Claudia Riess - Love and Other Hazards - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Glenda Fieldston is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her seven-year-old daughter, Astrid, when Eugene Lerman comes walking by with his eight-year-old daughter, Meredith, a schoolmate of Astrid’s. The families spot each other, Glenda and Eugene engage in long-range cursory assessments, and then they go their separate ways. But not for long. Glenda and Eugene cross paths professionally soon after, and circumstances at work bring them into close association. So begins a friendship fraught with complications. Glenda’s independence is self-imposed and fierce. Eugene’s was foisted on him by a wife who left him. Although Glenda’s and Eugene’s personal demons are incompatible, their longings are, confoundedly, in harmony. Their cautious friendship is further inhibited by past and present relationships, and it remains to be seen if they can break out of their set ways to make a break for uncharted love.

Review

Relationships lack a certain something without conflict. A sense of tension doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing when it comes to romance. Sometimes, it ignites a spark between two opposites.

...as in the case of Glenda and Eugene.

She's the uptight neurotic and he's the disheveled philosopher. They drive each other crazy, but in a good way. It reminds me of a scene in the last Harry Potter movie when Hermione mutters about Ron, "When am I not mad at him?" It's that kind of push and pull dynamic that keeps the fire of romance alive and burning.

But at the base of things, the couple truly has to care about each other. Challenging the one you love needs to be done with tender loving care, otherwise it devolves into nothing but cattiness and cruelty, a series of stinging rebukes without any constructive encouragement.

Ultimately, it's about growth, individually and collectively. If a couple can grow together, then they stand a chance of making it. Her honesty tries him, while his presumptuousness makes her want to run in the opposite direction. Yet somehow they make it work when, "her…vulnerability bounded out to meet his."

He likes how he can't figure her out. He's drawn to how she's "staunchly independent, yet cloyingly maternal." She resists letting down her guard with him, especially when it comes to not looking her best in front of him. However, she finds out that he likes her when she's a mess, when she's not perfect. She's finally able to let her hair down and he discovers a newfound excitement when it comes to monogamy, because now with Glenda, he is able to approach it with a heightened awareness and an enhanced appreciation.

Do they eventually make it down the aisle? Well, the last line says it best: "She felt control falling from her like a bridal gown, exposing her to the hazards and other possibilities of love."

***

Love and Other Hazards can be purchased at:
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Barnes and Noble
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Prices/Formats: $2.99 ebook, $14.95 paperback
Genre: Family Life, Romance
Pages: 256
Release: May 10, 2017
Publisher: River Grove
ISBN: 9781632991225
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

About the Author

Claudia Riess is a Vassar graduate who has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker magazine and Holt, Rinehart and Winston books and has edited several art history monographs. Her first novel, “Reclining Nude,” was published by Stein and Day. Oliver Sacks, author of “Awakenings,” had said her first book was “exquisite—and delicate… a most courageous book, full of daring—a daring only possible to a passionate and pure heart.”

The author divides her time between the Hamptons and Manhattan with her husband, Bob.

Links to connect with Claudia:
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Blog Tour Site


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Jerome Charyn - Winter Warning - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Reflecting our own world like a volatile funhouse mirror, Winter Warning lures us back to the 1980s, an era that could have been ripped right out of our most recent political upheaval. Isaac Sidel should have been vice president, banished to some far corner of the West Wing, but the president-elect has been forced to resign or face indictment for his crooked land deals—and Sidel becomes the accidental president. He’s a maverick, a crusader with a Glock in his belt, who defies both the Republicans and the Democrats. He seems haunted by Lincoln’s ghost, and the presidential palace becomes his own “great white jail,” as it did for Harry Truman. There’s never been another president quite like Isaac Sidel, New York’s former police commissioner and mayor. There’s a secret lottery created by some bankers in Basel to determine the exact date of Sidel’s death. And Sidel has to outrun this lottery in order to save himself. His greatest allies are not the Secret Service or the DNC, but a former Israeli prime minister who was a explosives operative during the British occupation of Palestine . . . as well as a mysterious billionaire who belongs to a brotherhood of killers and counterfeiters. His only companions in the capital are the captain of his helicopter fleet and a sexy naval intelligence officer who realizes that something has gone amuck at Camp David, when a band of mercenaries arrive with their sights trained on Sidel.



My Review

Some presidents break the mold. Isaac Sidel is one of those presidents. And it's not long before the first Jewish president becomes everyone's favorite target.

