Two Questions with Michael Smorenburg | Slave Shipwreck Saga Book Tour | Historical Thriller

What are you working on now? Two books. > A sequel to Ragnarok — one of the planes that went missing in the auror...

What are you working on now?

Two books.

> A sequel to Ragnarok — one of the planes that went missing in the aurora that almost took Tegan’s plane crash lands onto the Hudson — and a decade later the now-retired captain is starting to remember where… or ‘when’… they went.

> A sequel to my “Slave Ship Saga” – the third in the trilogy. In the 1980s (fact) I found a shipwreck off our coast… in 2015 the Smithsonian of Washington identified it as the 1794 São José Paquete Africa, the first and only slave ship in history ever to have wrecked (with 400 chained aboard) and be discovered. “The Praying Nun” told the story of our discovery and then takes the reader aboard the fated ship where we meet one of the slaves. The actual ship in history had 200 survivors who were ‘saved’ and then sold the next day to recover costs. “The Reckoning” follows one of those slaves and his experiences of 1794. The book I’m working on, tentatively called “The Accord”, follows the same surviving slave but now in an overlap of his story through the eyes of our protagonist, Jayne Alphen, wife of the newly arrived governor of the colony at Africa’s tip. Jayne, an heiress, is in an miserable arranged marriage with her much older husband who she has come to despise for his meanness, cowardice, and perversions. He only has power through his marriage into wealth. Horrified by encountering a slave culture for the first time, Jayne is terrified that she is falling in love (or at least is infatuated) with a most unusual slave she encounters. His freedom promises to become a vicarious emaciation of her own imprisoned heart… but her husband has seen her obsession and she must tread carefully.

If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?

Lordy… I’m a nerd, okay. Certain (non fiction) writers prompt me to leap to my feet and start furiously writing the moment I’ve read a few lines of theirs.

Carl Sagan and Cosmos must top that list.

Any of Bill Bryson’s books will keep me in stitches, and his “Short History of Everything” will keep me amused forever.

Many will know that Prof. Richard Dawkins is more than just involved in a religious debate – his groundbreaking contributions to biology are epic. His ability to explain the machinery of life would certainly keep me reading and re-reading.

Then one of the physicists or anthropologists or neurologist books that can help me understand my place in it all… 4 books is too few, unless, of course, they are 4 kindles stuffed to the brim!

The Praying Nun

Slave Shipwreck Saga Book 1

by Michael Smorenburg

Genre: Historical Thriller

An uncharted shipwreck, the mysteries she hides, and the brutalized souls who suffered her holds.

In 1985 two divers discovered an ancient uncharted shipwreck off South Africa's Cape of Storms. Salvaging the wreck only inflames the enigma with the trail of secrets compounding and the wreck refusing to yield her identity. Countless vessels, some crammed with bullion, have joined this ship graveyard over the centuries, but what sort of galleon was this, leaving only cannon, cannon balls and scant few clues behind? Three decades pass before the Smithsonian of Washington solves the riddle.

It's 1794 on the fevered coast of Mozambique. Chikunda and his wife Mkiwa, stripped naked and shackled, are heaved aboard the São José de Africa. Only a miracle may save them from the horrors below deck where more than 400 fellow slaves are crammed. But nobody can guess what fate has in store.

If you're a Wilbur Smith or Clive Cussler fan, you will be riveted by this fact-inspired fictionalized tale by Michael Smorenburg, based as it is by personal experience, extensive research and the legacy of artifacts salvaged from the São José de Africa. Pick it up now to go on the adventure of a lifetime.

Goodreads * Amazon

The Reckoning

Slave Shipwreck Saga Book 2

A slave evades re-capture after his slave ship is wrecked at the treacherous Cape of Good Hope, only to face handing himself over when his wife goes missing with the man who rescued them. A tale of hope, fear and most of all, the yearning for freedom.

It's 1794 and the slave trade is at its ugly peak. When the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jose Paquete de Africa shipwrecks at the Cape of Good Hope, only two hundred of the four hundred slaves aboard survive.

Chikunda and his pregnant wife evade re-capture only to face the impassable cliffs of Table Mountain. With the wild South Atlantic at their backs, Cape Town's gallows and whipping post to the north, the British garrison blocking escape to the south, and dangers of an untamed African coast to the east of a vast mountain range, escape seems impossible.

When Chikunda's wife goes missing, he has a monumental choice to make. Pick up The Reckoning now and lose yourself in a world you never could have imagined, a world where freedom slips ever more out of a man's grasp.

Goodreads * Amazon 

Michael Smorenburg (b. 1964) grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. An entrepreneur with a passion for marketing, in 1995 Michael moved to California where he founded a business consultancy and online media and marketing engine in the burgeoning internet. In 2003 he returned to South Africa where he launched a security company. In 2015 he divested of the business to write full time. Michael's greatest love is the ocean, keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in science, understanding the cosmos and sharing all he learns.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Amazon * Goodreads

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