Hemet, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/09/2013 -- Now in his mid-fifties, Valentine Tapia has achieved a lot. A mature graduate of Cal-State University, Tapia has garnered accolades including the Editor’s Choice Award at Poetry.com and CSUSB’s Speak of the Year in 2006. As an eight-time General Elections Inspector and father to two beautiful children, he has a lot to be proud of. However, what makes his story different is that, until the age of forty, Tapia resided in prison.

In a ground-breaking new book ‘Tin Solider’, Tapia chronicles his crime, incarceration and redemption in the hope that it will empower young people to avoid the same mistakes he made in early life.

Synopsis:

Valentine tells his compelling true story of redemption in Tin Soldier. He describes his desperate determination in his quest for transformation toward peace and salvation. He is consumed by the darkness of despair through his years as a teenager until the age of forty. He then begins his journey in search of comfort, and to distance himself from his past of heroin addiction and prison.

Tin Soldier tells of the teenager who enters the crossroads of catastrophe but is halted and changed through spiritual intervention. After his release from prison in1998, the Tin is recycled and ready to become a Soldier of God; a warrior in his efforts to tell his story of pain and rebirth.

The new road that Valentine Tapia now follows demonstrates that he has truly attained redemption, and that he has turned away from the recklessness of crime and drug addiction. He relates his story as an example for others to learn from his mistakes so that they, too, are able to choose a new life.

As the author explains, he is passionate about educating the nation’s young people.

“I never want anyone else to take the same path that ultimately leads in misery,” says Tapia, who has been clean and sober for seventeen years.

He continues, “We need to help those who are less fortunate. I can't change anyone, but hope to inspire and encourage them to see the lighthouse, and go toward it with God.”

With such a passionate and inspirational story to tell, Tapia hopes his book will get into the hands of every young person in need.

“Tin soldier needs to be in every juvenile halls, prisons, group home, boys and girls club and jails all across the nation and around the world. I want it to be networked to all institutions on a global basis, so that young people can read a first-hand account of how the choices they make during their teen years greatly affect the rest of their lives,” he adds.

Critics praise the book for its mission to change the world. With young persons’ reading statistics on the rise, literature is fast becoming a powerful tool to spread messages among today’s youth.

Interested parties and institutions are urged to get in touch with Tapia to arrange for books to be stocked at their location. No enquiry will be dismissed.

‘Tin Solider’, published by CreateSpace, is available now: http://bit.ly/UyBHo3

For more information, visit the author’s official website: http://valentinotapia.blogspot.ca