Take for example the following offhand remark: "What does it feel like to ferry the big Jew around? Does he recite his evening prayers in a yarmulke?" Little respect is shown for the new commander-in-chief. The Secret Service can't protect him. His chief of staff ignores him. There's a civil war brewing in his cabinet. And oh yeah, there's an underground lottery out there betting on the exact date of his death.

And just who's running this lottery? A group of bankers, looking to get even richer. With his enemies ready to eat him alive, it's open season on Isaac Sidel.

Is it just because he's Jewish? Not necessarily. Their defiance and abandonment is fueled by more than just anti-Semitism. He's a danger to the establishment because he doesn't care about money or power. His campaign promises mean something to him, he never meant for them to become lies. Yet he's mocked by those seeking to bring him down, "Sidel's a dreamer. He'll turn Yankee Land into one big welfare state. All our holdings will be flushed into the toilet. We can't afford him."

Yet Sidel, an ex-police chief, isn't ready to go down without a fight. He's not about to let his presidency disappear down the black hole of politics. He doesn't care if he's their currency, their bait. In his mind, the only one who's going to determine his fate is him, regardless if their rate of exchange is currently being measured in spoonfuls of his blood.

For Isaac Sidel, his heartbeat is not negotiable, and boy, oh boy, in the latter half of the book does he ever turn the tables on them.

***

Winter Warning can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound
iTunes
Biblio

Prices/Formats: $25.95 ebook, $25.95 paperback
Genre: Political, Espionage, Thriller
Pages: 256
Release: October 1, 2017
Publisher: Pegasus Books
ISBN: 9781681773483
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

Jerome Charyn published his first novel in 1964. He's the author of Johnny One-Eye, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, I Am Abraham, and dozens of other acclaimed novels as well as nonfiction works. His short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Paris Review, American Scholar, Epoch, and Ellery Queen. Charyn's popular crime novels featuring homicide detective Isaac Sidel inspired a new animated drama series: Hard Apple debuts on the small screen in 2017, helmed by Hollywood insider James Gray (The Immigrants) and illustrated by famed artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka. Charyn lives in Greenwich Village, New York.

Links to connect with Jerome:
Web Site
Facebook (author)
Twitter (author)
Facebook (Isaac Sidel)
Twitter (Isaac Sidel)
Goodreads

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A. Keith Carreiro - The Penitent: Part II - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Hidden in the bottom of a roadside ditch as a baby, Evangel is only steps away from her viciously murdered parents. An old hermit finds her there a day later and takes her to his home in the heart of a sylvan wilderness. She is raised in a hermitage built by Matthew where he learns she is touched by a rare spiritual power. 17 years later a series of miracles occur that rock the very nature of her reality. Befriended by outlaws and a king’s champion, she is also betrayed by a woman of the cloth during a bard of the realm’s performance. That night, in a dream, Evangel envisions her future soul mate, Pall Warren, on a battlefield of death, and casts a prayer of protection around him. Thus begins a remarkable journey to save herself and those who believe in her. A hauntingly beautiful and startling tale of wonder.



My Review

"The forces and omens are assembling into play…to ignite into being."

Now that's what I call a great introduction. With opening references from the Bible to Shakespeare, the scene is set. What has been predicted, by so many for so long, is now about to come true.

So is this a novel all about doom and destruction? Surprisingly, no. Yes, there are parts that are graphically violent and crude. Yet the main message revolves around, "there is goodness and innocence in the world if we but look for it." And happily, it resides in the heart of a 17-year-old girl and the tender restored eyes of her grandfather-protector. Together, they shatter the enveloping darkness that begins to surround them with their own combined light.

A genuine miracle occurs when the girl begins to work wonders for the people, so that "the laws of nature are suspended…or rather fulfilled." It's an interesting way to look at things, as if the possibility of the miraculous is just within our grasp if we but reach for it. In the story, "each moment in time is filled with this potential. We have but to invoke it in faith for it to be seen in our presence."

Yet the girl's strength centers not so much on performing unbelievable feats, but on forgiving her enemies. She doesn't let hate fester inside of her. Instead, she turns the violence committed against them into an act of healing and love.

Yet grave danger accompanies the revelation of tenderness and mercy. It makes some people very uncomfortable, and it's not long until all the deadly sins are unleashed upon them. Envy. Pride. Fear. You name it. The rich, the powerful, the well-connected—all want to overthrow their sense of comfort and peace.

