Thanks to Dache’ J. Rogers of Berkley Books, I am giving away one print copy of ‘Red Thread of Fate’ by Lyn Liao Butler.
Description Red Thread of Fate by Lyn Liao Butler
In the wake of a tragedy and fueled by guilt from a secret she’s kept for years, a woman discovers how delicate the thread that binds family is in this powerful novel by Lyn Liao Butler.
Two days before Tam and Tony Kwan receive their letter of acceptance for the son they are adopting from China, Tony and his estranged cousin Mia are killed unexpectedly in an accident. A shell-shocked Tam learns she is named the guardian to Mia’s five-year-old daughter, Angela. With no other family around, Tam has no choice but to agree to take in the girl she hasn’t seen since the child was an infant.
Overwhelmed by her life suddenly being upended, Tam must also decide if she will complete the adoption on her own and bring home the son waiting for her in a Chinese orphanage. But when a long-concealed secret comes to light just as she and Angela start to bond, their fragile family is threatened. As Tam begins to unravel the events of Tony and Mia’s past in China, she discovers the true meaning of love and the threads that bind her to the family she is fated to have.
Praise Red Thread of Fate by Lyn Liao Butler
“I couldn’t put this book down. A masterful story of sorrow, secrets and unexpected romance, Ms. Butler writes with humor, compassion and honesty. Simply wonderful. I can’t wait for more from this gifted author.”—Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of Pack Up the Moon
“Lyn Liao Butler does it again! I was anticipating Butler’s second book after devouring The Tiger Mom’s Tale, and Red Thread of Fate did not disappoint! With a poignant tale and beautiful prose, Butler once again whisks us onto a powerful journey of loss, sorrow, but ultimately a journey of quiet strength.”—Jesse Q. Sutanto, critically acclaimed author of Dial A for Aunties
“Lyn Liao Butler is quickly becoming a go-to author for heartfelt, complex stories. Red Thread of Fate has everything—family secrets, mystery, identity. The rare blend of suspense and humor makes this story hard to put down. I can’t wait to read what Butler writes next!”—Saumya Dave, author of What a Happy Family
“A heartfelt contemplation on the course of our lives—what is fate, what is the result of the choices we make—coupled with a central mystery that will keep you reading late into the night. It seems Lyn Liao Butler’s fate is to entertain with absorbing stories and compelling characters that linger long after the final page.”—Steven Rowley, New York Times bestselling author of The Guncle
About Lyn Liao Butler
(c) Dave Cross Photography
Lyn Liao Butler was born in Taiwan and moved to the States when she was seven. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer, and is still a personal trainer, fitness instructor, and yoga instructor. She is an avid animal lover and fosters dogs as well as volunteers with rescues.
When she is not torturing clients or talking to imaginary characters, Lyn enjoys spending time with her FDNY husband, their son (the happiest little boy in the world), their three stubborn dachshunds, sewing for her Etsy shop, and trying crazy yoga poses on a stand-up paddleboard. So far, she has not fallen into the water yet.
Thanks to Sabrina Kenoun of Sparkpoint Studio, I am giving away one print copy of ‘The Lockhart Women by Mary Camarillo.
Description Lockhart Women by Mary Camarillo
Brenda Lockhart’s family has been living well beyond their means for too long when Brenda’s husband leaves them―for an older and less attractive woman than Brenda, no less. Brenda’s never worked outside the home, and the family’s economic situation quickly declines.
Oldest daughter Peggy is certain she’s heading off to a university, until her father offers her a job sorting mail while she attends community college instead. Younger daughter Allison, a high school senior, can’t believe her luck that California golden boy Kevin has fallen in love with her.
Meanwhile, the chatter about the O. J. Simpson murder investigations is always on in the background, a media frenzy that underscores domestic violence against women and race and class divisions in Southern California. Brenda, increasingly obsessed with the case, is convinced O. J. is innocent and has been framed by the LAPD. Both daughters are more interested in their own lives―that is, until Peggy starts noticing bruises Allison can’t explain. For a while, it feels to everyone as if the family is falling apart; but in the end, they all come together again in unexpected ways.
