Book Tour: Controlled Conversations by Karol Lagodzki

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the CONTROLLED CONVERSATIONS by Karol Lagodzki Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: CONTROLLED CONVERSATIONS

Author: Karol
Lagodzki

Pub. Date: August 20, 2024

Publisher: Milford
House Press

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 228

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/CONTROLLED-CONVERSATIONS 

In 1982 Soviet-controlled Poland-a time and place of suspicion and
mistrust-when geopolitical forces and violent men descend upon her little town of Zygmuntowo, Emilia must decide if she’s willing to risk prison or worse for self-respect and for her unexpected love.

A telephone station switchboard operator ordered to monitor the calls she
connects, Emilia overhears a mysterious coded conversation. It continues to distract her, but not as much as the growing realization that she’s falling in unsanctioned love with her best friend Kalina. Meanwhile, outside the city of Frombork, Antek, a shipyard engineer and a Solidarity labor union treasurer, escapes from prison and works to recover the union’s money, a task which in time leads him to Emilia’s town. In the metropolitan city of Gdańsk, Roman, a secret police major, wants the money for himself and dreams of his own escape and the magical beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

As the only daughter of a local Communist Party apparatchik, Emilia has
enjoyed a sheltered life, but with the advent of martial law, her mother’s
influence can no longer shield her. She faces choices she never expected to make when she discovers her best friend’s and lover’s involvement with the resistance. With new allies and enemies in town, the time to choose a side is now.

In his debut novel, Karol Lagodzki asks: What separates people who
transcend their fear and take risks for the sake of change from the rest of us?

The answer is up to the readers.

An excerpt from Controlled Conversations by Karol Lagodzki 2

anything feel pain? From over the rim of the cup, Emilia studied her mother’s collection of  kitchen knives sticking out of the old pickle jar in which they lived. Sharp. Especially the  serrated ones.

The front door swung open, and Mother walked in with a canvas tote bag. She pulled a  small brown-paper-wrapped bundle and put it in the refrigerator.

“Sunday. We’ll be eating meat tonight.” She smiled.

Mother used to smile more before Father had left for Germany six years back. Before the  letters and the money had stopped coming, and they lost all contact.

Emilia wanted to return the smile, but her lips refused. “I hope there is enough for three,”  she said. “Kalina will be over for dinner.”

“Sure, even if she eats like a wolf.”

Emilia cocked her head. Mother was being downright cheerful.

The woman seemed to read her thoughts and pulled out two perforated sheets of paper  from her purse. She dropped them on the kitchen table with a flourish.

“How did you score extra rations?” Now, Emilia, too, managed a smile, if a little one, in  the corners of her lips.

“Magic.”

“Black or white?”

“Gray. The only kind there is.” Mother sat on a stool and sighed. “Be a good girl and peel  some potatoes?”

Emilia pulled the bag from under the sink, where, in the dark behind the cabinet doors,  the potatoes kept the propane bottle company. There were six, all sprouting. She pulled three out  and put the rest away. Out of habit she made sure the valve was shut; the range’s burners tended

About Karol Lagodzki:

Karol Lagodzki, a native of Poland, is an exophonic,
English-language author of fiction. His stories have appeared in Invisible City, Storm Cellar, NUNUM, Streetlight Magazine, and elsewhere, and
he has won Panel Magazine’s Ruritania Prize for Short Fiction. Controlled Conversations is his debut novel. 

He holds an MFA in creative writing, buys more books than he can read or afford—usually  novels and short story collections, though he’s been known to pick up an odd book of poetry or  accessible science—and gives back to the literary community by serving as a reader for several journals. Karol’s non-writing careers have ranged from fixing stucco while dangling from roofs  in Paris to sorting through human cadaver heads in Florida to developing and marketing medical  devices for critically ill people in the American Midwest, but his true ambition is to remain a student for as long as he possibly can and make sure more stories make it out onto the page. 

Karol lives halfway down a Southern Indiana ravine with his wonderful, unconventional family,  a scurry of squirrels, a passel of possums, a gaze of raccoons, a descent of woodpeckers, and a  large dog.

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | BlueSky | Goodreads | Amazon

 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a $10 Amazon Gift Card, International.

Ends October 5th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway