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

What happens when a man views the women in his life as different countries? Take a look at who's on Eugene Lerman's map.

"Connie was a country he had little desire to visit, like Malaysia, to which an irresistibly cheap charter flight had been arranged."

"Emily was a virgin isle, a place to which compassion and curiosity had drawn him, but from which he was looking to build a getaway raft."

"Glenda was a foreign country whose natives spoke to him in a language that resonated musically with his own, but whose dictator had cancelled all the goddamn flights to its shores."

It's sort of how he thinks of romance when he stands before the rushing splendor of Niagara Falls.

"Nothing stays the same. Everything evolves… gives… no matter how tough and hard you think you are. Change is good. This isn't a still life - that's why it's so beautiful. It changes, but it endures."

He thinks about winning a woman over as being on a battlefield of sorts.

"If Glenda thought that by running out of the office Eugene was indicating he wanted nothing more to do with her, she was mistaken. He was saving his resources for the campaign. He would not be put off, as he had been in the past. Her resistance had been showing signs of fatigue…having sensed this, he planned to wear her defenses down."

Now that might sound a bit over the top to some, but Eugene is a good guy at heart. Especially since while on a business trip to Chicago and reluctantly missing Eugene, Glenda asks herself, "[This] river must have been unpolluted once. Had she ever been?" The harsh wind presses in on her, and he only wants to be there to warm her up.

Will she let him settle within her borders? Take the journey along with them and discover for yourself.

***

Love and Other Hazards can be purchased at:
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iTunes

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:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter
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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

Jerome Charyn paints a disturbing picture of what life might be like for the President of the United States. It's quite a sinister and disturbing portrait. Why? Because everyone wants him dead. There's even a lottery, taking bets on the exact day he's going to die, with everyone from corporate bankers to international criminal networks, entering the sweepstakes. For President Isaac Sidel, there's not much to feel happy about.

Yet it's even harder for him to deal with when the mortal danger he's in is soon coupled with paranoia. Besides death threats being found inside the White House, it seems as if the walls have ears. All phone lines are tapped, and every call is recorded, so that it seems like half the planet is listening in on his conversations. Every one of his moves is mapped out and diagrammed, his destination logged and recorded. On the road, there's always a Lincoln behind him and a Lincoln in front, with a body double sitting in either one of the two. Every person he comes in contact with is scrutinized as a potential terrorist or saboteur.

No wonder the poor guy feels like the shrinking man of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Yet now with a price on his head, he feels like he can't even travel anywhere because he can't trust his own mechanics. And if the President of the United States can't go out, then he can't govern, which is exactly what the lottery pundits want - to immobilize him. The White House is "a mansion in the middle of nowhere. It [can't] connect him to the nation's pulse." His supposed safe haven is now nothing but an asylum.

And on top of it all, he has to deal with the blatant disrespect and open subordination of those who are supposed to be working for him, listening to talk like, "We have to walk around on tiptoe and protect a president who's an utter incompetent, who doesn't have the least conception of his own responsibility, who's putting all of us in harm's way."

There's the sting. His intelligence teams gather little intelligence, or no intelligence at all, and he's left to fiddle in the dark. It's not his fault that there's an assassin in the White House. As a college dropout, he feels like he doesn't belong in the White House, but yet he resents being trapped in a cocoon like some kind of recluse.

He even succumbs to tears when he thinks about the Manhattan lifestyle he left behind, especially when he's barraged with gunfire at Camp David, and a bomb explodes under his feet in Czechoslovakia. However, when a hired assassin finally appears in his private chambers, that's the last straw. Sidel has had enough. He's ready to fight back, especially when the killer turns out to be someone who was right under his nose, all along.

***

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

When the main characters live in a forest called God's Temple and name their cottage The Refuge, you know it's going to be a good book.

Matthew is a hermit. Other people distract him from God, so he'd rather not be around them. However, when he finds a little baby girl abandoned in the woods, all it takes is one smile from her and he's a goner. He takes her in and ends up raising her in a loving, safe environment, developing her seemingly innate ability for meditation and contemplation.