Praise Lockhart Women by Mary Camarillo
“A family is thrown into chaos in 1990s Southern California in Camarillo’s debut . . . and the novel’s ending is a satisfying one. An emotional portrait of three women dealing with unexpected change.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“Camarillo’s prose is lively, companionable, and quite satisfyingly observant in ways that surprise and delight, as if a friendly someone you know well is murmuring in your ear, giving you living presences, using history as the canvas across which the drama takes place. Bravo!”―Richard Bausch, award-winning author of Peace and Hello to the Cannibals
“Like Mona Simpson’s Anywhere but Here, The Lockhart Women sensitively illustrates what happens to children coming of age under the influence of childish parents. But unlike Simpson, Camarillo provides hope that everyone—parents and children—can grow and develop. An authentically hopeful and realistic novel.”– Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Author of Copy Boy
About Mary Camarillo
Mary Camarillo is currently working on her second book, a novel told in linked stories. Her short fiction and poems have appeared in publications such as The Sonoran Review, Lunch Ticket and The Ear.
Mary grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father worked in aerospace and was transferred to Southern California when she was fourteen. After high school, she went to work for the post office. It might be genetic–both her grandfathers were railway mail clerks. She sorted mail, sold stamps, worked in the accounting office, went to night school, and earned a degree in business administration.
She spent nights and weekends sitting at her kitchen table, studying and passing exams to become a Certified Internal Auditor and Certified Public Accountant.
She started writing fiction eight years ago. She took classes at local colleges, joined writing groups and worked on her own at the same kitchen table. She lives in Huntington Beach, California with her husband Steve and their terrorist cat, Riley.
Publisher: Pronghorn Press, (May 25, 2020) Category: Literary Fiction, Southern Fiction, Family Fiction Tour dates: May & June, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-941052-32-2 Available in Print and ebook, 285 pages
Description Eden by Jamie Lisa Forbes
Rowen Hart has been raised as the pampered son and only child of a prominent family in the small community of White Rock, North Carolina. It’s the 1950s and he’s drifting through the days, following the life path his parents have planned for him and preparing to go away to college. When his father’s suicide turns his world upside down, he finds himself responsible for his mother in their suddenly reduced circumstances that leave them dependent on his uncle, his father’s business partner.
Ill prepared to take over as head of the family, Rowen doesn’t know which way to turn. Then a neighbor’s ten year old daughter comes to live with them, baffling him with her wild behavior and never ending attempts to win his approval and making his new responsibilities even more overwhelming.
As Rowen tries to find his way, he begins to question everything about his upbringing, his current circumstances and his plans for the future as they turn to dust in his hands.
Praise Jamie Lisa Forbes
“Throughout this beautifully written story (Unbroken), I pictured the scenes, the characters, and visualized it all as if I walked among them. Five stars.”-Laurel Rain-Snow, Rainy Days and Mondays
“Unbroken is a powerful, absorbing book from the first page to the last. Forbes’ Wyoming ranch background adds rich flavors to the story. The author draws realistic, complex characters. Unbroken is an unvarnished testimonial to a way of life that few of us know.”– Mary E. Trimble, author of ‘ TUBOB: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps’
“The Widow Smalls, is a collection of wonderful stories that will elicit a range of emotions, following a number of different themes, like loss, jealousy, regret and acceptance. Each of the stories was as well written as the last, and I enjoyed each one immensely. Wonderful diverse plots, linked with the similar thread of ranch life, and defined characters, made for a truly great read. Author Jamie Forbes, has really created something special here, a must read for all short story lovers.”- Michelle Geist, Verified Amazon Review
Guest Post Jamie Lisa Forbes
The topic offered to me for this guest post was what captures my imagination about the South. I can speak a great deal about what captures my imagination about North Carolina, my home state since 1994.
