Good Morning Diego Garcia by Susan Joyce (excerpt, review and GIVEAWAY) GFT

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Good Morning Diego Garcia

by Susan Joyce

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GENRE: travel adventure/memoir

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BLURB:

When Susan and Charles receive a letter from Cyprus friends, now in Taiwan, they get a chance to help crew a sailboat from Sri Lanka across the Indian Ocean. They have no clue what to expect. Susan reminds Charles she isn't a good swimmer. He tells her a life jacket will do the trick, and convinces her it's the opportunity of a lifetime. A must-do travel adventure. They say goodbye to friends and family in sunny California, fly to New York and on to India, arriving the day the Indian government has issued a state of emergency. And then onto the boat, and into the ocean. In monsoon season. With no charts.

In this true-life travel adventure, Susan keeps a journal and record her bizarre thoughts and telling dreams. A real life thriller, Susan's monsoon-season journey is about discovery and spiritual realization—one dream at a time.

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EXCERPT

Ch 10

After the waiter left, Alon turned to me. “What happened at the souk?”

I took a deep breath. “There was an angry mob! They stopped Mia from entering the souk.”

“Because of the way she was dressed?” Alon asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Indecent dress is against the law.”

“She was wrong,” Alon said, choosing his words carefully. “She should know better, but ...”

“It was like she was taunting them,” I said. “Mocking them. Why?”

“She hates anyone telling her what to do,” Alon said.

“No, really, she laughed at them. Dared them to stop her,” I continued.

“Mia looks like an adult,” Alon said, “but you have to think of her as a child.”

“When I heard her scream, I realized she had been hit,” I said.

“They threw rocks at her?” Alon asked.

“And sticks, anything they could scoop up,” I added. “I yelled at her to run back to the boat.”

Alon shook his head in disbelief. “Wow, time to move on.”

“She could have been killed,” I said. “They were seriously pissed off.”

The waiter returned with our drinks and suggested a few new, different dishes from the menu. I smiled, knowing I wanted the same delicious ones I had each and every time we dined here.

“We want our usual,” Charles said.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Born in Los Angeles California, Susan Joyce spent most of her childhood in Tucson, Arizona and returned to LA as a young working woman. Inspired as a child by postcards from her globe-trotting great aunt, Susan left the United States at age 20 to see the world.

She planned on being gone for a year, but ended up living her 20s and 30s in Europe and the Middle East. As a Jill of all trades, she worked as a secretary, freelance writer, taught computer classes, wrote songs, and became an accomplished artist while writing her first children's book, "Peel, the Extraordinary Elephant."

An award winning author and editor of children's books, Susan's first adult book in her memoir series, The Lullaby Illusion--A Journey of Awakening is a travelogue of the politics of Europe, the United States, and Israel during a twelve year 'roller-coaster' period of her life and an adventure of survival through friends and sheer determination.

The Lullaby Illusion was awarded

* Readers' Favorite 5-Stars and the 2014 GOLD Medal Winner, Non-Fiction--Travel in the 2014 Readers' Favorite International Book Awards.

* Honorable Mention Prize Winner--2014 Stargazer Literary Prizes

Her second memoir, Good Morning Diego Garcia is about her adventure from India and across the Indian Ocean in monsoon season in 1975.

Available for pre-order: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Morning-Diego-Garcia-Discovery-ebook/dp/B017S0ZXP6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Read more about Susan's life adventures at her website

Stop in and say hello to Susan on Facebook

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GIVEAWAY


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My review:

3.5 out of 5 stars

Good Morning Diego Garcia: A Journey of Discovery by Susan Joyce is a conversational travelogue of one woman’s adventures while traveling around the Indian Ocean on a ship that is being delivered to its owner. There are glimpses of exotic climes, various cultures, intriguing foodstuffs, and a couple of mysteries. The challenge of navigating across broad expanses of water without a map and facing horrific weather conditions plus dealing with the stress of close confinement is described, as are the adventures of interacting with apparently unstable companions.

Reading this memoir was very much like reading someone’s journal, meandering with the quirky perspective of the author as she experiences some pretty remarkable journeys and catches up on news from friends all over the world. There are vivid descriptions of drug-enhanced situations (including a somewhat disconcerting enhanced brownie consumption by her mother-in-law) and an eye-opening tale of how easily drugs are obtained in other countries and the challenges of remembering which items are considered contraband while traveling on the open seas. The mystery surrounding the author’s husband and his vocation is a little awkward for me, as is their peripatetic lifestyle, but this is an interesting description of the world from a perspective totally different from that presented in travel brochures.

A copy of this title was provided to me for review