Juche by Adria Carmichael – Q&A and Giveaway

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What is your favorite meal?

It’s a tie between falafel rolls and fried plantain tacos.

What are you passionate about these days?

Learning languages. Currently trying to learn Arabic, which is quite a challenge. In the future would like to learn Mandarin Chinese as well. And maybe Greek. I’m mostly interested in languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet.

If you had to do your journey to getting published all over again, what would you do differently?

I would choose a different name for my series since few people know about the concept of “Juche” in North Korea. I probably would change anything storywise, but it has been a challenge promoting a series that is not quite YA, not quite Dystopian, and not quite Historical Fiction, so for my next project, I will choose a clear genre before I start working on the project. Will make life easier.

Ebook or print? And why?

I like both, but for convenience, I’m leaning more toward ebooks. Although lately I have almost exclusively only listened to audiobooks, because even if you’re super tired after a long day, you can still close your eyes and listen to a story. It’s very relaxing.

What is your favorite scene in this book?

I can’t point to a specific scene without giving away any spoilers, but my favorite parts of the book are when the protagonist, Areum, rekindles with some members of her family that she has hated for so long.

Just when Areum – daughter of a privileged family in the totalitarian state of Choson (North Korea) – thought she was free from her personal prison, her world collapses around her as her family is taken away in the middle of the night to a hell-like camp in the mountains where people who have strayed from the righteous path are brutally re-educated through blood, sweat, tears, and starvation.

There she has to fight for survival together with the family she hates and is forced to re-evaluate every aspect of her life until then: her deep resentment toward her twin sister; her view of her father in the face of mounting evidence that he is a traitor with the blood of millions of fellow countrymen on his hands; and even her love and affection for the Great General – the eternal savior and protector of Choson, whom she had always considered her true father.

Note from the author:

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like when seen through an indoctrinated mind?

This is a topic that has intrigued me for as long as I can remember, so when I came up with the idea to write a book many years ago, I decided to create it from the viewpoint of a victim of indoctrination… which in the end became Areum (the protagonist of the story).

What I try to explore in this story is how deep the indoctrination of a 14-year old girl can run and how much “reality” it can be exposed to before breaking… if it will break at all. As a comparison, the defectors from North Korea who arrive in South Korea are isolated for three months in a de-programming facility called Hanawon before they are allowed to join society where they go through this process in a more controlled (and less brutal) way than Areum.

I hope you will enjoy this slightly different take on the dystopian genre!

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Enjoy an Excerpt

My father’s words echo in my head.

“Hamhung”

“Hamhung”

I’m standing in a long wide street. There are tall houses on both sides of me.

Where am I?

I don’t recognize anything, but still, everything looks familiar.

Then I notice there is something on the ground around me. I try to focus, but my vision is blurry. There is something there. Some kind of objects.

Or…

Now the focus is getting clearer. They are bodies! They are everywhere. I jump in panic. I want to run away, but my feet are stuck to the ground.

I’m standing in a sea of sun-scorched, dried up corpses – as far as the eye can reach. Then I feel it. The stench of their decay stings my nose. I feel nauseous. I look down at the corpse closest to me. A man. He looks so strange. Like all his muscles and fat has been removed, and his skin tightly wrapped around his bare bones. All the corpses look the same.

All of a sudden, there is a movement in the corner of my eye. I turn my head.

Paralyzed with fear I watch one of the corpses rising until he stands before me a bit further down the street of death. He doesn’t move, just looks at me with his dead silvery eyes. My blood is freezing to ice inside my veins. I look closer, squinting against the distant sun. The features of the man look strangely familiar. Then I suddenly see it. I gasp, and a flash of ice rushes down my spine.

About the Author Adria Carmichael is a writer of dystopian fiction with a twist. When she is not devouring dystopian and post-apocalyptic content in any format – books, movies, TV-series and PlayStation games – she is crafting the epic and highly-addictive Juche saga, her 2020 debut novel series that takes place in the brutal, totalitarian nation of Choson. When the limit of doom and gloom is reached, a 10K run on a sunny day or binging a silly sitcom on a rainy day is her go-to way to unwind.

Buy Juche 1 – The Demon of Yodok (only $0.99!), Juche 2 – The Weeping Masses, Juche 3 – The Storm of Storms, and Juche 4 – Freedom or Death at Amazon or buy the Juche 1-4 Box Set for only $0.99.

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