I first visited North Carolina in 1976 and being a Wyoming girl and accustomed to miles of Wyoming range, what captivated me then, and now, is the variety of magnificent landscapes in such a small area. In the west, the Blue Ridge Mountains angle across the state: tree-covered peaks that drop dramatically into lush valley pastures. One of my favorite Blue Ridge sights is the late spring rhododendron bloom. Most of the understory of the Blue Ridge is covered with rhododendron thickets. Last spring when my little Arabian horse, Cody and I were winding up a mountain trail, the white and pink blossoms were so thick on either side of us that it felt as if we’d entered a fairyland. What compounded the feeling were the little streams tricking besides us. Looking back down the mountain, all I could see was a cascade of white.
Eastward are the rolling hills called the “Piedmont,” a country that alternates between woods and rolling pastures. This is where I live. Over time, I have come to appreciate the trees on my little acreage as individuals, from the hickory in my front yard that towers over the neighborhood to the three red oaks in the back, my “three sisters.” Trees, I understand now, take a longer view of time than we do. These were here before me. I pray they remain long after.
Every spring, the wood thrushes come back, birds with a song so melodic that Thoreau believed it “changes all hours to eternal morning” and so it does. Fall in both the mountains and the Piedmont is the season where every tree brightens to its own unique color until all blend together in a palette of reds, oranges, yellows, russets, and golds.
Still farther eastward is the coastal plain, which is comprised of marshes and drained farmland. In my first long drive from Greensboro to Currituck, on the northeastern coast, I was struck by the beauty of the farmland stretching all the way to the coast. It was years later that I learned that all this land had been drained by slaves and yet I have not found one memorial to that fact.
I was able to visit some of the sounds on a trip from Oak Island on the southern coast to Swan Quarter on the Pamlico Sound. The sound country is rich in marsh grasses and filled with coastal birds. The sounds start from tree-lined banks broadening to ever wider waterways until in the distance; one can hear the waves and the beckoning of the ocean.
It was the dichotomy between this lovely state and its social ills, influenced by its dark history that made me want to write about it. North Carolina is home of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, where white citizens rioted against elected black citizens. In Eden, I refer to the shooting of a black soldier in Durham in 1944.
I found that sexism is ingrained here, and domestic violence is commonplace. As of the modern era, the National Coalition against Domestic Violence released statistics showing 43.9% of North Carolina women as having experienced domestic violence, intimate partner abuse and/or stalking in 2014. There were 108 homicides in 2013 due to domestic violence.
In my own travels across North Carolina, I have been a witness to many family tragedies, and I would say that in all of them, the lack of equal opportunity to education and supportive resources has been the common denominator.
In spite of the region’s struggles, or maybe because of it, its musical traditions have carried across the globe, including folk musicians such as Benton Flippen and Elizabeth Cotten, jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Nina Simone and the state’s international legend, Doc Watson. North Carolina is rich in heritage and culture and yet marred by a legacy that it would like to plow under.
In a small central North Carolina town, I met an older gentleman who was warm and jovial and full of hope despite a lifetime of struggle. Listening to him, I thought that the complacency that allowed racism, sexism and class bias to endure over decades is not the end of North Carolina’s story. Even in the smallest pockets of the state, unseen from the major highways, there are those of all races who reach out to bridge what divides
About Jamie Lisa Forbes
Award winning author, Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch along the Little Laramie River near Laramie, Wyoming. She attended the University of Colorado where she obtained degrees in English and philosophy. After fourteen months living in Israel, she returned to her family’s ranch where she lived for another fifteen years.
In 1994, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2001, she graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began her North Carolina law practice.
Her first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015. Her law practice gave her the opportunity to travel many of the back roads of North Carolina and meet the unique and diverse individuals who inspired Eden.
This giveaway is for the winner’s choice of print or ebook however, print is open to the U.S. only and ebook is available worldwide. There will be 2 winners. This giveaway ends July 1, 2020,midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
Red Thread of Fate by Lyn Liao Butler
The Lockhart Women by Mary Camarillo
