Our featured book is a thriller anthology from the author of Acts of Betrayal and Acts Beyond Redemption. We asked Suzanne Burke to tell us more about THE ALTERNATIVE.
What is your new book, “The Alternative” about?
All human beings have those dark moments, when the decisions handed down by our justice systems or by the unrelenting hand of a cruel fate, make us shudder in denial.
We hold those moments close and shielded from others … until the foundation of all we once understood and believed in, cracks and begins to crumble.
What happens when we are driven beyond our ability to tolerate?
This book is an Anthology of the stories of such people—people that took those dark moments of thought and put them into action—human beings that exacted “The Alternative” regardless of consequence.
This is their journey.
A place where Karma has no deadline and rage has no boundaries.
How was the story conceived?
There have been countless conversations between my daughter and I that evolve as a direct result of the evening news or front-page headlines in newspapers, and heavily documented accounts on social media all highlighting the decisions handed down by a system of justice choking on its own failure ... or of acts tragically exacted by the cruel hand of an out of control fate, that have provoked our anger and outrage. We are left feeling helpless and enraged, utterly unable to change those verdicts.
One such conversation lingered in my mind and began waking my muse from a long sleep.
What happens when we are driven beyond our ability to tolerate?
I am confined due to health reasons to need the use of a wheelchair in all my waking hours, my mind, however, has no such restrictions. It roams wild and free. I played my usual game of setting myself a "What If?" scenario. “The Alternative” is the result.
Tell us about your writing process.
I sleep very little, most often only able to manage three-to-four hours out of every 24. I seem to function quite well, and the biggest bonus is that my muse can kick in with no need to beckon it, and I'm often found writing away furiously at 3.00 am in the morning, and again at midnight. The process is simple: coffee enough to sustain a long session is of prime importance. I need to be warm at all times and can be found in the depths of winter sitting in many layers of clothing and wrapped around with blankets, wearing fingerless gloves and pounding away furiously on my laptop. I ensure to take breaks often, necessary for both my emotional and physical well being. I need always to have my notebook/planner open beside me and ready to be added to.
Nothing distracts my focus when I'm in the zone. We've had a massive construction site underway right next door for weeks now ... I only hear them when I'm not writing.
I live with my daughter and five-year-old grandson and their love and support complete my happy world.
I love the wonderful scope that writing an anthology hands me. I loved setting up each scenario with the brief I had set myself (see the synopsis). It challenged me to come up with stories that were complete within their own framework. Most of them are dark explorations into the human psyche.
I loved the freedom of crafting them and presenting them in an order that would keep my readers perpetually entertained. I loved the challenge the book presented me with.
What can readers expect when they read “The Alternative?”
I've been told often that my work is dark, and it is. Yet it is shaded in multiple layers, no situation can be viewed fairly from only one objective. I hope my readers will find a satisfying balance within these pages. I think the readers will be intrigued, and I hope above all else that they are entertained.
I'd love them to have moments when they fist-pump the air with a resounding YES when The Alternative is exacted on the ones most deserving of it.
I’d love them also have moments of sadness when a cruel fate takes good people to hell.
Sounds like a book that will connect with some of our deepest and secret desires. At one point, haven't you ever wanted to take justice into your own hands, dear readers?
Maybe give Karma a little help?
SYNOPSIS
There are those that cling unreservedly to the lifeboat that believing in Karma hands them so willingly.
They work, they live, and they function in a world that grants them the option of believing that Karma has no deadline.
Until they are handed the spark that ignites them into becoming the instrument of Karma itself.
There are others who have had all they once held to be truths, everything they once stood for and took pride in, torn apart and ripped from them by the hand of a cruel fate.
Then, of course, there are those who believed in nothing and no one, to begin with ...
These are their stories.
The stories of people both good and bad, who made the choice to exact "The Alternative."
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