P.D. Workman's Blog, page 123
June 28, 2016
Excerpt from A Mother’s Trial
Don’t forget I have a Kindle freebie promo running for In the Tick of Time. Check it out! I am going to have a contest and a bunch of promos going for Canada Day and Independence Day, so check back here this weekend.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules at Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along!
This is the second time I’ve read A Mother’s Trial by Nancy Wright, so you know it’s an interesting book! A flagship book about Munchhausen by Proxy, A Mother’s Trial presents the story of Priscilla Phillips. It will keep you engaged from beginning to end, but may leave you with more questions than you started out with. Non-fiction teasers two weeks in a row:
He had learned that most pathological people are convincing not in spite of but because of their pathology: they believed their own stories.
Nancy Wright, A Mother’s Trial
FACT: Priscilla and Steve Phillips adopt a Korean baby. Shortly afterwards little Tia begins developing strange symptoms. In and out of the hospital for months, she finally succumbs. Cause of death: unknown.
FACT: The Phillipses adopt a second Korean infant named Mindy. Once again the same symptoms develop. Near death, the child is taken away to intensive care, away from any interaction with her mother. The child recovers.
FACT: Mindy is removed from the Phillipses’ home. Months later she is adopted by a new couple. After a few weeks in her new home, she falls ill once again.
As far as anyone knew, Priscilla Phillips was the perfect mother: A pillar of her church, a social worker, a devoted wife and loving mother of two sons of her own. Priscilla lavished endless love and attention on little Tia, and later on her sister Mindy. To this day she claims total innocence of any wrongdoing.
Yet she was arrested and tried for murder. Was she a mother who literally loved her children to death? A woman so desperate to be needed that she’d take any risk, pay any price?
Here is her incredible true story.
June 21, 2016
Excerpt from Stiff by Mary Roach
Don’t forget I have a Kindle freebie promo running for In the Tick of Time. Check it out!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules at Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along!
I don’t generally post teasers from nonfiction books, but I couldn’t help sharing an excerpt from a unique book today. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach. Yes, a humorous nonfiction book about dead bodies! I learned a lot and had fun doing it.
As Harris points out, the difference between a blast test and an anatomy class dissection is essentially the time span. One lasts a fraction of a second; the other lasts a year. “In the end,” he says, “they look pretty much the same.” I asked Harris if he plans to donate his body to research. He sounded downright keen on the prospect. “I’m always saying, ‘After I die, just put me out there and blow me up.’”
Mary Roach, Stiff
Stiff is an oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem. For two thousand years, cadavers―some willingly, some unwittingly―have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. In this fascinating account, Mary Roach visits the good deeds of cadavers over the centuries and tells the engrossing story of our bodies when we are no longer with them.
June 18, 2016
In the Tick of Time Kindle ebook Giveaway
I am running my Kindle freebie a little differently this time. If you would like a free Kindle copy of In the Tick of Time, read on!
Only visitors to my website will be able to get a free copy, it is still a paid download at Amazon.com. (Of course, if you have a KU subscription, you can read it for free anyway!)
For a limited time, click here to claim your free Kindle copy of In the Tick of Time.
Do things with lots of legs creep you out? This may not be the book for you…
Award-winning author P.D. Workman’s In the Tick of Time will leave your skin crawling every time you hike through the woods or long grass, long after you have finished reading it. A well-crafted suspense novel that will take you into the psyche of both the flawed investigator and slightly-deranged perpetrator. You will look at your coworkers differently after this.
Matt Malloy, infectious diseases expert for the DOH vector-borne disease division, knew there was something wrong with the Buffalo Head infection cluster as soon as it hit his desk. But knowing it instinctively and proving it were two completely different things, especially when his boss and coworkers already suspected that, battling sleep deprivation, he’d already gone around the bend.
Matt knew that solving the mysteries of the Buffalo Head cluster was a matter of life and death. He just didn’t know that it could be a matter of his life and death.
It could happen to you. Maybe it already has.
Praise for In the Tick of Time
“I thoroughly enjoyed this page turner and look forward to more.”
