensimmäinen luku kuvan alla. Lahjakkaan veljeni tekemä kansikuva jo valmiina levitykseen.



THE OLD GOD - CHAPTER 1

18 September, Lake Haltia, North-Eastern Finland, near the Russian border

     I can’t find her.
     The realisation hit Ben like a boxer’s punch. He bit the mouthpiece in frustration, scanned around in the dark, plunged deeper. There was no point in surfacing, signaling to the others. They could do nothing to help.  He was the only one left with diving gear, skills and experience.
     Before venturing further in the darkness that was only narrowly sliced by his diving torch, he glanced at his wrist, the diving computer. Not good. He had been underwater for over two hours. His re-breather tank was not running out of air, yet, but his torch was running out of battery. He had no spare torch – this was the spare torch. The battery of the first was already flat. And he was running out of stamina. Nothing burnt calories and drained muscles like diving in ice-cold water.
     The lakes of Finland had an average depth of six meters. This one, called Lake Haltia, ‘the lake of nature spirit’, was an anomaly. Created by a meteorite impact some quarter of a million years ago, the bottom of the lake lay ten times deeper, at sixty meters. The visibility was ridiculously poor even in the shallower shore waters. Ben was painfully aware he had only little hope of finding anything here, around the deepest spot, where he was now performing his diligent search pattern before he had to ascend. The lake was muddy and the autumn sun already setting. At this depth, he could barely see the tips of his fingers even with the powerful underwater torch. In other circumstances, he could have surfaced and tried to track the air bubbles of the lost diver. But with re-breathers, there were no bubbles. The air was recycled in the tank – hence the name, re-breather - and hardly anything bubbled out from the mouthpiece. He had no way of tracking Elina, if she couldn't or wouldn't signal to him with her torch or by clinking on her tank.
     Ben let more air out of his buoyancy vest to draw closer to the bottom, one last time. He had to get up. This was unhealthy, dangerous even. His mask had started fogging on the left side, again, blurring the already poor visibility. He sighed into his mouthpiece, again, out of frustration. He shouldn’t. He had to make every breath count, deliver every ounce of the priceless oxygen to his cells, make it last as long as possible.
     He was already feeling light-headed and he knew it was a high time to start the careful, slow ascend to the surface, for his own safety. But he had to take one last look at the bottom before returning to the shore with his devastating news. He had to.
     He reached the bottom of the pit, covered in brown, quietly wavering waterweed. Ben scanned the surroundings with his torch, left and right, right and left, back and forth. He kicked his fins softly, rhythmically, to keep the pace steady and efficient, and hovered his hands close to the bottom, raking the water and weed, to aid his limited vision. Nothing but more entangling water plants. Twigs. Mud.
     Suddenly, he touched something lean and hard protruding upwards. An arm? Let it be her!
     No.
     It was a straight, sturdy branch pointing up from the bottom mud. An unexpectedly straight one, roughly the strength of a wrist. Whitish. Ben glanced around and even with his blurred vision, he could see a dozen similar branches sticking out from the marshy ground. Some were curved, some were straight. In a flash, he understood they were no branches.
     In the vanishing light of his dying torch, he watched the brown viscose water swirl around remnants of once-living beings – a garden of bones.
  

****

Sent: 9 September at 12:38

As you have been made aware, it is of utmost importance that you take care of the situation as swiftly as possible and leave no time for the opponent to take advantage and execute their plan. You will be contacted soon for more details. Be prepared.

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