He shelters her, yet as she reaches the age of maturity her self-awareness begins to grow. She's the first to admit that, "the world out there and the one I grew up in are the exact opposite of one another. Yet, even though I live in such beauty and innocence, I am still part of this other, baser world."

Her spiritual encounters with the divine are an even mix of the two. She envisions a Christ-like figure on the cross whose agony is suddenly turned into glory. She relates, "When he smiled at me, he was no longer on this awful tree. We were walking on a beautiful road. He showed me many things. We went and talked together underneath the shade of a wood filled with copper beech trees and a stream flowing in the middle of them."

Her confidence and optimism waver a bit when a group of men invade her tranquil home. For the first time for her, "life had lost its simplicity. Everywhere she looked now things were so complicated."

So will she be able to adjust to the wider world of corruption, rivalry and greed? I don't know. Don't be surprised if—instead of the world changing her—she ends up changing the world. When the clouds part and a rainbow appears, it sends a galvanizing message that with her maybe anything is possible.

***

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:
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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

San Francisco 49ers by 10.

That's John's safe text greeting. The one he sends to his girlfriend, Hollis, from his stash of toss-away phones whenever he's undercover, working for Homeland Security. It's just to let her know that he's okay and that he's thinking of her.

And it's sweet because Hollis isn't one to open up to people. Living in Oakland, she's somewhat of a workaholic at her law firm, not one to waste time chit-chatting or sharing anything significant about her personal life with co-workers. As far as she's concerned, she has John, her best friend and wise counsel, and that's all she needs.

Because neediness makes her feel inadequate. When it comes to needy people, she doesn't feel like she could ever give them the answers they're looking for, so she backs away from them. Yet when it comes to her relationship with John, she catches a glimpse into how needy people must feel inside. In fact, "she didn't want to think she needed him, but over the next month, it would be as if a part of her was in Washington" with him.

Then everything falls apart when she gets an actual phone call, not from John, but from one of his fellow agents, telling her that John's not coming back, that he died. And for Hollis, "the finality of that - the silence - left her aching and numb."

Her friends attempt to draw her out of herself, but she's having none of it. In her mind, "she didn't need friends. She needed John." She gets so closed in on herself that she doesn't even notice nature anymore the way that she used to, not taking the time "to gaze at the splash of color in the sky as the sun rose over the East Bay Hill."

A young colleague in the office tries to lift her spirits by telling her how he never takes one minute of the relationship he has with his girlfriend for granted, saying, "I asked her, what if I was her 'one' and she was my 'one'? Anything can happen tomorrow, but it's today that matters. We only get one shot."

Yet at the very end of the book, when Hollis's cell phone unexpectedly lights up, it raises the distinct possibility that maybe we don't get only one shot at love, maybe if we're lucky, we get two.

***

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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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

The Son of Sam killer is on the loose.

A massive blackout results in a night of looting and destruction.

People are broke, and jobs are scarce.

It's just a few years after the end of the Vietnam War and, "It didn't matter how much sacrifice. Everybody's trying to forget. Not trying. Succeeding. America only loved a winner."

And in 1977, New York City certainly wasn't winning.

Even a former member of the NYPD admits, "Crime I can take. This madness is…evil." It seems people are willing to kill over anything—a rent-controlled apartment, dominance in the drug trade, embezzling a family out of its Park Avenue fortune. It's as if a population of 15 million people are "banished to an outer circle of Dante's hell, with New York moving ever inward."

It pains lifelong residents to look back on a time in the not-so-distant past when people actually helped each other. Back then, New Yorkers believed they could cope with anything…now they don't. And that's the difference, and what causes these downward spirals to happen.

How does a corrupt, bankrupt city turn itself around? Is it economic opportunity? Is it good leadership? Do ethics and morals only hold sway in times of prosperity? The book brings up topics of conversation that are worth discussing because New York did turn manage to turn things around. Let's face it the Times Square of 1997 sure looked a heck of a lot different than the one from 1977.

