Southerly Breeze

By Faun Pischerke

The book is a gripping modern day drama in a European country where assets become liabilities, ancient rites mingle with current feasts, evildoers receive their ultimate punishment from unheralded quarters and from even more despicable characters, everyday folks show bravery and dignity in the face of events beyond their control and none is safe.
The novel is a Darwinian tale of survival of the 'meanest' unfolding in Bulgaria before the Cold War's end. The plot culminates in the first chapter where protagonists appear and the reader glances at Byzantine business in Party circles. Classic and classy buildings coexist with Stalinesque architecture; political decisions are adopted behind wall of secrecy and shrouded by blatant propaganda cliches. In a 'parallel universe' another drama unfolds in Plovdiv and its mountain vicinity, rich history playing vital role. The local 'tigress' brings a few new tricks to the fox chase game: nothing-personal-business-only is her MO. In a small village, 'a stone's throw from the border' a youth matures in the birthplace of Orpheus and Bacchus. In this place history violently galloped in eons ago, leaving a painful open wound and let it to its own devices. The village with its ancient history rooted in the daily life of its inhabitants, becomes a scene of clashes and renewed mayhem. Honor, dignity, pride collide with brutal events forcing serious decisions, repeating ancient history. The last subplot develops around the ancient resort city of Varna, on the Black Sea coast ruled by a promiscuous first secretary and his equally unscrupulous, profligate wife. Their despicable deeds are 'rewarded' in an unexpected way in the opening chapter of the book with some belated name play and ominous coincidences. Ancient myths and present day celebrations mingle into an explosive muddle of carnality, violence and death, leading to the ultimate demise of the First regional couple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Faun Pischerke
• Release date: Mar 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311437143

Faun Pischerke

I grew up multilingual from a very early age, received my Masters degree in Engineering Physics and spent my formative years in Bulgaria, under the shadow of a mild, yet persistent political persecution and harassment by the regime. My background cannot be understood without a few words about my country of origin - a little known European country with about 7000 years of history, home to the third European alphabet, whose people have brought the oldest known Sun calendar, dating back some 7000 years. This is a country that has had its name intact for a little over 1300 years and has survived and outlived several major empires. This country has been a Christian nation for much longer than major European nations, and has given birth to great reformers of the church, at the time when Europe has ensconced in the "Dark Ages". 'Mild' in this case means continual, sometimes overt, sometimes implicit denial of job and growth opportunities, based on political origin, as well as travel and residency restrictions. I started writing back in the early seventies, while still in high school with several research papers on bionics, quantum mechanics and relativity theory that have won me national awards and later, Dean's scholarships. Half way through university I caught the proverbial 'writing bug' and decided to try my hand at free-lance journalism. Despite or better, because of the obvious and not-so-subtle difficulties of publishing in a country with tight government control on print media, I had managed to publish about 40 articles both in popular, weekly publications (some of them now defunct, due to the radical changes in Bulgaria at the end of the 80's), as well as in international magazines and symposia in Bulgarian, Russian and English languages. Topics varied from reporting on the latest technological advances in Western science, to philosophical discussions on human cognitive development and Artificial Intelligence and book reviews. This research has also landed me participation at two, all expenses-paid symposia – in Los Angeles (CA), 1988 and in London (UK), 1989. I have worked as an adjunct professor, trilingual linguist and an IT specialist (including several stints as a technical writer) in various capacities. Among other things worth mentioning, I have served nearly three years with the US military in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan) as an IT & logistics specialist and have acquired absolutely superb experience as a result.

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