This is my stop during the blog tour for Exiled to Freedom by SGD Singh. This blog tour is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours. The blog tour runs from 12 till 25 August. See the tour schedule here.
Exiled to Freedom
By SGD Singh
Genre: Historical Fiction/ Contemporary
Age category: Young Adult
Blurb:
Seventeen year old Joti lives a peaceful life on her ancestral farm in Punjab, far from political turmoil, foreign wars, and the struggle for independence. Until the summer of 1947, when her country is suddenly partitioned to create two sovereign nations—Pakistan and India.
Punjab erupts into a shattered land of nightmares, torn apart by death and destruction. Before the violence subsides, millions of people will have lost their lives and Joti will find herself amongst the countless refugees fighting to survive one of the greatest tragedies of the modern era.
In the summer of 2018, seventeen year old Priya travels from her home in New York City to her great grandmother’s farm in Punjab. Searching for meaning in her materialistic and shallow existence, she becomes determined to uncover the mysteries of the past and heal her family’s wounds, left too long unattended.
Priya soon finds herself on an adventure of discovery, learning what it is to love and what it means to know true peace.
You can find Exiled to Freedom on Goodreads
You can buy Exiled to Freedom here on Amazon
Excerpt:
Monsoon season should have begun by now.
Armies of clouds gather their forces on chariots of distant thunder, darkening the summer sky, growing more engorged each day. But still, not a single drop of water falls to the earth.
Do the clouds hear the prayers of the farmers, toiling beneath them in the dust?
Perhaps thunder is their laughter, a call to celebration. Maybe they wait for the moment when their audience is most attentive, most frantic with anxiety, before they decide to pour blessed relief onto the choking crops far below them.
Or perhaps the elements mock our faithlessness in their ability to remember the season.
I watch the clouds blend together in a happy dance of reunion and I wonder, as I have wondered countless times before: Did the sky cry for us all those years ago? Was it the earth’s tears that tried to wash away the rivers of our blood? Was it her grief that covered our world in mud, disguising the bodies of countless dead and smothering the cries of the dying?
I turn from the sky to look down at my wrinkled hands, and I am suddenly and for the first time filled with a certain and inescapable realization. Those of us who witnessed the flames of hate rise into a raging inferno—we are vanishing.
And those who acted as embers hidden beneath the ashes, waiting to ignite horror within men’s hearts—they are each and every one dead and gone.
Very soon to be forgotten.
Author Interview:
What inspired you to write Exiled to Freedom?
I always thought more people should be aware of the events of India’s Partition in 1947, but it wasn’t until I heard the stories of my friend Parnita’s grandmother’s experiences during that horrific time that I had the inspiration for Exiled to Freedom.
Who is your favorite character in Exiled to Freedom?
Rohit was my favorite character to write while working on this novel.
Why did you want to become a writer?
I think I’ve always been a writer, even as a little kid telling stories in boarding school in India, writing plays I forced my classmates to act out, or short stories even the senior girls would pass around. What makes us become writers? We are writers because we write—that’s it. Wether we’re published by big companies or not, we write because we love it. We write because we must.
What is your favorite book?
This is an impossible question. Impossible! I’ll try to answer with the first three favorites that pop into my brain for various genres:
CLASSIC: The Three Musketeers, Germinal, The Brothers Karamazov
MYSTERY: Everything Sherlock Holmes, Curtain, Everything Nero Wolfe—they could be one volume, right?
SCI-FI: The Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Dune
ROMANCE: Pride & Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, Sense & Sensibility
FANTASY: The Princess Bride, The Chronicles of Narnia, Circe
HORROR: The Shining, Swan Song, Dracula
YOUNG ADULT: Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Including Strange the Dreamer duology—it’s connected), The Scorpio Races, LIFEL1K3.
NON FICTION: Born A Crime, We Are Displaced, I Am Jackie Chan
CONTEMPORARY: I’ll Give You The Sun, Before I Fall, Call Me by Your Name
Okay, no. That didn’t work at all. What about Shakespeare? What about the rest of the COUNTLESS awesome books in the world?
What other books do you have planned?
I’m currently working on a zombie story—and trying not to think about my next trilogy!
What is your favorite color?
Blue. No, yel—aaaaaaaah!!
What is your favorite book you’ve written?
The Infernal Guard One: Emergence. The first will always hold a special place in my heart, even though the second was more fun to write.
About the Author:
SiriGuruDev Singh lives in New Mexico and Punjab, India with her husband, two daughters, and various extended relatives and animals. She is the author of the YA urban fantasy trilogy The Infernal Guard and Exiled To Freedom, a YA historical fiction novel about India’s bloody Partition of 1947.
You can find and contact SGD Singh here:
– Website
– Facebook
– Twitter
– Pinterest
– Instagram
– Goodreads
– Amazon
Giveaway
There is a tour wide giveaway for the blog tour of Exiled to Freedom. There will be 5 winners who all win a signed copy of Exiled to Freedom. Open International.
For a chance to win, enter the rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
What did you think about the author interview?