Yet they carry on because they know what they're doing is right. It's a burden they're willing to bear, secure in the knowledge that their treasure isn't found in this realm, but "within man's heart and heaven's home."

***

The Penitent: Part II can be purchased at:
Amazon

Prices/Formats: $4.99 ebook, $15.99 paperback
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Pages: 274
Release: May 15, 2017
Publisher: Copper Beech Press
ISBN: 9780997382716
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

A. Keith Carreiro earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education, with the sequential help and guidance of three advisors, Dr. Vernon A. Howard, Dr. Donald Oliver and Professor Emeritus, Dr. Israel Scheffler. Keith’s academic focus, including his ongoing research agenda, centers upon philosophically examining how creativity and critical thinking are acquired, learned, utilized and practiced in the performing arts. He has taken his findings and applied them to the professional development of educational practitioners.

Earlier in his teaching career he was a professor of educational foundations, teaching graduate students of education at universities in Vermont, Florida, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor of English at Bridgewater State University, as well as teaching English, philosophy, humanities and public speaking courses at Bristol Community College.

He lives in Swansea, Massachusetts. He has six children and 13 grandchildren. He belongs to an eighty–five–pound golden retriever, an eight–pound Maltese, and an impish Calico cat.

Due to his love of family, he has seen his fervor for history, as well as his passion for wondering about the future, deepen dramatically.

Starting on May 23rd until October 9th of 2014, he sat down at his computer on a daily basis and began writing the first book of a science fiction/fantasy thriller in a beginning series about the quest for human immortality.

Links to connect with A. Keith:
Web Site
Facebook
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Blog


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R. Franklin James - The Bell Tolls - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Hollis Morgan has survived imprisonment, received a pardon and persevered to finally become a probate attorney. Tough as she is, her newest case will further test her mettle. She discovers her client, Matthias Bell, is a deceased blackmailer whose last wish was to return the damaging documents he collected, letting his victims off the hook. It falls to Hollis to give them the good news. But it’s revealed that Bell was murdered, and the victims of “Bell’s tolls” are now suspects.

Hollis’ white-collar criminal past has left her with keen survival instincts. A gifted liar she knows a liar when she meets one. A lot of people in this case are lying and one is a killer.

On top of that, she’s also representing a dying stripper, a wealthy widow whose estranged daughter spurns her attempts at reconciliation, but whose husband sees the potential inheritance as mending all wounds particularly financial ones.

Clients aside, Hollis is defensive and wary. Her mother, who hasn’t spoken to her for years, needs a kidney, and Hollis is a match, but neither are ready to put away the past. With Hollis’ fiancé and emotional support off on an undercover mission for Homeland Security, she must count on her own survival instincts. She is swept along on an emotional roller coaster as her absent love and her family’s coldness take their own toll.

Work is her salvation. The specter of a killer keeps her focused. Hollis has always had to rely on her wits, but now she finds that others who don’t have her well-being in mind are relying on them as well.


My Review

What are you supposed to do with a blackmailer?

For the five victims manipulated in this story, you wait for him to die.

What exactly did he have on them, you wonder?

Well, one had a fling outside of marriage. Another cooked the books at work, concocting a fraudulent banking system. A third failed at properly hiding his gambling addiction. While a couple of foreign spies were willing to pay an exorbitant amount to keep their true identity under wraps.

And you can say, living under the constant strain of such torment gets to be too much for them. So when their blackmailer unexpectedly dies, they can't believe they've actually reached the end of the line with him. Finally, they can let go of the imminent threat of exposure he's been holding over their heads for far too long.

However, Hollis, the probate attorney hired to let them off the hook, becomes acutely aware of her own precarious situation, now that she, too, is privy to all their secrets.

And when the blackmailer's family orders his body to be exhumed, suspecting foul play, the cause of death turns out to be murder. Now constantly looking over her shoulder, Hollis is afraid the killer may be out to get her too.

The big twist comes at the end of the book when it's revealed that the blackmailer never intended to return the material he was holding on his victims after all. Someone else set them free from his reign of terror. But did that person (or persons) kill him too? You'll just have to read the book and find out.

