TYPORAMA
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Moving • Inspiring • Transformative
PRAISE FOR MARK'S PREVIOUS WORKS:
Mark Sullivan’s ALL THE GLIMMERING STARS is the pinnacle of an already distinguished career. A searing piece of historical fiction, steeped in a years-long deep dive into the horrors of child soldiering, it is at its core something tender and rare—a love story between two profoundly good people striving for light in unimaginable darkness. It is a joy and an inspiration. —Gregg Hurwitz, NYT bestselling author of The Orphan X series
Set amidst the harrowing chaos of Joseph Kony's cult-like regime and his abducted children turned soldiers, emerges an extraordinary narrative of love and unwavering resilience. The intertwined journey of Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori stands as a luminous symbol of hope amidst a nation fractured by relentless violence and turmoil. Their love becomes a refuge, a testament to the human spirit's endurance in the face of unimaginable darkness.
—Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
“An incredible story, beautifully written, and a fine and noble book.”—James Patterson, New York Times bestselling author
“Exciting . . . taut thriller . . . Beneath a Scarlet Sky tells the true story of one young Italian’s efforts to thwart the Nazis.”—Shelf Awareness
“[Sullivan’s] got an extraordinary imagination, paired with a real talent for creating realistic scenes, both hair-raising times of danger—like being strafed—and intimate moments of pain.”—Historical Novel Society
“Mark Sullivan has done it again! The Last Green Valley is a compelling and inspiring story of heroism and courage.”—Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone
“Sprawling, stirring, like the richest of stories, and played out on a canvas of heroism and tragedy, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is like one of those iconic World War II black and white photos: a face of hope and tears, the story of a small life that ended up mattering in a big way.”—Andrew Gross, New York Times bestselling author of The One Man
“Mark Sullivan weaves together history and memory in an epic journey of love and resilience. One of the most riveting, page-turning books I’ve read in a long time.”
—Heather Morris, #1 international and New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz
“Sullivan again demonstrates his gift for finding little-known embers of history and breathing life into them until they glow and shine in ways that are both moving and memorable.”—Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris
“Mark is one of the most gifted and successful novelists of our generation. His ability to weave drama, morality, and emotion through wonderfully captivating stories of the human spirit puts him among the greats.”—Tony Robbins, #1 New York Times bestselling author and the nation’s #1 life and business strategist
“This is full-force Mark Sullivan—muscular, soulful prose evincing an artist’s touch and a journalist’s eye. Beneath a Scarlet Sky conjures an era with a magician’s ease, weaving the rich tapestry of a wartime epic. World War II Italy has never been more alive to me.”—Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author of The Nowhere Man
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ABOUT ALL THE GLIMMERING STARS:
A heart-wrenching and inspiring new novel from journalist and #1 New York Times and #1 Amazon Charts author Mark Sullivan, is based on the harrowing real-life experiences of two Ugandan teens kidnapped along with some 35,000 others and turned into underage warriors for a messianic warlord.
Propelled by shocking and tragic details of what Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori were forced to endure as members of Joseph Kony’s fanatical Lord’s Resistance Army(LRA), Sullivan’s page-turning narrative is also a triumphant love story filled with life-affirming humanity.
Anthony Opoka can run like the wind, routinely beating all of the other boys at footraces in his village. From an early age, his loving father taught him to be a good human and how to always find his way home by reading the stars. When LRA soldiers arrive to steal children from his village, Anthony offers himself to save his younger brother from a dismal fate. He and five hundred others are marched into the mountains and put through grueling tests of endurance, which many will not survive.
Anthony witnesses the unimaginable, but through the grace of God, his life is spared when he tries to escape—usually an automatic death sentence. The only way to survive, Anthony comes to realize, is to pretend to embrace the doctrines of Joseph Kony and the LRA while really hating his captors in his heart. His deceit is so convincing that he will rise to become the Great Teacher’s radioman, his navigator by the stars.
Growing up sixty kilometers from Anthony, Florence Okori is a great dreamer, influenced by a mother who believes in the power of love. Barely surviving the measles as a five-year-old, Florence spends months alone with her imagination in the hospital, away from her family.
This experience emboldens her and convinces her that she wants to be a nurse when she grows up. She cannot imagine, though, that twisted fate will trap her into becoming a combat nurse for Kony and the LRA.
Halfway through their ten-year ordeal, after Anthony is wounded for the second time in battle, he and Florence meet. They fall in love, and the power of that love allows them to resurrect their humanity to survive. They escape by the stars and then help rescue other child soldiers. Ultimately, Florence and Anthony will bear witness, testifying against Kony’s henchman at the LRA war crimes trial in the Hague.
Mark Sullivan learned of Anthony and Florence’s story from a former squadron commander of SEAL Team 6 and the former CIA chief in Uganda. Believing the tale needed to be shared with the world, he traveled to Uganda in 2021.
Over the course of fifteen days, he interviewed Anthony and Florence, who, despite all they had lived through, were “warm, intelligent, gracious, thoughtful, and painfully honest.”
Sullivan has taken the raw material of their ordeal and transformed it into an engrossing, faithful, and soaring work of historical fiction.
In an afterword to ALL THE GLIMMERING STARS, Anthony writes, “It is a story that we hope will be known, not for us, but for every child soldier … to help end the use of child soldiers … [and] to ensure that those who are forced to fight can finally find peace and come home.
Through our story, Florence and I have found meaning in the time we spent in the LRA, and we hope to leave the world a better place than we endured.” Anthony Opoka and Florence Okori are coming of age in Uganda in the 1990s when each is kidnapped and forced into the fanatical Lord’s Resistance Army.
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No one gets closer than Anthony to the powerful messianic warlord, Joseph Kony.
To stay sane as he spirals through chaos, Anthony clings to his childhood lessons about being a good human. Florence’s upbringing grounds her too, helping keep her dreams alive amid the insanity of Kony’s war.
At the lowest points of their lives, certain they’ll never go home, the pair meet by chance, fall in love, and begin to dream of surviving their captivity.
Anthony and Florence—escaped and survived to later bear witness at the LRA war crimes trial in the Hague.
Their harrowing and triumphant story is the basis for ALL THE GLIMMERING STARS.
By turns tender, shocking, moving, desperate, and ultimately triumphant, Florence and Anthony’s story is an epic drama of humanity, a life-affirming tale, and an experience readers will never forget.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mark Sullivan is the acclaimed author of more than twenty novels, including the #1 Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky, and the #1 New York Times bestselling Private series, which he writes with James Patterson.
Mark has received numerous awards for his writing, including the WHSmith Fresh Talent Award, and his works have been named a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year.
He grew up in Medfield, Massachusetts, and graduated from Hamilton College with a BA in English before working as a volunteer in the Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa.
Upon his return to the United States, he earned a graduate degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and began a career in investigative journalism.
An avid skier and adventurer, he lives with his wife in Bozeman, Montana, where he remains grateful for the miracle of every moment.
CONNECT WITH MARK:
www.marksullivanbooks.com.
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Adding to your TBR?
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping.
Sounds like a fascinating read.
ReplyDeletehttps://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2024/05/its-monday-what-are-you-reading-and_12.html
Hope you get to read it.
DeleteThanks for your comment, Cheryl.