“I thought to myself, ‘This place is probably crawling with ticks.’ I may be marked for life.”
“After I was done walking in the woods… it felt like something was crawling on me still. I love [P.D. Workman’s] work and [she does] an amazing job.”
Praise for P.D. Workman
“Every single one of [P.D. Workman’s] books has spoken to me in ways no one or almost anything else has. And I have found strength in the books I’ve read.”
“The way that P.D. Workman writes just flows amazingly and allows the reader to get really invested in a book.”
June 16, 2016
New release: In the Tick of Time
It’s out!
Find In the Tick of Time on Amazon in ebook or paperback format.
Do things with lots of legs creep you out? This may not be the book for you…
Award-winning author P.D. Workman’s In the Tick of Time will leave your skin crawling every time you hike through the woods or long grass, long after you have finished reading it. A well-crafted suspense novel that will take you into the psyche of both the flawed investigator and slightly-deranged perpetrator. You will look at your coworkers differently after this.
Matt Malloy, infectious diseases expert for the DOH vector-borne disease division, knew there was something wrong with the Buffalo Head infection cluster as soon as it hit his desk. But knowing it instinctively and proving it were two completely different things, especially when his boss and coworkers already suspected that, battling sleep deprivation, he’d already gone around the bend.
Matt knew that solving the mysteries of the Buffalo Head cluster was a matter of life and death. He just didn’t know that it could be a matter of his life and death.
It could happen to you. Maybe it already has…
Praise for In the Tick of Time
“I thoroughly enjoyed this page turner and look forward to more.”
“I thought to myself, ‘This place is probably crawling with ticks.’ I may be marked for life.”
“After I was done walking in the woods… it felt like something was crawling on me still. I love [P.D. Workman’s] work and [she does] an amazing job.”
Praise for P.D. Workman
“Every single one of [P.D. Workman’s] books has spoken to me in ways no one or almost anything else has. And I have found strength in the books I’ve read.”
“The way that P.D. Workman writes just flows amazingly and allows the reader to get really invested in a book.”
June 14, 2016
Teaser Tuesday Double-Header!
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules at Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along!
Two teasers today, so keep scrolling down after the first one!
I am currently reading The Murder that Never Was by Andrea Kane. It is book five of the Forensics Instincts series. A unique plot, good characterization, and interesting twists. I’m finding it very engaging so far!
Lisa Barnes couldn’t believe how quickly her luck had changed.
A week ago, she’d been in poverty-stricken hell. Now, she had a job, a place to stay in a nice Chicago neighborhood, and maybe, just maybe, a future.
Andrea Kane, The Murder that Never Was
A serendipitous crossing of paths between two women leaves one of them dead and the other a fugitive— hiding behind one lie after another to escape a cold-blooded killer.
A 16-year-old female gymnast’s dream of Olympic gold is shattered when the “supplement” she has been taking turns out to be a designer performance enhancing drug.
Her trainer, Julie Forman, is furious at the people who victimized her star pupil, and goes on a personal crusade for the truth. That crusade is interrupted by a serendipitous crossing of paths between Julie and Lisa Barnes, a down-on-her-luck woman seeking a job. This chance meeting lands one of them six feet under and the other hiding behind one lie after another.
In a twisting tale of medical research gone awry, bodies are piling up between Chicago, New Jersey and Vermont as a megalomaniacal genius will stop at nothing to eradicate the research error and everyone involved.
And because I am getting ready to launch In the Tick of Time, you get a second teaser from my new suspense novel which follows sleep-deprived Matt Malloy’s investigation into a baffling outbreak of tick-borne disease and death.
“That was May,” Jared said, enunciating the words like Matt was hard of hearing. “It’s the end of June now.”
“Right.” Matt looked at his desk calendar. “It’s June.” He ventured a smile. “Just testing you.”
P.D. Workman, In the Tick of Time
Do things with lots of legs creep you out? This may not be the book for you…
Award-winning author P.D. Workman’s In the Tick of Time will leave your skin crawling every time you hike through the woods or long grass, long after you have finished reading it. A well-crafted suspense novel that will take you into the psyche of both the flawed investigator and slightly-deranged perpetrator. You will look at your coworkers differently after this.
