11 January, 2012
Teen/Young Adult book sends out message – ‘Beware predators in guise of friends’
Summary
A classic, humorous tale of one creature’s attempt to destroy the rainforest for personal gain, and the innocents he selfishly deceives into helping him to achieve his objectives.
The Author
Having grown up in the Mediterranean and having later lived and worked in various countries, Amelia Curzon eventually settled permanently in the United Kingdom. She is the mother of two grown children who provide her with much of her inspiration in life. Amelia’s interests include horses and all other animals, the environment, reading, and of course writing.
Amelia has been writing short stories and poems since childhood and had created and narrated many stories to her own children in their younger years. Insomuch as her stories have always been about animals it seems only natural her first novel be written for the genres children, teen and young adult, and contain lots of four legged creatures.
Amelia wrote the first draft of Mungai and the Goa Constrictor a few years ago, proudly sent the finished product to a handful of traditional publishers and after only three rejections felt totally defeated. Silly! But that was then. The story was put safely away. After setting up and building up her own company, she forgot all about the manuscript. Until that is, her son found it, read it and passed on to his sister to read. Between them they persuaded Amelia to try and epublish. Spurred on by her children’s faith in her, she decided to approach the task of re-editing and updating and the mammoth and mind boggling mission of self-promotion. She had to find her feet pretty quickly and armed with bucket loads of good, and some bad, advice plunged headfirst into the daunting world of the eAuthor. Mungai and the Goa Constrictor is now published on Amazon and has already gained its first 5 star review on Goodreads. Amelia is currently working on a sequel.
Why did Amelia Curzon write this particular story?
One’s usual motive for writing a book is either for financial gain or for the pure satisfaction of seeing one’s name in print, or in many cases, on screen. In Amelia’s case, however, she felt strongly enough about certain events to put them into words a young person would understand and enjoy. Amelia had an idea for the book after seeing how many times her own children were fooled into naively attaching themselves to situations and people without realising the potential danger. Trusting without question and following without forethought. For her, it was a warning, a way of seeing that if children, teens and young adults, did not show vigilance or did not understand the dangers, they could find themselves gulled into believing things which simply are not true; people do lie and they do mislead, as a result circumstances arise which may not be beneficial to their wellbeing.
The Book
Set in a rainforest of an unspecified continent, Mungai is a tale littered with colourful characters, conspiracies and unlikely friendships between species. Told through the eyes of animals the narrative explores the predatory world of deception and greed.
The Synopsis
Mungai, a jungle creature of indeterminate origin, creates a cunning master plan allowing him to find ways of passing through life without too much cost to himself and as little effort as possible, and at the expense of others that are not as strong minded or as clever as he is.
He goes all out to achieve his objectives, regardless of the consequences, as he sets out to destroy the environment for personal gain.
On his travels Mungai encounters an equally ruthless and selfish creature, a boa constrictor called Goa, and together they go in search of innocents to use to implement their designs.
They subsequently meet, befriend and manage to convince all manner of animals to join them in their venture with promises of great rewards in return for small labours. The creatures believe their efforts to be beneficial to the environment and look forward to the promised bounty. Before too long, some notice their hard work continues but the rewards are not forthcoming and they begin to realise, with some input from the good outsiders they have teamed up with – the two legs, that what they are involved in is not good for anyone or anything.
Dissatisfaction begins to burgeon and rebellion is on the cards.
Mungai finds out, all too late, that those he shamelessly inveigled into his plans are not as naive as he first thought and eventually the tables are turned.
The perpetrators become the victims as Operation Equinox is devised and executed.
Feel free to contact Amelia in the following ways:
For more information contact: amelia.curzon@gmail.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/ameliacurzon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/AmeliaCurzon
Goodreads: http://goo.gl/SE8Ul
Review on Goodreads: http://xrl.us/bmg3sh
Mungai and the Goa Constrictor is available to buy at the links below:
Amazon.com: http://goo.gl/iOeV7
Amazon.co.uk: http://goo.gl/4KFXD
Carte Blanche by Amelia Curzon 