***

The Bell Tolls can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes
Kobo
Overdrive

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $15.95 paperback
Genre: Women's Sleuth, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Pages: 239
Release: June 1, 2017
Publisher: Camel Press
ISBN: 9781603812177
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

R. Franklin James grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. From there she cultivated a different type of writing—legislation and public policy. After serving as Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles, under millionaire Richard Riordan, she went back to her first love—writing, and in 2013 her debut novel, The Fallen Angels Book Club was published by Camel Press. Her second book in The Hollis Morgan Mystery Series, Sticks & Stones, was followed by The Return of the Fallen Angels Book Club, and The Trade List. The Bell Tolls, book five was released in June 2017.

R. Franklin James lives in Northern California with her husband.

Links to connect with R. Franklin James:
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Facebook
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Rich Zahradnik - Lights Out Summer - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

In March 1977, ballistics link murders going back six months to the same Charter Arms Bulldog .44. A serial killer, Son of Sam, is on the loose. But Coleridge Taylor can't compete with the armies of reporters fighting New York's tabloid war--only rewrite what they get. Constantly on the lookout for victims who need their stories told, he uncovers other killings being ignored because of the media circus. He goes after one, the story of a young Black woman gunned down in her apartment building the same night Son of Sam struck elsewhere in Queens. The story entangles Taylor with a wealthy Park Avenue family at war with itself. Just as he's closing in on the killer and his scoop, the July 13-14 blackout sends New York into a 24-hour orgy of looting and destruction. Taylor and his PI girlfriend Samantha Callahan head out into the darkness, where a steamy night of mob violence awaits them. In the midst of the chaos, a suspect in Taylor's story goes missing. Desperate, he races to a confrontation that will either break the story--or Taylor. Book 4 in the Coleridge Taylor Mystery series.



My Review

"Stereotypes had a bad way of making you wrong."

But for poor Martha Gibson that sentiment no longer applies…because she's dead.

And the sad thing is no one seems to care that a young, black woman has been murdered, not when the press and the police are fixated on one thing: stopping the Son of Sam killer from killing again. Unsurprisingly, her case falls through the cracks, until a lowly news wire reporter named Taylor makes it his mission to tell her story.

"There was a White city and a Black city. He knew too little of the Black city."

Taylor is no rookie to witnessing racism in action in the city, but he becomes thoroughly disgusted by it when he starts investigating Martha's case. Just how did a college-educated woman get stuck cleaning toilets for a living? She started off well, rising from secretary to a sales position for a company located in the Empire State Building…until her boss started making unwanted sexual advances on her.

"He came on real strong. She said no. He fired her."

Holding fast to her principles, Martha was left with no other choice than to take a job as a maid on Park Avenue, until her predatory ex-boss came after her and assaulted her in an alleyway.

"Did she go to the cops?" Taylor questions a witness.
"You kidding? Black woman. White man. Black witness."

A rhetorical no.

Of course, she didn't. That's why she's dead. But did her ex-boss kill her? That's what Taylor is trying to find out.

Martha was a girl who didn't make enemies. She didn't make mistakes. She only talked about people if she had something good to say. And yet it quickly becomes clear to Taylor that Martha didn't know how she fit, or was supposed to fit, in 1977 New York.

No one else seems to know either, when her death is mocked by:

1) The tabloid press
"A black woman was murdered? We're looking a different reader."

2) The mother of her ex-boss
"A news story about her?" She laughed. "They can't even read."

3) Her friends and family
"A white man is doing a story on a black woman from Queens by coming up to Harlem?"

The story subtly addresses the question, has anything really changed?

***

Lights Out Summer can be pre-ordered at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $15.95 paperback, $29.95 audio
Genre: Historical, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Pages: 288
Release: October 1, 2017
Publisher: Camel Press
ISBN: 9781603812139
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

Rich Zahradnik is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed Coleridge Taylor Mystery series (Lights Out Summer, A Black Sail, Drop Dead Punk, Last Words).



The first three books have been shortlisted or won awards in the three major competitions for novels from independent presses. A Black Sail was named winner in the mystery category of the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Drop Dead Punk collected the gold medal for mystery ebook in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Last Words won the bronze medal for mystery/thriller ebook in the 2015 IPPYs and honorable mention for mystery in the 2015 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards.

"Taylor, who lives for the big story, makes an appealingly single-minded hero," Publishers Weekly wrote of Drop Dead Punk.

 A Black Sail received a starred review from Library Journal, which said, “Fans of the late Barbara D’Amato and Bruce DeSilva will relish this gritty and powerful crime novel.”