Matt Malloy, infectious diseases expert, for the DOH vector-borne disease division, knew there was something wrong with the Buffalo Head infection cluster as soon as it hit his desk. But knowing it instinctively and proving it were two completely different things, especially when his boss and coworkers already suspected that, battling sleep deprivation, he’d already gone around the bend.
Matt knew that solving the mysteries of the Buffalo Head cluster was a matter of life and death. He just didn’t know that it could be a matter of his life and death.
It could happen to you. Maybe it already has.
Praise for In the Tick of Time
“I thoroughly enjoyed this page turner and look forward to more.”
“I thought to myself, ‘This place is probably crawling with ticks.’ I may be marked for life.”
“After I was done walking in the woods… it felt like something was crawling on me still. I love [P.D. Workman’s] work and [she does] an amazing job.”
Praise for P.D. Workman
“Every single one of [P.D. Workman’s] books has spoken to me in ways no one or almost anything else has. And I have found strength in the books I’ve read.”
“The way that P.D. Workman writes just flows amazingly and allows the reader to get really invested in a book.”
June 7, 2016
Excerpt from The Nature of the Beast
I am getting the final formatting done on In the Tick of Time and getting it ready to publish! Watch for the announcement here in the near future.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules at Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along!
I enjoyed reading The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny, book 11 of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series, a thriller set in the backwoods of Quebec, Canada. The audiobook was apparently read by a different narrator than the first ten books in the series (who passed away) and I found his pronunciation of a number of words to be odd. Perhaps a British actor was not the best choice for a book sprinkled with Quebecois French words and names. And apparently no one involved in the production knew of the proper pronunciation of the Canadian intelligence agency, CSIS, which is not sea-ess-EYE-ess, but SEA-siss.
The book itself, however, is a complex cold war/political thriller, and was thoroughly enjoyable.
Laurent ripped, and ripped, and tore. Until a shaft of sunlight penetrated the overgrowth, the undergrowth, and he saw what was in there. What had been hiding in there longer than Laurent had been alive.
His eyes widened.
“Wow.”
Louise Penny, The Nature of the Beast
Hardly a day goes by when nine year old Laurent Lepage doesn’t cry wolf. From alien invasions, to walking trees, to winged beasts in the woods, to dinosaurs spotted in the village of Three Pines, his tales are so extraordinary no one can possibly believe him. Including Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache, who now live in the little Quebec village.
But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.
And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.
And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.
A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.
Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.
June 3, 2016
Fundraiser for Avenue 15 Youth Shelter
I stopped by the Boys and Girls Club of Calgary today to give them a cheque for the money raised in my recent fundraiser (thank you for all of those who participated!) and to tour their main office.
The Boys and Girls Club started as Boys Town in 1944 and operates out of the original Calgary Airport build in 1929. Quite a history! I had a great visit and I was so glad that I chose their Avenue 15 shelter to raise funds for, and felt good about handing over a cheque and a few copies of my books: Questing for a Dream, Tattooed Teardrops, and Don’t Forget Steven.
Thank you again for donating!
May 31, 2016
Excerpt from The Singing Bone
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Read the rules at Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along!
Psychological thrillers two weeks in a row. This one is a little different from As Night Falls last week. The Singing Bone by Beth Hahn is a retrospective by the main character to her involvement with a cult murder twenty years before. A fascinating look at a Manson family style scenario and the psychology behind it. Be prepared for mature themes and language.
Alice liked “Alice-Alice” better than “head” or “freak”—which is what kids at school called her. She pretended not to care. She’d stopped talking to them ages ago. And her grades were high; people thought of her as “smart”—or that’s what she heard from Molly and Trina. The smart one. Really? Alice didn’t think she was so smart.
Beth Hahn, The Singing Bone
A convicted killer’s imminent parole forces a woman to confront the nightmarish past she’s spent twenty years escaping.
I found you. That’s what Mr. Wyck told her: I found you.
