~ Book Blitz ~
WEST BEGG by Mari.Reiza
Humour / Satire
About the Book:
A hilarious yet dark novel on how power, and the lack of it, shapes people.
Luca’s job is being a punch bag, a tea towel, a toilet bowl, to the undeniable and unbreakable king of egg power proud of averaging two hundred flights a year to visit chicken markets around the world.
Anna moved to Catania to work for caper queen Madame Sicily, fulfilling varied tasks from picking up Céline swimwear before it hits the runways to recovering badly parked Lamborghinis.
La Revolução dreams through buildings but builds parking spaces, when she’s not helping launder money for her boss’s dad’s dodgy charities.
And finally, Carolina is out to conspire with Paquita who met their boss the German in a red lit booth, to understand why the man has to drain the passion out of everything. Their fates will inevitably collide. The question is, will their bosses get what they deserve?
Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon
The setting:
The headquarters of a poultry business in northern Italy. A family led cucunci-drinks company in Catania. A rail transport pressure-group based in Brussels. A bogus architectural project at a UNESCO World Heritage site in a heavenly island off the Americas. A doomed working village in a made-up dodgy country called Altania and a palatial villa, not too far from it, extravagant in all the wrong places, where it’ll all go BOOM!
Meet Luca
He works in poultry equipment for the most ruthless of the Macco brothers who’s not a scared chicken but a proud cockerel, a real paratrooper. ‘I want to eat them,’ Luca constantly listens to his boss shout about their competition, with eyes like a slot machine hitting the jackpot. He’s expected to nod. Also when his master complains of enemies de-compensating him, even if the man would have to be compensated for it to hold true; when he claims to love his wife effusively despite rumours he keeps a mistress ready at his office in Altania. And through Luca’s loyalty he remains but cannon fodder to his employer, expendable in the face of enemy fire. Constant long business trips leave him with colds from the plane’s air conditioning, and hangovers from the number of gin and tonics he drinks in order to stand hours in his tiny seat. And what of his plane fear? When he thinks of it he just takes another Valium. He has no choice as his own uncle refused him a job in his own company. After that he had told himself he would never come back to Italy, he would never return to his small town, would never work for a family business... Never say never.
Meet Anna
She sticks out like a sore thumb on her bike her red curls to the wind, racing through the streets of Catania running deviant errands for Madame Sicily, the queen of cucunci; her company deals in a special type of caper and hit it rolling with a refreshing carbonated drink a few years back. If Madame wants something she calls Anna and screams at her. And nothing ever starts or stops unless Madame wants it, then it does so very quickly. But something is going on in the company, something big: these are uncertain times. ‘Why am I here? Where am I heading?’ Anna is too busy to stop and think, even if admittedly it’s a fake busy, busy doing stupid things. ‘Why do I work for this mad woman?’ she asks herself. She had followed her husband to Sicily so he could fulfill his dream toying with Indian technology to produce electric cars at a disused Fiat plant outside Palermo, only for her to end on the opposite side of the island. At least, from the rooftop of her little terrace she can see the volcano.
Meet La Revolução
She’s a dreamer, dreams through buildings. For her, it’s all about people. She wants to make buildings that save people. She wants a new world of new buildings. Until she accepts work at a famous studio in Geneva, where her first project is two hundred and fifty garage units, in the underground of a luxury development by the lake. After a small amount of time she has given up. Then she reads about Queen Tinea Foundation; ‘Our yacht Live the Dream will anchor in Fernando for the next three years. We aim to preserve one of the most important eco-regions of our planet.’ She’s in. But when she arrives the boat is empty, the crew have oddly taken over the best hotel in the island which belongs to the father of one of the foundation partners. This is when she first meets Irajá, which means beehive, and Irajá baptizes her La Revolução, calling for a revolution.
Meet Carolina
She’s crying on Paquita’s shoulders, can’t face seeing him again and it’s only Monday. Paquita’s the one who really knows him. He’s a viking, with a raw face like a bad cut of meat, so colourless you would think he lives in a cave. German. Lives to work. ‘Ruthless on the outside but miserable in the inside,’ according to Paquita. Carolina’s his Communications Officer. Her job seemed interesting because it came at a vulnerable time, when she suddenly acquired a surprising number of black fillings in her mouth and ringings in her ears, when her girls were urging her to swap her Mazda, with moss growing on the windows, a thorough cover of dog hair on the seats and a floor of crisp packets. ‘I should have realized we would never get on, him and I,’ she knows now.
About the Author:
Mari.Reiza was born in Madrid in 1973. She studied at Oxford University and worked as an investment research writer and management consultant for twenty years in London, before becoming an indie fiction writer. Also by her, Inconceivable Tales, Death in Pisa, Sour Pricks, A Pack of Wolves, STUP, Mum, Watch Me Have Fun!, Marmotte’s Journey, West bEgg, PHYSICAL, Room 11, Triple Bagger, Opera and the Retreat, all available on Amazon.
Author Links:
Twitter * Instagram
