Like many people who work second shift, when Mike Mozeleski arrives home from his job as an industrial electrician at Schott Optical in Duryea, he’s usually wide awake. Rather than watch late-night network television, or binge watch shows on streaming services, Mozeleski became an avid reader. His appetite for books led the Mountain Top man to something that has become more than a hobby – writing books.
“I’ve always wanted to write a book,” Mozeleski related. “I’ve read tons of books, so I’ve come up with some ideas.”
Recently, he wrote and published his fourth book, “Phoenix Eve” which is set in the Mountain Top/Wilkes-Barre area.
Mozeleski described the plot of his recent novel during an interview on the deck of his Fairview Township home, surrounded by an array of colorful potted plants. (His wife, Andrea, is the gardener, he points out.)
The book’s protagonist, Alexis, grew up in a high-tech bomb shelter located at the foothills of Mountain Top. The shelter was built by her parents in preparation for a post-nuclear world. Alexis never left the shelter until her parents died so all her knowledge of the world and society came from books she read and from a library of movies and videos she watched in the shelter. Taught by her father, she’s also a martial arts expert.
After her parents’ death, Alexis, all alone in her hi-tech vault, realizes she must venture outside for food and supplies if she is to survive. On one of her scavenging trips, at the Home Depot in Wilkes-Barre, she encounters the first human other than her parents she has ever met. The story goes on to describe her interaction with other survivors of nuclear war as well as aliens she encounters.
Mozeleski said his first novel, “Beyond the Apocalypse,” was published through a vanity publisher. His recent books were published through Amazon. “I don’t have a lot of money to put money into publishing books,” he explained. He noted that while Amazon will publish the books for free, it requires a lot of work. In addition to writing and editing the book, it requires designing the cover, uploading and formatting the manuscript.
His second book, “Zeke the Puppy,” is a collection of short stories and essays about the adventures of Zeke, Mozeleski’s Villa Maltese dog. During the interview about his writing career, Zeke follows Mozeleski throughout his home and outside onto the deck where he does a perimeter search for recent intruders such as squirrels and rabbits.
His third novel, “Eternity,” features Nick Baudry who the book cover describes as “a nobody, living the last 430 years in relative boredom like everyone else on the planet, all nine billion of them.” The event which occurs gives them virtual immortality, but also a remembrance of all their past lives.
To read electronic versions or obtain hard copies of Mozeleski’s novels, search for his name and titles at Amazon.com.
