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Wrinkled Heartbeats is Temple’s first novel. Midwest Book Reviews has called it: a deftly crafted and extraordinary novel, very highly recommended.
A Medal of Honor war hero stumbles into a web of money-laundering, lies, and deadly secrets, including the Gator Pole, a painful way to make people disappear in Florida’s famous River of Grass, the Everglades.
A very generous offer to buy the hero’s luxury home includes an expiration date on his life. The only person who can save him is the person hired to kill him.
For the warrior, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Marine Corps becomes a life-threatening allegory in the tropical paradise of the Palm Beaches.
The book was chosen as a Finalist in the prestigious Next Generation Indie Book Awards. It received the award as one of the best First Novels of the year (under 80,000 words).
Wrinkled Heartbeats won the silver medal at the Readers’ Favorite awards in Miami, FL. It has been awarded the coveted Awesome Indies Approval Badge. This signals that a book has been crafted to the editorial standards of major publishers. It shows readers that they can trust that the book is a professional product worthy of their attention.
THE WRINKLED HEARTBEATS PROLOG: Flashbacks to the Korean War, often called The Forgotten War become a revealing backdrop to this novel because of a powerful steroid called Prednisone, given to the hero of the book. The author, an ex-Marine, had Prednisone flashbacks in his award-winning memoir, Warrior Patient. It inspired his use of the steroid as a literary device in this book.
Although Wrinkled Heartbeats occurs in the tropical paradise of Florida’s Palm Beaches today, the flashbacks link the reader to the true story of a brutal, 17-day battle that pitted 67,000 Chinese troops against 30,000 NATO soldiers in North Korea in 1950.
Chairman Mao Zedong ordered his 9th Army, under the command of Song Shi-Lun, to destroy the UN forces that had swept northeast from the Port of Inchon, across the 38th Parallel. The historic Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as the Chosin Reservoir Campaign, turned the UN invasion into a retreat, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.
Chairman Mao’s triumph inflicted such a crippling toll on his own Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) that it became tantamount to defeat. The numbers are staggering. Marine Corps combat losses were 836 dead, less than a thousand warriors. Estimated casualties for the Chinese numbered 35,000 dead, with many more wounded.
History records the Battle of Chosin Reservoir as a great victory for the United States Marine Corps. It becomes a revealing allegory in the novel.
Enjoy the trip.
