TEPUI: The Last Expedition by John Oehler

FIRST PLACE WINNER in the coveted PNWA competition. Tepui is a tale of adventure, terror, and forbidden love.

Jerry Pace, a struggling young botanist, reluctantly agrees to accompany his best friend deep into the Orinoco to retrace a doomed, 1559 expedition from which only 6 of 46 explorers returned.

But the Venezuelan wilderness does not forgive intruders. Battered and broken, they reach a remote Catholic orphanage where the old prioress warns of death awaiting any who would venture farther. But an exotic Indian girl leads them on, through piranha-infested rivers and jungles teaming with poisonous plants, to Tepui Zupay–the forbidden mountain no outsider has set eyes on since the Spaniards met their doom.

This is a story about life’s surprises–the challenges, risks–and how they transform us.

Category: Suspense