Gorgito's Ice Rink by Elizabeth Ducie - Book Blitz
Gorgito’s
Ice Rink
Gorgito's Ice
Rink was runner up in Writing Magazine's 2015 Self-Published Book of the Year
Awards.
Two small boys grieving for lost sisters — torn
between family and other loves. Can keeping a new promise make up for breaking
an old one?
When Gorgito Tabatadze sees his sister run off
with a soldier, he is bereft. When she disappears into Stalin’s Gulag system,
he is devastated. He promises their mother on her death-bed he will find the
missing girl and bring her home; but it is to prove an impossible quest.
Forty years later, Gorgito, now a successful
businessman in post-Soviet Russia, watches another young boy lose his sister to
a love stronger than family. When a talented Russian skater gets the chance to
train in America, Gorgito promises her grief-stricken brother he will build an
ice-rink in Nikolevsky, their home town, to bring her home again.
With the help of a British engineer, who has
fled to Russia to escape her own heartache, and hindered by the local Mayor who
has his own reasons for wanting the project to fail, can Gorgito overcome
bureaucracy, corruption, economic melt-down and the harsh Russian climate in
his quest to build the ice-rink and bring a lost sister home? And will he
finally forgive himself for breaking the promise to his mother?
A story of love, loss and broken promises.
Gorgito's story, told through the eyes of the people whose lives he touched.
Purchase Links
Kindle universal link: https://geni.us/3OHR
Until 14th October, Gorgito’s Ice
Rink is only 99 p/c in all territories.
Author Q&A
How long, on average, does it take you to write a book?
I started writing Gorgito’s Ice Rink in November 2007 and
published it seven years later! However, I now have a much slicker writing
process and generally take around a year to write and publish a novel. My
non-fiction books are much shorted and if I put my mind to it, they only take a
few months from start to finish.
How do you select the names of your characters?
Since many of my stories are set outside of UK, I research typical names
for the country in question. We have a terrible habit to lumping other
nationalities together and I try hard not to offend people. (I know how cross a
Scot or Welsh person gets if they are described as English, for example.) And
because the Russian names in particular can be difficult to pronounce, I choose
ones that are short, easy to remember – and all starting with different letters
if possibl.
What are your top 5 favorite movies?
The Fellowship of the Ring
Guardians of the Galaxy
Pirates of the Caribbean
Harry Potter and the (anything at all really; I just love these films)
Star Wars IV
If you were the last person on Earth, what would you do?
I’d find myself a warm, comfortable place, preferably in Greece; secure
a good supply of nuts, vegetables and other healthy food (or, if all else
fails, chocolate); and settle down to read as many of the books on my To Be
Read list as I could before I popped my clogs.
What fictional character would you want to be friends with, in real life?
Sam Gamgee; a true friend in need.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Learn as much as you can from the incredibly generous members of the
writing community who are willing to share, but at some point, stop looking for
advice and go with your gut. It’s your writing: just write what gives you
pleasure.
Tell us 10 fun facts about yourself! :)
I grew up in a house of Aston Villa supporters and sat on my father’s
shoulders at the age of 4 to watch them bring the FA Cup back to Birmingham in
the early 1950s.
In my head I’m still in my early 20s and often have to remind myself my
body is a tad older and can’t always keep up.
Every time I see a waist-height metal bar, I get an almost-irresistible
urge to perform a tummy roll.
I love dancing – on my own. At a disco, when the arthritis permits, I
will be the one at the corner of the dance floor bouncing around in a world of
my own.
I used to run in my bare feet and competed in school’s sports days like
that, long before Zola Budd made it fashionable.
I failed
all my exams in the first year at University and had to take a year off to
re-sit; not the sort of gap year I really wanted, but it taught me a lesson I
have never forgotten.
I once
wrote a letter of apology to my tutor when I thought I’d done badly in a
finance exam, only to find I had come top of the class.
When I
was travelling in Swaziland, a group of locals tried to buy me off my husband
for 5 cows, but he said the price wasn’t high enough!
I
regularly plan to grow salad vegetables and other plants from seed, but each
year, my seedlings whither and die when I forget to water them.
I was
once interviewed on the national news in Ukraine.
Author Bio
– When Elizabeth Ducie had been working in the international
pharmaceutical industry for nearly thirty years, she decided she’d like to take
a break from technical writing—text books, articles and training modules—and
write for fun instead. She started by writing travel pieces, but soon discovered
she was happier, and more successful, writing fiction. In 2012, she gave up the
day job, and started writing full-time. She has published four novels, three
collections of short stories and a series of manuals on business skills for
writers.
Social Media
Links –
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElizabethDucie
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/educie/
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