About DARE TO SURVIVE, Based on a true story of a woman conned and imprisoned in South America for drug trafficking:
Two friends. One Amazing vacation. A deadly betrayal.
San Francisco businesswoman Cathryn Prentis’ dream of visiting Peru’s Machu Picchu turns into a living nightmare on October 21, 2003 when she is arrested in the Lima airport and charged with transporting cocaine.
Advised by DEA agents, Peruvian lawyers, family and friends to plead guilty and do anything she can—legally or illegally—to escape Peru, Cathryn must choose: should she plead guilty or should she maintain her innocence and risk a deadly prison sentence?
And can she overcome a foreign culture she can’t trust, a language she doesn’t speak, corrupt political systems, and politicians with their own agendas?
Based on a true story!
“Simply riveting reading from start to finish.” – Midwest Book Review
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Author Bio:
Carolyn V. Hamilton lives the U.S. expat life up in southern Ecuador’s Andes mountains in the Spanish colonial town of Cuenca, one of five UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ecuador.
When she’s not struggling with “Spanglish”, she likes to write books, create art journals, cook, and paint photo-realistic watercolors from her personal photo collection. She also likes chocolate, Border Collies, comedy, alpaca shawls, adult coloring, and discovering new restaurants.
Raised as a nice Lutheran girl from Seattle, in the rainy Pacific NW area of the United States, she has no problem with lockdowns because as a child she learned to play quietly in her room. Gray, rainy days feel normal, and she regards sunshine with suspicion.
In addition to writing memoir, fiction and non-fiction, she loves to lead writing workshops, and coach aspiring memoir writers.
Professionally trained as an illustrator and graphic designer, she spent over three decades as a marketing executive and copywriter in the real world of Mad Men. Her BA, in Liberal Arts, is from Antioch University Seattle (where she discovered she could get legitimate credits for “life experience.”)
Carolyn’s other adventures have included two years’ service as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Suriname (chronicled in part in her memoir, HELP! I Married an Alien A Comedian), and a stint—in her “younger days”—as a Playboy Bunny.
And it’s true that she now shares her fifth-floor, penthouse-like condominium with that ex-husband, the stand-up comedian from Las Vegas.