Two Blogger's Books

Many of you know that I am an unashamed bookoholic.

Here in the blogosphere I have found many, many talented people.  Who include authors (something which fills me with awe).  Lots of the authors here have found support and receive generous, and deserved, outpourings of bloggy love and appreciation.

The two bloggers I am featuring today seem to have slipped under the radar.  And, in addition, both of them are doing it tough at the moment and would, I am sure, appreciate a bit of love (and book purchases wouldn't go astray either).

Last year Cindi Summerlin who is one of those talented authors sent me her three books.  You can find her posts here.

You can buy it here

 The first of Cindi's books is the most directly autobiographical.  With Trooper, a rescue dog, she escaped an abusive relationship and both of them grew.  Yes, she made mistakes, but who of us can lay truthful claims to perfection.  There is laughter and there is pain in their journey.  Which sounds like life to me.  And, as a warning.  This book caused me to weep.  Several times.

Trooper is still a huge part of Cindi's life and I think it would be a very hard call to decide whether she gives him more support and love, or he gives more to her.

You can buy it here

And this one can be bought here

Trooper's Run also has an undercurrent of domestic violence, and again features Trooper (and Cindi's other animals too).  Sara Powell is running from her ex-husband Owen.  He is a truly nasty arrogant and vindictive man and is furious at her defection.  He is determined to track her down and 'make her pay'.  Sara has been forced to change her name and become Cidney and start a new life for herself  as far away from Owen as she can get.  This novel is a murder mystery, an exploration of human courage, draws skilfully on Indian mythology and includes romance and redemption for extra savour.

Eagle Visions is a sequel to Trooper's Run.  Cidney is happily married to her soul mate Dan, and has put the trauma of her relationship with Owen in the past.  If only it was that simple.
Cidney's deep spirituality and connection with the land and its protectors are pivotal to the course of yet another harrowing read which doesn't shy away from some very confronting issues.  I was intrigued at the way in which two very different, but equally believable reactions to the trauma of the 9/11 attacks were examined and explored.

The second blogger I am featuring in this post is Dana Joy Wyzard wbo blogs as Lotta Joy here.  And this is her book (and I hear she is planning a sequel).  And she better had.

You can buy it here

Another book with confronting issues.  Drugs, violence,  religion.  And an innocent caught up in it all, fighting for her life against impossible odds.  However, much to my pleasure, the innocent isn't the heroine.  That honour goes to an elderly widow, Nelda Pike, living alone in the backwoods town of Treadwell.  She is independent, capable and feisty to the max.  She is a firm believer in 'don't get mad, get even -and then keep going' and has a wonderful and lifelong friend of similar calibre.

I am tired of women who need men or youth to resolve the issues confronting them.  And this type of fatigue didn't get a look in as I read Dana's book.  I have heard a rumour that here too there is an element of autobiography.  And I am not surprised.  Grown men would certainly be wise to pull their own heads off (with apologies to Monty Python's Flying Circus) before facing Nelda in a rage - and I suspect the same is true of Dana.