UPDATE!! Sunset on Ramree is now available for 99 cents on Amazon Kindle!!
http://amzn.to/NPEtW9
I've had quite a few inquiries about this one, so I'm proud to announce that this summer, Eternal Press will release my action-packed WW2 novelette,
Sunset on Ramree, in both eBook and paperback editions
.
For more information on the history behind the book, visit:
www.robertappleton.co.uk/sunsetonramree.htm
To learn more about saltwater crocodiles
click here!
Here's the blurb:
It is the deadliest crocodile attack ever recorded. On February 19th, 1945, a thousand Japanese soldiers retreated into the fetid mangrove swamps of Ramree Island. Days later, only twenty were found alive. History has come to know it as the massacre of Ramree, when twelve kilometers of marshland delivered the battalion from their British enemy…straight into a nest of giant saltwater crocodiles.
Inspired by true events during WW2, Sunset on Ramree follows young musician-turned-soldier Shigeatsu Nakadai and his best friend, Kodi, as they head ever deeper into danger. Will friendship be enough to keep them alive in the deadliest place on Earth?
And here's the (in)famous testimony from British marine (and naturalist) Bruce Wright, which became the inspiration for my book:
“That night of the 19 February 1945 was the most horrible that any member of the M.L. [marine launch] crews ever experienced. The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left...Of about 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive.”
You can check out the book trailer
here!
And finally, here's a brief excerpt from Sunset on Ramree:
I try to conjure a memory of before the war—something, anything to distract me—but draw a blank every time. I purse my lips to whistle a familiar tune, but nothing comes out. I shut my eyes tight and roll them inward until they ache and release a heavy pulse. The screams and shots and calls for surrender are still there. Kodi and Sobiku are still there. I imagine the reed of a clarinet between my lips and the long, sustained breath given to making sweetly aching music. But nothing comes out. No tune, no melody, no woodwind to soothe the mangroves. Just the damp, cold harmonics of the night. I’m lost without music, and there is no music on Ramree.
http://amzn.to/NPEtW9
Hope you enjoy reading
Sunset on Ramree this summer. As far as I know, it's one of only two books written on the subject.
COMING JULY 7th from Eternal Press
http://www.eternalpress.biz/
