THE OFFICER by Michael E. Bistrica
When Lara Rose’s surging Hollywood career begins to stall, her manager arranges a last-minute tour to entertain the troops during the Thanksgiving holiday. With the interference of fate, unassuming Captain Edward Madin is assigned as her escort. As her visit ends, Lara believes she is growing fond of the young captain and, for both a publicity stunt to further her career and her own interest, she begins writing him letters while he is on assignment in the Middle East.
Their letters bring them closer and upon his return their relationship blossoms into romance, but Edward begins to struggle with Lara’s celebrity status. Will their differences and a secret uncovered by the tabloids and paparazzi drive these two apart, or can love truly conquer anything?
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Author Bio:
Michael E Bistrica was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, graduated from Youngstown State University earning a Bachelor of Engineering degree. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, served in various staff and command positions in the United States and overseas, while earning his master’s degree in technology management. He retired from the US Army in 1996 as a Major. After the army, Bistrica worked as a project manager for an engineering firm and then became the project manager for a general contractor in assisting the building of the Georgia World Congress Phase IV Expansion. He later managed several projects in the state of Georgia.
He has been married to his wife Karen for over 34 years and they have one daughter, a granddaughter, and a great-grandson. In his community, he aids in the construction of several Habitat for Humanity houses. In his spare time, Bistrica enjoys reading, astronomy, woodworking, and board and computer war gaming.
FROM THE AUTHOR
I am not a writer though I wrote and had an undergraduate thesis published and had two short articles published when in the military. I never had any intention of authoring a book much less a love story. I usually read military history, military history fiction, science fiction, or Tom Clancy type novels. I retired from the U.S. Army many years ago and after that worked as a construction project manager and building assessor so drafting a book was something I had no experience in. I began drafting this book the summer of 2021 having retired in 2020 from my last civilian job.
During a trip to attend my granddaughter’s baby shower and because of the length of the drive my thoughts turned to a story about two people falling in love. To this day I cannot figure out where or why these thoughts originated. I let this story distract me from the drive. It turns out during our visit and the drive home I could not stop thinking about the story. When I returned home, I figured that if I wrote it down that would be the end of it.
On the first day I started writing and before I knew it, I wrote between 10,000 to 12,000 words and discovered I enjoyed creating and developing the characters. In putting those words on paper my head was now clear. At one point I was going to delete what I had done and move on. Then for some unknown reason I decided that since I had put such effort into it, I would draft a complete book. I began researching online for the requirements of a novel, i.e., number of words, basic format etc. I developed a timeline of events, character names, and the number of chapters. I had several different endings in mind before selecting the one in the book.
It took over a year to complete because of a busy life with my family. After spending two months doing self-edit I decided to file a copyright to protect my work. That is where Dorrance Publishing discovered my manuscript and requested a copy. As I had no intention of trying to get it published I tried to put them off, but they eventually convinced me to send them a copy. It took about nine months from then to THE OFFICER being published in August of 2023.