1979: Seventeen-year-old Alice Pearson can’t wait to graduate from high school so she can escape the small town in upstate New York where she grew up. In the meantime, she and her friends avoid their dysfunctional families while getting high in the woods. There they meet the enigmatic Jack Wyck, who lives in the rambling old farmhouse across the reservoir. Enticed by his quasi-mystical philosophy and the promise of a constant party, Alice and her friends join Mr. Wyck’s small group of devoted followers. But their heady, freewheeling idyll takes an increasingly sinister turn, as Alice finds herself crossing moral and emotional boundaries that erode her hold on reality. When Mr. Wyck’s grand scheme goes wrong, culminating in a night of horrific violence, Alice is barely able to find her way back to sanity.
Twenty years later, Alice Wood has created a quiet life for herself as a professor of folklore, but an acclaimed filmmaker threatens to expose her past with a documentary about Jack Wyck’s crimes and the cult-like following he continues to attract from his prison cell. Wyck has never forgiven Alice for testifying against him, and as he plots to overturn his conviction and regain his freedom, she is forced to confront the truth about what happened to her in the farmhouse—and her complicity in the evil around her.
May 27, 2016
Reviews by Randy
My sweet hubby has posted a couple more reviews of my books on his blog…
Warning: beware of spoilers!
By-Pass, Breaking the Pattern #3
When you have been in foster homes your whole short life, you become, well, kind of guarded. Then you come to a new home that looks like a garden of Eden with a perfect family. You finally begin to think your life is turning around. Has Bobby finally hit the jackpot? Or are looks deceiving?
Bobby is placed in a new home again and forced to meet new friends. At least he has a wonderful mother in Katya and little sister who adores him in Zane.
Katya looks like the mother that any boy would love to have. A home to live for, and all the food that could want. For the first time, he has a room all to himself. And a sister that he grows to love.
When Katya starts turning crazy, she turns his life upside down. All of a sudden, Bobby has to make decisions that a geeky teen should never have to make. When Katya starts questioning everything he does, it all of a sudden becomes too real. He has to start thinking of his himself, and for the first time in his life, he has to look out for a sibling.
Gracie and her parents Peter and Sandy turn out to be real friends. But Gracie lets slip Katya’s history. Can he trust Gracie, or is she a busybody who spend too much time putting her nose in where it is not wanted?
Every decision Bobby makes affects him and Zane. What is he going to do? When it comes down to it, will he report Katya? Will he decide to put up with an inconvenience to keep all the good stuff? But that inconvenience has turned into Hurricane Katya, who is out to destroy everything in her path. And that path heads right toward Zane and Bobby. What can Bobby do to save Zane? Will he be able to be strong enough to do the right thing? Will he risk losing his family, the mother, and sister that he always wanted?
By-Pass is a terrific, horrifying story that could be too real for many foster kids. Bobby will pull you in, and he will tear your heart out. He will bring you in with his boyish charm, and keep you there with his bravery.
A terrific novel that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Intersexion
Being rejected by your family is bad enough, but not knowing if you’re a girl makes it that much worse. Taylor finds himself, or herself, getting dropped off at a shelter. Scared and alone, Taylor has no idea what is going to happen next.
At the shelter, Taylor meets a counselor named Roz, a Christian wife and mother who has some problems of her own. She is overwhelmed; how is she suppose to help a child when she can’t even help her own kids?
Read this inspiring story about a Christian who can accept a child who people thought was a boy, then a girl.
Watch Taylor as he struggles for the acceptance of Razor and the other teens. Watch as Roz struggles to touch and connect with Taylor.
Can Roz help Taylor learn to love and forgive her parents? Can Roz love her kids despite the decisions they have made? Does she have the strength to help them come to grips with all that has happened?
As a parent, you will feel for Roz. Can Roz overcome the doubts she has a mother? We have all been there, wondering what we did wrong. As a parent, you will applaud her and be angry at Taylor parents. How could they treat their own child the way they did?
A riveting book that pulls you in and has you crying for Taylor’s trials and celebrating every achievement.
Thanks, sweetie, for the kind words!
May 25, 2016
All foreign language translations free on Kindle!
If you are not a native English reader, you may be interested in one of my foreign language translations, all of which are free on Kindle May 25-29.
