BooksChatter: ☀ The Last Great Race

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Last Great Race, an Historical Fiction by Mark Morey (26 April 2016, Mark More, 348 pages).

Don't miss our interview with author Mark Morey.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the Prologue and the first five chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

The Last Great Race is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Author Mark Morey will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Teaser | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

This story is based around the life of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic sportsmen of his era, Achille Varzi: multiple race winner, twice Racing Champion of Italy and a hero to his many followers. Told partly through the eyes of Varzi and partly by fictional Italian-Australian racing journalist Paul Bassi, we follow the many triumphs and tragedies of Varzi's life: his passionate love affair with Ilse, his tragic morphine addiction, his recovery from his addictions, his marriage to Norma and his re-signing to race for Alfa Romeo.

Only war intervenes, and Paul and his wife Pia leave Achille to spy for the British at the naval base in Naples. Paul and Pia endure hundreds of Allied air-raids, they join the partisans who fought off the German army until the Allies could rescue them, and then they survive in a near-ruined city as best they can.

By 1946 Italy is still shattered but life is returning to normal, and no more normal is Achille Varzi winning the Grand Prix of Italy that year. Over the next two seasons Achille Varzi scores more successes, until he makes his only ever driving mistake and is killed in Switzerland in 1948. Even though he died too young, Paul and Pia know that Achille Varzi would never have lived in his life in any other way.

Teaser: Excerpt

     Marshal Balbo sent a large, black Fiat for the victor, and Achille was surprised to share the big car with Hans Stuck. They were driven to the Governor’s residence which was more like a palace, and escorted to the banqueting hall. One large table was at the end of the hall, and Achille was to share the victor’s table with Hans Stuck; one at the left and one at the right and a space in the middle. The Air Marshal appeared from a side doorway and greeted both men, and then he stood between them and took a bottle of white wine from an ice cooler before pouring some. He raised his glass, and despite a room of hundreds it was hushed.
     “I want to congratulate the true winner of the nineteen thirty six Gran Premio di Tripoli,” Balbo said before turning to his left. “Hans Stuck!”
     Everyone stood and they all toasted Stuck and Achille couldn’t believe it. He won the race; he won it despite using only fourth gear, and Stuck was being feted for finishing second! Or first, because the team orders came from Balbo? Achille looked around the room and everyone who was anyone in motor sport was there; including the drivers: Caracciola, Chiron, Nuvolari, team mate Rosemeyer and everyone else. Team managers too, including Enzo Ferrari, Neubauer and that idiot Feuereissen. Watching him being made a fool! How could he share the victors table with Stuck feted as winner? How could he be humiliated in front of men he’d beaten over the years? Achille got up and left through the open door to the side.

The Last Great Race
Available NOW!

About the Author

Writing technical documentation and advertising material formed a large part of my career for many decades. Writing a novel didn’t cross my mind until relatively recently, where the combination of too many years writing dry, technical documents and a visit to the local library where I couldn’t find a book that interested me led me consider a new pastime. Write a book. That book may never be published, but I felt my follow-up cross-cultural crime with romance hybrid set in Russia had more potential. So much so that I wrote a sequel that took those characters on a journey to a very dark place.

Once those books were published by Club Lighthouse and garnered good reviews I wrote in a very different place and time. My two novels set in Victorian Britain were published by Wings ePress in July and August of 2014. These have been followed by a story set against the background of Australia's involvement on the Western Front, published in August 2015. Australia's contribution to the battles on the Western Front and to ultimate victory is a story not well known, but should be better known.

Staying within the realm of historical fiction, one of the most successful sportsmen of the 1930s, Achille Varzi, lived a dramatic and tumultuous life. It is a wonder his story hasn't been told before, beyond non fiction written in Italian. The Last Great Race follows the highs and lows of Varzi's motor racing career, and stays in fascist Italy during the dark days of World War Two.

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