Friday, June 9, 2017

Tricia Dower - Becoming Lin - Review & Giveaway



About the Book

It’s 1965. Twenty-two-year-old Linda Wise despairs of escaping her overprotective parents and the town of Stony River where far too many know she was sexually assaulted as a teenager. Deliverance arrives in the form of marriage to the charismatic, twenty-six-year-old Ronald Brunson, a newly ordained Methodist minister who ignites in her a dormant passion for social justice. He tells her war and racial discrimination are symptoms of the “moral rot” destroying the country, conjuring up something dark and rancid in her mind, thrilling in its wickedness. He sweeps her away from New Jersey to serve with him at a church in a speck-on-the-map prairie town in Minnesota. What lies ahead for her over the next seven years is the subject of Tricia Dower’s penetrating study of a marriage and a woman’s evolving sense of self as she confronts the fear that keeps her from an unfettered future. Becoming Lin conjures the turbulent era of Freedom Riders for civil rights, Vietnam war resistance, the US government’s war against the resisters, the push for equal rights for women and the unraveling of the traditional marriage contract—an era that resonates today in tenacious racism and sexism, perpetual war and wide-reaching government surveillance.




My Review

"Gender is the single most important factor in attitudes toward the use of military force."

So says the thesis of pastor's wife / college student, Lin Brunson. But her undergrad independent study project turns into a whole lot more than she bargains for when she starts handing out surveys to the women in her husband's congregation. They stir up a whole hornet's nest of questions including: Why not use the huge chunk of federal funds earmarked for war and allocate it for women and children's services instead?

But the ladies are quickly silenced when a veteran among them voices aloud that no one can deny the type of bond that forms between men serving in combat, guys who are willing to risk their lives for one another. In his mind, a woman just can't understand what that means to guys like him.

So the question is rephrased: "Do men get saddled with war and women childbirth in some cosmic balancing act?"

And Lin doesn't stop there. She starts marching in rallies for peace as well as sheltering draft dodgers in her home, on their way to Canada. But when she starts getting threatening letters in the mail saying, "Beware traitor," she begins having second thoughts. The exhilaration she felt at speaking out about the war soon turns into a sickening dread.

So much so that her marriage breaks apart and she ends up on her own as a single mom, trying to make ends meet. But she keeps crusading, taking on the upper levels of management and bringing to their attention the lack of women executives, not to mention minorities. When the company tries to stonewall her, a fellow female employee congratulates her, "You must be doing something right. Somebody's looking to shut you up."

This quiet, little mouse of a woman turns into a mighty crusader. Lin starts calling the shots of her own life, and it's inspiring to journey with her through the growing pains of her transformation.

***

Becoming Lin can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes
IndieBound
BooksaMillion
Midpoint Trade
Kobo

Prices/Formats: $12.99 ebook, $22.95 paperback
Genre: Women's Fiction, Historical, Coming of Age
Pages: 240
Release: March 20, 2017
Publisher: Caitlin Press
ISBN: 9781987915075
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

Tricia Dower hails from Rahway, New Jersey. You can find her on the “Rahway’s Own” website with other individuals the town has recognized for innovation and creativity. A graduate of Gettysburg College and a Phi Mu, she built a career in business before reinventing herself as a writer in 2002. Her literary work has crossed borders and won awards. She expanded a story from her Shakespeare-inspired collection, Silent Girl (Inanna 2008) into Stony River, which was published in both Canada (Penguin 2012) and the US (Leapfrog 2016). She gave a character from Stony River her own novel in Becoming Lin (Caitlin Press 2016), now available in the US.

The Vancouver Sun says, “Some of the most powerful and eloquent novelists of the 20th and 21st centuries…including Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence and Ethel Wilson...open up what had been cloaked in silence, the oppression of women and their self-discoveries in resistance. We can now add to this important liberation canon the name of Tricia Dower.”

A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, Dower lives and writes in Brentwood Bay, BC.

Links to connect with Tricia:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Blog


About the Giveaway

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Friday, June 2, 2017

Michael J. McCann - Burn Country - Review & Giveaway



About the Book

The latest in a series of barn fires in Leeds County turns ugly when a body is discovered inside the burned-out husk of an old hay barn near the village of Elgin. When the victim turns out to be Independent Senator Darius Lane, a renowned artist and social activist recently appointed to the upper chamber by the prime minister, Detective Inspector Ellie March of the Ontario Provincial Police finds herself coping with an RCMP national security team which must first assess whether the senator’s involvement in sensitive government business led to his brutal murder by forces hostile to Canada. While Detective Constable Kevin Walker works the case files of the previous barn fires looking for a serial arsonist within Leeds County who may have killed for the first time, Ellie discovers that the intervention of RCMP Assistant Commissioner Danny Merrick, unexpectedly polite and charming, will place her directly in the cross-hairs of a homicide investigation with national repercussions! This is the second book in the March and Walker Crime Novel series and the sequel to Sorrow Lake, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Hammett Award for best North American crime novel.


My Review

"This is burn country, man. I think half the population of this province just likes watching s*** burn."

From weeds crackling in ditches to bonfires set in newly cleared fields, the residents of Sorrow Lake, a small, backwater community in Canada, like a good blaze. So why in the world is the latest arson case considered a possible threat to national security?

Well, as it turns out, it's not just arson—but murder—when a charred body is found among the smoldering rubble. And it's not just any corpse, either. Oh no, it's that of a left-wing senator. Immediately the stakes are raised for the investigators assigned to the case, especially when the prime minister, himself, is expecting frequent updates when it comes to their findings.

That's why I love how the mindset of the killer is explained through magic tricks. Walker is a young cop who trusted the wrong people early in his career. He can't lie for the life of him, and he's sick of people taking advantage of his good nature. So he takes up this new magician's hobby in order "to see what it's like to fool people," much to the chagrin of his snarly, more experienced partner, Bishop.

But there's a method to Walker's madness. It's all about misdirection, or "forcing attention to one spot while doing something at another spot when they're not looking." In other words, it's like studying the art of getting away with a crime.

It's a neat technique that the author uses in order to get us to think about how someone goes about committing the perfect murder. Some plan everything down to the last detail, while others get caught up in the heat of the moment and make mistake after mistake after mistake, leaving a trail of evidence a mile long. Walker and Bishop don't know who they're dealing with as they begin crisscrossing the countryside investigating a series of confirmed arsons, but they're about to find out what kind of a firebug they're dealing with.

And when Walker begins making some serious headway, his star just may get a chance to shine a bit brighter higher up the ladder. Sometimes good guys don't always finish last, and this one may not have to settle for being a part-time magician at children's birthday parties after all.


***

Burn Country can be purchased at:
Amazon
Kobo

Prices/Formats: $5.99 ebook, $24.99 paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781927884096
Publisher: Plaid Raccoon Press
Release: March 17, 2017
Click to add to your Goodreads list.


About the Author

Michael J. McCann was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He earned degrees in English from Trent University and Queen's University in Kingston, ON.

He is the author of Sorrow Lake, the first March and Walker Crime Novel, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Hammett Award for best crime novel in North America.

He is also the author of the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel Series, including Blood Passage, Marcie's Murder, and The Fregoli Delusion. The Rainy Day Killer, the most recent in the series, was longlisted for the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel in Canada.

Links to connect with Michael:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Blog (mystery)
Blog (paranormal)
Pinterest
YouTube
Blog Tour Site


About the Giveaway

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