A Visit from Joylene Butler - Mâtowak Woman Who Cries

Author Joylene Nowell Butler is on tour this month featuring her new novel, Mâtowak Woman Who Cries, which was released Nov. 1 by Dancing Lemur Press L.L.C.

You can follow Joylene's tour schedule HERE for excerpts, and chances to win copies of her book and more.

A murder enveloped in pain and mystery...

When Canada's retired Minister of National Defense, Leland Warner, is murdered in his home, the case is handed to Corporal Danny Killian, an aboriginal man tortured by his wife's unsolved murder.

The suspect, 60-year-old Sally Warner, still grieves for the loss of her two sons, dead in a suicide/murder eighteen months earlier. Confused and damaged, she sees in Corporal Killian a friend sympathetic to her grief and suffering and wants more than anything to trust him.

Danny finds himself with a difficult choice—indict his prime suspect, the dead minister's horribly abused wife or find a way to protect her and risk demotion. Or worse, transfer away from the scene of his wife’s murder and the guilt that haunts him...

Here's and excerpt!

Chapter 19

Corporal Killian excuses himself, and I walk downstairs with him. He goes out the front door without looking back. I watch until he disappears, wrap my sweater tight and avoid making eye contact with anyone. It's bad enough I feel their eyes upon me. Too many of them are wearing outlandish aftershave and perfume. I turn in hopes I can make it to the kitchen before someone asks me something. No such luck. Cold fingers touch my arm. I stop and look at her face. I watch her lips move. The man next to her adds something. Out of my peripheral vision my sister moves in my direction from across the room. She thinks because she and her husband are doctors, and Leland was only a politician and I, a nobody, they're better than we are—we were.

I'm so tired of her condescending ways that I excuse myself from this couple expressing their shock and dismay. Not soon enough. Too many guests circling. Closer. Tighter. Condolences come from all sides. I glance back at Shirley. She looks as if she's lost her best friend. She's the only family I have left and since she appears healthy enough I wonder if I really care what's happened to upset her. She never once cared about what happened to me.

Yes, I am a callous hag. No wonder no one but Digger ever loved you.

Is that Leland speaking inside my head?

But why couldn't Shirley, just once, say she was sorry for deserting me?

I escape into the guest washroom and splash cold water on my face. I pat my face dry and then sit down on the toilet lid and imagine Digger with me now. He adored me so. It was wonderful being loved that much. I imagine patting him and feeling his soft fur under my fingers.

Someone knocks loudly on the bathroom door.

“Sally, when are you coming out of there?” Shirley says.

“Give me a few minutes, would you?” I place cold hands over my eyes. I don't want to let go of my memories just yet. They're so comforting.

More knocking on the door. I'm too numb to answer. Instead, I try to go back to the place where Digger's face is alive in my memory, alive and happy and such a comfort to witness.

Again, someone knocks loudly. The impulse to get up and smash the door in their face is strong. I picture throwing it open to see whomever it is pressing a hand to a bloody nose, then shouting at them to leave me alone.

My chest tightens. “Just a moment, please.” I hear nothing in return.

A minute passes, I get up and exit the room. I would like to yell for them all to leave my house, but of course I won't. I cannot soil my mother's memory. Actually, yes I could.

Nattily dressed politicians and their Pilates-sculpted wives smile at me. I smile back. They speak of things my brain is too lazy to retain until I concentrate and hear someone say, “If you need anything...?”

Mâtowak Woman Who Cries is available in eBook at the following sites:

Amazon.ca 

Amazon.com

Dancing Lemur Press, L.L.C

The print copy is available at: 

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com.

When Joylene's father died in 1983, she wrote her first full–length manuscript to channel her grief. The seven-year process left her hooked and she began Dead Witness within a few weeks of finishing Always Father's Child. Today Joylene is the author of three suspense novels: Dead Witness, Broken But Not Dead, and the steampunk collaboration Break Time. While she'll admit being published didn't fix all the wrongs in her life, she wishes her parents had lived to see her success. Dead Witness was a finalist in the 2012 Global eBook Awards. Broken But Not Dead won the 2012 IPPY Silver Medal and its sequel Mâtowak Woman Who Cries is due for release November 1, 2016.

Joylene lives with her husband and their two cats Marbles and Shasta on beautiful Cluculz Lake in central British Columbia. They spend their winters in Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico.

For more on Joylene and her writing, visit her website and blog then connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and her Amazon Author Page.

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