Fiction Author Bart Brevik Wins 2011 New York Book Festival

June 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Shadow House Publishing is pleased to announce that fiction author Bart Brevik has won the 2011 New York Book Festival in the Unpublished Stories category for his yet-to-be-released suspense novel, An Infidel In Babylonia.

An Infidel in Babylonia is the first-person narrative of a nineteen year old high school graduate who joins the National Guard in 2002, and is sent to Iraq soon after the allied invasion. Neither a typical YA novel nor a war story, the action-packed suspenseful account of the protagonist's supernatural protection from the forces of evil swirling about that accursed region will show a new classic coming-of-age novel with a paranormal twist.

Synopsis:
Being shot down over an Iraqi desert full of violent insurgents wasn’t what nineteen year-old Mark Nelson had in mind when he left his girlfriend and family behind, and signed up for the Army National Guard coming straight out of high school in 2002.

Now he awakens dazed and battered, lying in a sandy dry river bed in the middle of nowhere to find himself the sole survivor of the horrific crash that resulted from his C-130 cargo plane taking a missile hit. With no time to grieve for his fellow soldiers, Mark is thrust into an all-out chase across the barren desert lands and hostile small villages of the Sunni Triangle with nothing but the clothes on his back.

Hotly pursued by the gang of hate-breathing militants that shot down his plane, he struggles under the weight of dehydration and fatigue to stay one step ahead.

An unexpected encounter with a native man and his teenage son offers a shred of hope to his otherwise hopeless plight, and they set off together toward the closest American Army base. But Forward Operating Base Gold is set in the dangerous militant-infested city of Fallujah. Facing long odds in their desperate gambit for survival, Mark must draw upon every survival skill learned in basic training, all his strategy and cunning, and every ounce of physical stamina he can muster to stay ahead of his enemy – aspiring militant leader Abdul Al-Bawari; a dangerous man with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. How can Mark and his new-found friends make it to Fallujah in time? Once there, how will they navigate the streets of this God-forsaken city to find the refuge of FOB Gold before the enemy finds them?

Driven by his unquenchable desire to see his family again and build a future together with his girlfriend Kristi, Mark pushes himself well beyond his own physical, mental, and emotional limits to do whatever he must to survive this ordeal.


An Infidel in Babylonia (a rough draft) previously made it to the quarterfinal round of the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Brevik's first horror novel, Outer Darkness, was the winner of the 2009 Green Book Festival, in the Mystery category. Outer Darkness was also a finalist for the 2009 Pluto Award (Yellow30 Sci-Fi Organization), the 2008 USA Book News award, and the 2009 Nashville Book Festival.  Outer Darkness was just published in April 2011 by horror publisher Black Bed Sheets Books / Diverse Media.

Bart Brevik is a member of Horror Writers of America (HWA), and was recently a featured guest on the Francy and Friends Blog Talk Radio Show to promote the release of Outer Darkness.

# # #

Shadow House is a micro-publisher of pre-release stage books by author Bart Brevik. An Infidel In Babylonia has not been optioned for publication through a royalty publisher as of the date of this press release.