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…

SELF-DOUBT AND CONFIDENCE

By Joylene Nowell Butler

Writers are strange creatures. We’d rather write than attend social functions. We don’t want to show anyone what we’ve written for fear they’ll think we’re a fraud. If we’re not published, we don’t call ourselves writers. If we are published, we worry we’re a one-book author.

We’ve written a novel and that takes confidence; yet, we’re filled with self-doubt.

I’ve had my share of doubt. I’ve read an excerpt from one of my books and thought: Wow, I wrote that, then four paragraphs later, I’ve wanted to crawl under a rock because of my inadequate concept of commas. How can I call myself a writer and not remember the difference between a coordinating conjunction and introductory fragments? Or independent clause and disruptive thoughts?

Some would argue that to write effectively you must first master the mechanics of writing. My husband calls me his Word Mechanic. To him what I do is remarkable. He would never think to stick me along side the likes of Stephen King, Eric Lustbader, or Margaret Laurence for comparison. To him, if I have a problem with commas, I should ask a friend who knows about commas.

Thirty later, I now believe doubt is an intrinsic part of the writing process. Doubt makes me alert to what doesn’t work in a scene. Doubt forces me to stop and search for the perfect word. I write because I’m driven by an unexplainable need to tell a story. But not just any story. I’m compelled to know what my characters want, why they want it, and what will happen if they fail.

When the prequel to Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries was published in 2011, I thought I was done with the characters. Even after the novel won an IPPY silver medal, I doubted that readers wanted to hear from the mother, Sally Warner. But would she leave me alone? No!

I wrote Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries enshrouded with doubt, yet confident enough to know that I was destined to write it.

Thank you for stopping by today Joylene!

Available now : Amazon | Kobo | B&N | Dancing Lemur Press

About the Author

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 steam-punk 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.

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