A reporter makes an apt remark that, "he never imagined how fast a newspaper could disappear—be forgotten. Not until he'd seen it happen. When was the last time you saw…people lined up to buy a newspaper?"
Yet when the Son of Sam killer releases an exclusive letter just in time for the Sunday edition: "Everyone stayed in line, calm, polite. Surprising in New York these days, maybe people needed to hear about a maniac and mayhem to decide to be civil."

I guess when the circus comes to town, it's not likely to pack up and leave anytime soon.

***

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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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

The crying of gulls… The pungent smell of seawater… The bright morning sunlight shining through the window of a porthole…

Sharon St. George's crime novel SPINE DAMAGE takes place in the Azores, a picturesque chain of islands off the Portuguese coast. And it's a fitting locale since Aimee Machado, the character this mystery series is named after, is half Portuguese. In this installment, Aimee returns to the paternal side of her roots by visiting her parents' home with her boyfriend, Nick.

"Sunburned, wind blown and happy," Aimee's parents trade "knowing smiles that said, typical tourist," when Nick gets all excited at seeing a whale up close and personal during a boat ride. They're used to living in paradise and the book hits all the right notes in establishing a sense of island living.

For example, local legend has it that a superstitious sailor once painted a small picture on the marina wall in order to ensure a safe journey home, and to this very day, sailors continue to do the same, adding color and artistry to the walkways surrounding the Horta Marina.

Hospitality is also a key ingredient when it comes to the home life of the Azores people. It's common practice that a woman always takes time to bake for her guests, and the names of some of the Portuguese delicacies - such as "dreams" and "sighs" - sound just as good as they taste.

The population itself is a mishmash of tourists and locals, giving a sense of diversity and worldliness to a place tucked away from the world. But things really amp up during Sea Week, when everyone is hoping to spot the American celebrities who descend upon the town.

But chasing celebrities isn't why Aimee is there. She'd much rather spend time in the little white stucco house with a red-tied roof. Belonging to three generations of her family, it holds a very special place in her heart.

However, this time around she doesn't get to indulge in a little family tradition by taking Nick to the top of Mt. Pico, because as it turns out, a teenage girl with dreams of Hollywood in her head, gets on board one of those fancy American yachts, never to be seen again.

With Aimee and Nick soon to fly home to the United States, can they somehow try to help her distraught parents and find their missing daughter?

Goodbye, paradise. Time to get back to reality.

***

Spine Damage can be purchased at:
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Barnes and Noble
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

Lin Brunson finds herself pregnant during the height of the Vietnam War, and for a moment she can't help thinking to herself, "We can't bring another child into this violent world."

Picture it. The country is in shock. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy are dead. A hundred cities are still recovering from a fresh string of riots and not even Walter Cronkite believes in the war anymore.

Yet Lin Brunson takes it very much to heart. For this mom-to-be, the war is not just images on a TV screen. It's personal. And it becomes even more complicated for her since she's married to a pastor, and his church seems just as divided as the rest of the country.

But that's what her husband, Ron, finds her so intriguing about his wife. He tells her, "How you see the world, what you believe, what's happened to you and how it's affected you? I want to know all that."

It turns out Ron's a former Freedom Fighter, himself, and was even arrested down South for helping to register African Americans to vote. He's no stranger to standing up for what he believes in, and he admires that quality in Lin, even from the very first time they met, openly admitting to her, "What struck me was your spirit. A voice inside me said that is the girl I'm going to marry."

Yet preachers and politicians tend to oversimplify complex issues, and the strain begins to show in their marriage when their phones are tapped and their friends start disappearing. Things are different now that they have a child. The risks they're taking don't just affect them anymore, they have a little one to think about now.

Stressed, Lin tells Ron, "I married you under false pretenses, I wasn't mature enough to accept your proposal." But he quickly counters with something his mother told him about her, "God sent this woman to you. Keep praying until you understand why."

Are they able to work things out as a family? Well, for me, this particular quote from the book sums it up beautifully: "You forget that you are eternal. He has always been with you and always will be."

***

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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