Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Isle of Savages by T. Briar Interview, Excerpt & Giveaway




Isle of Savages
T. Briar

Genre: New Adult Action Suspense Thriller

Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing

Date of Publication: June 13, 2017

eBook ISBN: 978-1-77127-926-0
ASIN: B07195LTB8

Number of pages: 220
Word Count: 59,400 words

Cover Artist: Eerilyfair Design

Tagline: Eleven souls are shipwrecked on an island teeming with sub-human cannibals. Who will survive to tell the tale?

Book Description:

On July 20, 20— a charter school’s sponsored sail from San Diego to Hawaii hits a reef during a violent storm. Sixteen souls abandon ship. Nine students, along with the hated captain and first mate, wash up on what they believe is a deserted island.
Separated into three groups by circumstance and mutual distrust, treachery and death lurks for all. Over the course of a single day, one student betrays all the others. Another drowns. Two others get ambushed by a great white shark. And, like falling dominoes, the captain, first mate, and six students fall prey to a tribe of bloodthirsty cannibals.

In the face of almost certain death, who will escape from the isle of savages to tell the tale?

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Excerpt:
Date: July 20, 20—
General Location: Pacific Ocean
Definitive Longitude and Latitude: Unknown
Through strangled, sputtering coughs, Eric Kovac’s eyelids flickered open to stark darkness. He lay face down in receding wave-wash, naked except for a pair of board shorts, drenched to the bone. A tortuous grittiness seared the tender linings of his mouth, nose, and throat; pain wracked his body, inside and out. As he struggled to make sense of his peril, the sound of crashing waves thundered. A sudden rush of warm saltwater buried him underwater.
Choking and coughing violently, he forced himself up onto his hands and knees, stomach clenching in excruciating spasms as he vomited up great bouts of saltwater. Although the purging left him weak—on the verge of blacking out—it cleared the irritating sand from his breathing passages. Survival instinct, more than cognizant reasoning, sent him crawling up the shoreline. After only a few feet, his battered body could go no further and he collapsed onto wet sand while his feet and legs still lay in the incoming tide.
The sound of crashing waves slowly returned, and with it, the recognition of something new. Wind buffeted his body from all directions…storm-washed, freshly cleansed wind. Beneath the dizziness threatening to overwhelm him, he had only one coherent thought.
What happened to me?
For the life of him, he couldn’t remember how he’d come to be on this beach, hurting and possibly grievously injured. Despite the horrendous pain, he rolled over onto his side to lift himself on an elbow and scan the darkness for clues.
In the edge of the surf, a dark silhouette resembling the shape of a human body floated, the incoming and outgoing surf pushing and pulling at it. It was a tossup as to which would win the tug of war.
Instantly, the memory of the ship’s boom careening into his forehead materialized out of nowhere. In something akin to shock, distorted memories of the chain of events leading up to the blow that had laid him low flitted through his mind…
The storm had come out of the northwest late yesterday evening, the leading edge blue-black and roiling. It’d chased after them relentlessly, finally howling down on their sixty-foot blue water cruiser in the middle of the night, crackling long streaks of lightening that were blinding in their frequency and intensity. Fierce winds and towering waves tossed the yacht to and fro as if it were a toy. Deafening claps of thunder reverberated through the vessel to drown out the terrified shrieks of the sixteen students cowering below deck. Then, without warning, when only the tiniest tendril of hope remained, the yacht ran into something, cementing their fate—


About the Author:

Always striving for pulse-pounding action, sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense, and hair-raising thrills, T. Briar’s mainstream thriller writing places courageous heroes and heroines in the fight of their lives against the elements, hostile surroundings, morally bankrupt villains, and any other obstacles T. can think of.

But be warned, once the wheels are set into motion with the first sentence, it’s a twisting, turning journey to the end to see who lives and who dies. And make no mistake, someone’s going to die. Some will even die badly. That’s just the way it is when fighting for survival under perilous conditions. The only question is: Will it be the heroes and heroines, or the villains?

T. Briar’s target audience is New Adults who boldly step up to meet life’s challenges with the confidence of youth urging them on.

Please checkout T. Briar’s page at http://thomasbriar.com to find out more about T. and his thriller writings.

Interview
Where are you from?
South Georgia. Where the mosquitoes are almost as big as the rattlesnakes and cottonmouths. Got a few panthers in the area too. Haven’t seen any bears yet, though I’ve heard a couple have been sighted passing through.
Tell us your latest news?
The release of Isle of Savages! Only waited a little over a year. I can hardly believe it’s finally published. It’s coming out in print too. My first. Can life get any better? I don’t think so.
When and why did you begin writing?
Wrote sporadically as a pre-teen, wrote sporadically as a teen, and I wrote sporadically as a new adult. Finally got down to business in earnest when I turned twenty-three. Some years have passed since then, but this is still the most fascinating job I’ve ever had.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
It took me a few books. Don’t really know why. Maybe it was because with each new book published, I could see how much progress I was making in the writing. It’s always been about improving the writing for me. That’s the most important thing of all.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Always wanted to and just thought I could.
Do you have a specific writing style?
Suspenseful. Should there be any other kind? For the record, I don’t think so. At least not for me.
How did you come up with the title?
The working title for Isle of Savages was The Survivors. Somewhere around the middle of the book it finally dawned on me that since the story is about a group of kids trying to survive an island teeming with bloodthirsty savages, it was the more appropriate title. Now that I look back on it, I should have thought of it first.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Certainly not. I was preached to enough growing up that if I never hear another sermon it will be too soon. Besides, I didn’t start writing to get into the preaching business. I simply want to entertain readers. Nothing more.
How much of the book is realistic?
It’s a work of fiction. There’s not a shred of truth to it. Nor did I base it on anything factual. Neither did I borrow any elements from any living or dead person’s story. I made it all up on my own.
However, having said that, human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years. Nor do I believe it will ever change. People are just people. Some are innately good, always wanting to help others and never do anyone harm. While others are just plain horrible, always looking for an opportunity to exploit everyone else for personal gain.
As for the savages, who can really say with any authority what’s out there yet to be discovered? I like to think that they could exist, somewhere in world.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Maybe the very beginning of the story when Eric first wakes up. See, I have personally experienced waking up laying face-down in the dirt, disoriented, hurting beyond belief, while also struggling for every breath. But hey, on the plus side, I didn’t die or suffer any long-term injuries from that accident.

What would you like my readers to know?

If you decide to step onto the Isle of Savages, tread cautiously. Or there will be savages coming for you. And though they are small as children, they’re cunning, fast, and immensely strong. Oh yeah, watch out for the captain and first mate too. They will want to sell you to slavers, if they don’t kill you first.  

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