The Fortress, Book 1
A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller
Date Published: August 29, 2023
We are the fortress, and the fortress is us.
Sim was a teacher in his old life. Now he's the savior of orphans.
He isn't their father. God knows he has already failed in that role. But he is their guide. And the kids? They are his penance. His redemption.
For three years Sim has prepared his orphans for the hard realities of life after the plague that wiped out most of the global population. Theirs is a life without laws or creature comforts. He has trained them to forage and grow their own food, to be vigilant, and to protect themselves and each other by any means necessary. In building a fortress of brick and mortar, they've become a fortress of flesh and blood.
These allegiances and ideals are put to the test when a man named Zagan, who believes himself to be on a mission for the devil to bring about the destruction of civilization's remains, gathers hundreds of marauders and confronts Sim and his orphans in a merciless siege.
Will the fortress hold... Or will it collapse under the pressure of evil?
It’s bigger than Magic Kingdom.
“It’s our fortress, indeed.”
“Is that what we’ll call it?” she asked. “Not a kingdom?”
“A kingdom sounds a lot bigger than what we have here. That
we have
here is just a small part of a kingdom. Maybe from here we
can build a
kingdom. Anyway, there is an expression I remember from all
the reading
I used to do.”
“I like to read too,” Elizabeth said. “Next time we go out
we have to find
more books for the library.”
About the Author
T.A. Styles earned his B.S. in Elementary Education and Mathematics and his M.S. in Developmental Reading. He taught in elementary and junior high schools for twelve years before launching his own childcare enterprise, TSL Kids Crew, which he has operated since 2009. He has had a passion for writing stories since he was a teenager, as it was a hobby and skill for which he realized at a young age he had a knack for and loved. He has two grown children and has traveled extensively including to Iceland, Australia, Greece, Italy, South America, and many other places nationally and internationally.
Contact Links
Author Interview:
Introduce
yourself and tell me about what you do.
Thomas
Styles. I am a twelve year veteran of public school teaching and fifteen years
ago created a childcare business, TSL Adventures, which offers dynamic daycare
programs, summer camp programs, and before and after school programs for
children ages infant through twelve years old. Serving 1000 kids a day. I am
owner and CEO and it keeps me busy. I'm an indy writer, and world travler with
two grown children.
Tell
me more about your journey as an author, including the writing processes.
My
joruney started at 13 when I penned (literally) my first book in a five subject
notebook. I still have it to this day. I continued writing for many years
after, and prior to starting my own childcare business and raising kids, I
wrote a lot of middle grade and YA novels. Many of them I lost in moves and
such, which was hearrbreaking. I published lots of articles in those days for
local magazines and was really pushing to be published. Alas, TSL Adventures
and raising two kids pushed writing to the back burner and only recently have I
picked it back up where I left off, now writing adult fiction, typically
centered around family drama and intermingled with a bit of fantasy. Ground
adult fiction fantasy. I wrote the Fortress series and published it on Amazon
and have another series, Shift, ready to launch. Two other drafts as well ready
to go. I write prolifically. My goal is to publish several books a year and see
my press, Transcendence, grow with all my books. My writing process involves
turning my ideas into full length novels. I do not outline or plan ahead. My
stories build on themselves as I write quite naturally and very rarely get
stuck. I rely on beta readers and DE's to see the stories evolve to the end
point.
Tell
me about your Book
The
Fortress built on my love of being a kid in the eighties (Rambo, GIJoe, War) so
created a book that involes kids going to war. I am a big fan of kids and have
a large respect for their capabilities and resilience, especially under the
leadership of a caring and loving adult. In this story a man with a broken past
takes lost children of the apocalypse in and trains them to surive but also how
to love and be a family. The heart of the story is the Fortress family, with
lots of amazing kids. I worked with kids my whole life so I write them very
well. I love to talk about the importance of the family values, the resilence
of children, and the reality that kids now and espeically in the apocalypse do
not always live fairy tale lives. They cry, bleed and die, and sometimes have a
choice in that. Their are stories from Gavroche and Agu of Beasts of No Nation
about children being trained soldiers so there is a little of this notion as
well to speak of. When do we run and when do we stay and defend our honor and fight,
even to the death. An adult or child can have a choice in this and in The
Fortress, they certainly do.
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