Welcome author Joylene Butler!

Award-winning author Joylene Nowell Butler is showcasing not one, but two of her intriguing books in two different formats and you could win a copy of one of them.

Joylene won the IPPY Silver Medal with Broken But Not Dead. Once only available in print, the book has received a fresh new cover and title for readers to enjoy and is now available in eBook format. Maski: Broken But Not Dead is the prequel to Joylene’s 2016 release, Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries, which is now available in audio format.

◊ Maski: Broken But Not Dead
◊ By Joylene Nowell Butler
◊ Psychological Thriller

◊ Publisher: Dancing Lemur Press LLC
◊ eBook ISBN 9781939844385

To the Breaking Point...

When Brendell Meshango resigns from her university professor position and retreats to her isolated cabin to repair her psyche, she is confronted by a masked intruder. His racial comments lead her to believe she is the solitary victim of a hate crime.

          However, is all as it appears? After two bizarre days, the intruder mysteriously disappears but continues to play mind games with her. Taught by her mother to distrust the mainstream-based power structures, and with her stalker possibly linked to a high level of government, Brendell conceals the incident from the police. But will her silence keep her safe?

          Then her beloved daughter, Zoë, is threatened and Brendell takes matters into her own hands. To save Zoë, Brendell searches for the stalker and confronts not just a depraved madman but her own fears and prejudices.

Maski: Broken But Not Dead is available on Amazon.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

I waited at the intersection of Yellowhead Highway and Domano Boulevard, soothed by the gentle vibration of my truck’s engine. This weekend I vowed to do more than worry about my bourgeois existence. I would think about who I really was and what I might do with the rest of my life. Wasn’t that the goal of all women of the millennium? To define our true selves?

April’s sun slanted through the trees, making me squint. I retrieved my sunglasses off the dash, inhaled brisk air laced with the pulp mill’s fumes and closed my driver’s window. Today, I took the first step to salvage the rest of my life. This morning I resigned my tenured position with The University of Northern British Columbia English Department, a surreal experience. I was about to put my life on the right track, if I could figure out what that meant. I’d become an English teacher because my mother refused to speak the language. I’d wasted valuable years annoying her, twenty of them after she was dead. Today seemed a good time to stop.

Feeling both frightened and exhilarated, I wondered: If not an English professor, and other than being a divorced Métis with an innate distrust of white people, who was Brendell Kisêpîsim Meshango?

Anyone I bloody well wanted to be. Was I twenty-five years too late?

◊ Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries
◊ By Joylene Nowell Butler
◊ Psychological Thriller

◊ Publisher: Dancing Lemur Press LLC

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…

The audio version of Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries is available through Audible and Amazon. Click on the links to hear an audio sample of the book.

Joylene, Métis, is the author of Dead Witness, Broken But Not Dead, and Break Time. She and her husband and their two cats reside in Canada for the summers and Nayarit, Mexico, for the winters. They believe life should be an adventure. 

For more on Joylene and her writing, visit her website and blog, as well as connect with her on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

Comments on Maski: Broken But Not Dead:

“A psychological thriller filled with suspense, action and drama...” - John Bell, 93.1CFIS-FM: Prince George, BC

“Riveting and beautifully written. You won't be able to set it down.” Judith S. Avila, author

This tour-wide giveaway is for two (2) eBook copies of Maski: Broken But Not Dead and two (2) audio copies of Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries. The giveaway ends July 6.

To enter, just click on the Rafflecopter widget below and follow the instructions. If the widget doesn’t appear, just click on this link and you’ll be taken to a page where the widget should be.

Thanks for stopping by today. Does it bother you to read books out of order even if they are standalones and can be read that way?

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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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