Zahradnik was a journalist for 25-plus years, working as a reporter and editor in all major news media, including online, newspaper, broadcast, magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News, Fox Business Network, AOL and The Hollywood Reporter.



Zahradnik was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1960 and received his B.A. in journalism and political science from George Washington University. He lives with his wife Sheri and son Patrick in Pelham, New York, where he writes fiction and teaches kids around the New York area how to write news stories and publish newspapers.



Links to connect with Rich:
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Facebook
Twitter
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Blog


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Sharon St. George - Spine Damage - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Paulo Ferrara, a young Portuguese man, lies comatose in the Intensive Care Unit of Timbergate Medical Center, shot in the spine. The neurosurgeon who would normally be in charge of his care has left town to attend to an injured daughter, and the only other neurosurgeon, the rude and egotistical Dr. Godfrey Carver, is about to be suspended for not completing his continuing education requirements. The unpleasant duty of ensuring that the staff obey the rules lies with Aimee Machado, the medical center's forensic librarian and Continuing Education Coordinator. Aimee and her pilot boyfriend Nick live together on her grandparents’ llama farm. While dealing with Dr. Carver, Aimee learns the circumstances of Paulo’s injury and enlists Nick’s help. Aimee is half Asian and half Portuguese, and her parents live on Faial, one of the Azores Islands off the coast of Portugal. Faial is the closest neighbor to Pico, home of Paulo and his family. Paulo came to rural Northern California in search of his fifteen-year-old sister Liliana, who vanished two weeks ago. Nick’s wealthy employer Buck Sawyer takes an interest in the girl’s plight as well, especially when they learn that she left the Azores on a superyacht. Not only is Buck a yacht owner, but he is also on a crusade against drug trafficking, and Paulo and Liliana have clearly stumbled onto a criminal operation of some kind. The trail leads Aimee and Nick from Timbergate, to the Azores, to San Francisco. Paulo’s condition is deteriorating, and he might never be able to explain what got him shot. Can Aimee, her brother Harry, and Nick unravel the mystery in time to save Liliana? Book 4 in the Aimee Machado Mystery series, which began with Due for Discard.



My Review

Are you two really serious about each other?
When are you getting married?
Don't you want to have a baby and start a family?

These are just some of the questions a young woman usually faces once she starts living with a man. Everyone is eager to move the couple along to the next step, whether they're ready to move forward or not. Most people mean well with their good-natured ribbing, and sometimes…yes, sometimes…they may encourage a young woman to really think about where her life is heading.

Aimee Machado is one of these women. When her on-again off-again relationship with her boyfriend, Nick, turns into a more stable arrangement, he shocks her with the revelation that he's been working with his boss to ferret out illegal drug traffickers. Needless to say, it's not something she expected to hear.

Defending himself, Nick claims he didn't tell her sooner because, "It isn't about trust. It's about timing, back when you and I weren't solid, it wasn't necessary to pull you into the deep end."

Yet all Aimee can think to herself is, "I wasn't convinced his definition of need to know matched mine."

So does she really want to continue down this dangerous road with him? He's never home as it is, and she admits her instincts aren't always reliable, no matter how much she wants the comfort of being close to someone.

When their romantic getaway to the Azores turns into more of a crime-solving mission than anything else, she's left more conflicted than ever. Nick doesn't have to solve this mystery. He's not a part of any police investigation. He could very well be putting the two of them in harm's way for nothing. So when Nick urges Aimee to keep a loaded weapon on her at all times, she laughs ruefully to herself that it's certainly not an expectant baby bump that's protruding from her midsection.

By the conclusion of the book, she's left to ponder whether or not she wants to raise a baby in this kind of environment. And the only answer Nick can give her is, "A ship is safe in harbor but that's not what ships are for."

***

Spine Damage can be purchased at:
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iTunes
Kobo

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $16.78 paperback
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 328
Release: May 15, 2017
Publisher: Camel Press
ISBN: 9781603815819
Click to add to your Goodreads list.

***

About the Author

Sharon St. George’s writing credits include three plays, several years writing advertising copy, a book on NASA’s space food project, and feature stories too numerous to count. She holds dual degrees in English and Theatre Arts, and occasionally acts in, or directs, one of her local community theater productions. Sharon is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, and she serves as program director for Writers Forum, a nonprofit organization for writers in northern California.

Links to connect with Sharon:
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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


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