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Of Our Own Device
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A free book for your answer - 'Of Our Own Device' - by MK South
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Further promo -- A Quiz with Free Book Awards I am offering 2 free PDF copies for those who will give the most complete answers to 2 questions below:
1. The Year of the Spy (which is the background for events in Of Our Own Device) is labeled so by the American media because of the series of arrests of Soviet and other spies in the US. How many CIA's agents were rolled up the same year in the Soviet Union and/or at the Soviet embassies worldwide? Can you name them?
2. What diplomatic/spy war event between America and the Soviet Union triggered a series of tit-for-tat expulsions that culminated with the virtual shut down of the Moscow Station in 1986? Can you describe/name the tit-for-tat events?
The quiz will stay opened till May 26 and the winners will be announced on May 28.
Mod
Nifty idea: the trivia quiz.
Blurb: I still need one. A blurb is super-short so it can fit in the tiny slot allowed by ŷ.
Its not really a big deal; as tucked-away and out-of-sight as it is. Still, once a book is on our shelf it is visible around the rest of the site.
Literally as terse as this: "Joe Blough, secretary to the Supreme Court, has discovered a body which somehow escaped his bosses' careful cover-up!"
Why, thank you! Unfortunately, it looks like marketing and selling the book is even harder labor! :(How about this for a blurb:
Jack Smith, a rookie CIA operative, is tasked with developing a Russian nuclear physics student and a rising rock star, Eton Volkonsky, as an agent. Instead, they develop a genuine friendship, and more, despite layers of deception, secrets and half truths.
Was very tempted to add 'fake news' but letting it go this time :D
A new review on Amazon:5.0 out of 5 stars - Gripping and fast paced spy thriller/ cold war romance
ByChris C.on May 7, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
“Of Our Own Device� is a sprawling work that defies easy categorization but its gripping narrative set against the backdrop of some of the defining events of the late 20th century make it a pleasure to read and hard to put down. Set in the closing years of the Soviet Union, the novel is the story of a forbidden love inside a geo-political spy thriller. Fans of John Le Carre will appreciate the fast-paced storytelling with plenty of tradecraft and deep cover operational detail, while cold war aficionados will love the detailed treatment of the time period. The novel is fully immersed in the culture and politics of the late Soviet period � from the Glasnost reforms and arms race to the global awareness of the AIDS epidemic � period details crafted seamlessly into the story. And then there is the love story between our CIA protagonist Jack and the target he’s been assigned to recruit � a common story but with a twist of this being a gay relationship at a time when homosexuality was likely to end an intelligence career. Jack must reconcile his personal feelings and his operational mission while trying to untangle the true motivations of his targets and his own government. It is an ambitious novel indeed to cover so much territory (and it comes in at over 700 pages) but it is overwhelmingly successful. A fast-paced and gripping read!
Mod
I wish we were still back in the early days of this group where everyone was an eager-beaver like this. Nowadays I suppose everyone is watching a superhero movie....
Don't watch superhero movies. I have a demanding day job and in the evenings am busy responding to requests from mods of the GRs communities I'm a member of... ;)how about this:
A rookie CIA operative is tasked to develop a Russian nuclear physics student as a future agent. Instead, they develop a genuine friendship, and more. (25 words)
I can't believe no one is game to answer the quiz questions 8O ... Maybe everybody is busy watching superhero movies indeed... 8( OK, will give it another week...
Good luck, Aficionados!!
Wow, still no interest in the historical facts of espionage! Alright, I'm offering a free book for any answer to the quiz, no matter how incomplete. Surely someone should know about those times and took note of what was going on in the world of spying?
Or people simply are not interested in what self-published authors can offer?
Look forward for someone to drop by with an answer!
OK, I give up. Looks like people are not interested at all...
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
As instructed by Feliks Edmundovich, I am posting the promo of my novel here to reach you all, dear Aficionados.
Here's the synopsis of
What do you do when you realize that the American Dream you have been working for so hard is not enough if it will be yours and yours alone? And that what you are told to do will destroy the only true friend you have ever had?
Summer of 1985. Jack Smith is a rookie CIA case officer posted at the American Embassy in Moscow. Despite his gregarious nature, Jack is a lonely man: not only is he a reluctant spy, he is also gay. When he meets Eton Volkonsky, a talented nuclear physics student, Jack’s bosses instruct him to develop the Russian as a future agent. Their friendship deepens, and Jack is torn between his suspicion that Eton and friends are with the KGB and his attraction to the man. But he continues telling himself and his bosses that he is just doing his job, developing his agent. Only when he leaves Russia does Jack admit that he has been fooling himself all the while. He takes on assignments in various countries, with a hope that eventually they will get him back to Moscow.
As introspection and growing doubts about what he does for living torment Jack, the world is buffeted by a whirlwind of dramatic events � diplomatic and spy wars, the rise of AIDS, the Chernobyl catastrophe, the war in Afghanistan and the disintegration of the communist bloc.
And some background:
- Genre: I was of two -- or even three- minds about the genre of my novel, as it is straddling a few. But all my reviewers call it a spy thriller, so be it -- a Cold War spy thriller.
- Setting and characters: hope you've sussed it out from the synopsis ;)
- No. of pages: it's a big book at appx. 270k words. But it's an improvement from the original 300k+. I wanted to trim it further, but my beta readers were adamant that I shouldn't lose any of the historical background which is interwoven into the main action.
- It took me 4 and a half years to research and write the book, primarily because (a) I have a very demanding day job (which is totally unrelated to the topics covered in my novel); and (b) the background of the story is factual and I had to cross-check every detail with various memoirs and news articles.
Finally, I am hereby offering a copy of my book in exchange for a review.
Thank you for your kind attention to this promo post! And feel free to ask any question you may have about the book.
Available on Amazon.com and .co.uk, iBooks, B&N, KOBO and from many other distributors as an ebook. A printed version is coming later this year.