Thursday, February 22, 2018

Blurb Blitz w/Giveaway: Havana Blues by David Pereda



Havana Blues
by David Pereda
GENRE:   Historical Coming-of-Age novel

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David Pereda will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please visit GoddessFish.com to follow the tour, remember the more you comment better your chances on winning.

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BLURB:

The year is 1952 and Ramon Rodriguez’s life as a teenager in fun-loving Havana is filled with typical activities and concerns: girls, education, religion, baseball, parties, and hanging out with friends. The country is enjoying a period of prosperity and happiness--until General Batista stages a coup that topples the government and Ramon’s life is flung into chaos. 

In a few short years, the carefree fifties morph into a vicious and repressive dictatorship highlighted by corruption, organized gambling, school closures, student demonstrations, police brutality, and assassinations. 

As Ramon experiences the thrills of his first romantic relationship, graduates from school, and struggles to plan for an uncertain future, he is forced to make important decisions that may be dangerous to him, his family, his friends, and his girlfriend – the beautiful Sonia -- and could turn deadly.

Buy Links




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Excerpt:

A car turned the corner with a screeching of tires. With
mechanical harmony, another screeching echoed from the opposite
direction.

Siren noises combined to wreck the peacefulness and drown my
father’s voice as two cars skidded face to face in front of my house. I
recognized the blue and white stripes. Car doors opened and
slammed. A stream of policemen armed with rifles and machine guns
crashed through the garden door and spilled over our garden like
insects.

My mother shrieked once. My father stood paralyzed.

I stared in growing disbelief at the bulk who loped into the
garden and stopped just outside the bright range of the porch lights.
The clean-shaven face, the brittle smile, were familiar to me. So was
the voice. 

‘Buenas noches,’ Santana said. ‘Lovely night, isn’t it?’

Even with a veneer of politeness, Santana’s voice made the hair
in the back of my neck stand on end.

‘What's the meaning of this?’ my father asked, surprising me.

‘Crashing into our house, as if we were common criminals.’

Santana’s stare was cold. ‘Just doing my duty, SeƱor Rodriguez.’

He turned to me, smoothing out the front of my dinner jacket
with his hand. ‘You're very elegant tonight,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me,
let me guess. You were at the Club Profesionales, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, we were,’ my mother said sharply, ‘and we had to leave
because of some terrorists. Disgusting. And on his graduation dance
night too.’ She glared at Santana.

He gave her a polite smile, more of a smirk, and turned to me.

‘Being in the building as you were, you could have planted that bomb
very easily, couldn’t you?’

‘What? You think I…? No!’

‘No what?’

‘No, I couldn’t.’ My heart pounded in my chest. ‘My mother can
testify to that.’

My mother had turned a chalky white and her lips were open
and round like an O. She seemed at a loss for words.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

David Pereda was born in Havana, Cuba. The award-winning author of seven previous novels, he enjoys crafting political thrillers and edgy mainstream novels with unique characters placed in exotic settings. He has traveled to more than thirty countries and speaks four languages. Before devoting his time solely to writing and teaching, David had a successful international consulting career with global giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked with the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Peru and Qatar, among others.

A member of MENSA, David earned his MBA from Pepperdine University in California. He earned bachelor degrees in English literature and mathematics at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

He lives in artistic Asheville, North Carolina, with his youngest daughter Sophia, where he teaches mathematics and English at the Asheville-Buncombe Community College. He loves sports and is an accomplished competitor in track and show-jumping equestrian events.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

15 comments:

  1. I enjoyed getting to know your book; congrats on the tour and I hope it is a fun one for you :)

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    1. Thank you, Lisa. The tour has been fun. Good luck on the giveaway.

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  2. I want to thank you for hosting me in your blog today. I'll be checking in and out throughout the day -- before, in-between and after my classes -- to answer questions or respond to comments from your readers about Havana Blues, my next upcoming book to be released in March, or any other topic regarding my writing. As a special concession, my publisher has reduced the price of the Kindle book on Amazon to only $2.99 and the print book to $17.55 during the length of the Goddess Fish Blog Tour. Again, my thanks.

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  3. If you could meet one literary charachter, who would it be? Thanks for sharing. Bernie Wallace BWallace1980(at)hotmail(d0t)com

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  4. You cover is great and I would love to read your book.

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  5. Great question, Joseph. It made me ponder. I know that as a real life character, I would love to meet Genghis Khan. Regarding a literary character, I would like to meet Lord Jim who spent a guilt-ridden life because of his cowardice; or maybe Jake Barnes from The Sun Also Rises who was deprived by a war injury to physically realize his love for Brett Ashley, so he wasted his life drinking and traveling.

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  6. Thank you Rita and Victoria -- and thank you for following my tour. Good luck with the giveaway.

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  7. What part of the book took the longest to finish?

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  8. The middle of the book took the longest to finish, Casey. I wanted to add detail, do subtle foreshadowing, and develop the characters more without boring the reader; it's a tricky thing to do. I didn't want the novel to be plot-driven but character-driven. Does that answer your question?

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