Media Kit

Book Title: The Yanks Are Starving: A Novel of the Bonus Army

Author: Glen Craney

Publication Date: January, 2014

Publisher: Brigid’s Fire Press

Page Length: 561

Genre: Historical Fiction

Twitter Handle: @glencraney @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle: @thecoffeepotbookclub (please use hashtag #GlenCraney)

Hashtags: #historicalfiction #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2022/11/blog-tour-the-yanks-are-starving.html

Title and Author:

THE YANKS ARE STARVING: A Novel of the Bonus Army
Glen Craney

Blurb:

Two armies. One flag. No honor.

The most shocking day in American history.

Former political journalist Glen Craney brings to life the little-known story of the Bonus March of 1932, which culminates in a bloody clash between homeless World War I veterans and U.S. Army regulars on the streets of Washington, D.C.

Mired in the Great Depression and on the brink of revolution, the nation holds its collective breath as a rail-riding hobo named Walter Waters leads 40,000 destitute men and their families to the steps of the U.S. Capitol on a desperate quest for economic justice.

This timely epic evokes the historical novels of Jeff Sharra as it sweeps across three decades following eight Americans who survive the fighting in France and come together fourteen years later to determine the fate of a country threatened by communism and fascism.

From the Boxer Rebellion in China to the Plain of West Point, from the persecution of conscientious objectors to the horrors of the Marne, from the Hoovervilles of the heartland to the pitiful Anacostia encampment, here is an unforgettable portrayal of the political intrigue and government betrayal that ignited the only violent conflict between two American armies.

Awards:

Foreword Magazine Book-of-the-Year Finalist
Chaucer Award Book-of-the-Year Finalist
indieBRAG Medallion Honoree

THE BONUS MARCH OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

by Glen Craney

American soldiers denied their service bonuses. Protesters stage sit-ins to expose the greed of big banks. Homeless veterans huddle in tents. Rising anger against politicians sparks a populist movement.

Headlines ripped from recent front pages—and from newspapers published eighty-five years ago.

History doesn’t repeat itself, Mark Twain warned, but it often rhymes. And during the Great Depression, similar stories of woe and outrage held the nation’s alarmed attention. Long before Occupy Wall Street, there was Occupy Washington.

In my historical novel, The Yanks Are Starving, I tell the story of eight Americans who survived the fighting in France during World War I and came together fourteen years later to determine the fate of a nation on the brink of upheaval. Culminating with what became known as the Bonus March of unemployed war veterans, the novel is a sweeping epic of the government betrayal that sparked the only violent clash between two American armies under the same flag.

I became interested in the history of the Bonus March while covering Congress as a Washington, D.C. reporter. After moving to Los Angeles to write movie scripts, I turned my research into one of those screenplays that Hollywood executives say would make a great movie, if only the timing were right. Legendary screenwriter Harry Essex, a mentor and friend, begged me to “shake out” the script into a novel, so I did. As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, Harry remembered the Bonus Marchers, and he told his UCLA writing class that my screenplay was the best he had read in years. I dedicated the novel to him.

Had the Bonus Army tragedy not happened, most would dismiss it as too improbable for fiction. Yet in 1932, a charismatic but troubled Oregon hobo decided he’d had enough of eating slumgullion stew and begging for work. Ignoring scoffs that he was a crackpot dreamer, Walter W. Waters jumped onto a boxcar in Portland and led two hundred of his fellow homeless war veterans on a rolling invasion bound for Washington. He was determined to tell President Herbert Hoover of his plight in person.

Reports of this pied-piper quest quickly spread across the country, and within weeks 40,000 veterans and their families, all hungry and desperate, surrounded the U.S. Capitol. This threadbare band of veterans camped in the city for three months and vowed to stay until Congress voted to pay their service annuities early.

Their hopes for government salvation, however, were soon dashed.

On July 28 of that tense summer, Army Chief-of-Staff Douglas MacArthur donned his uniform and took to the field for the first time since 1918. Convinced that the protesting veterans were a mob of slackers and Communists, the general ordered his tanks, cavalry, and regular infantry to drive the veterans from the city and burn their pitiful shacks. Within minutes, Pennsylvania Avenue was a scene of mayhem with flying tear-gas canisters, coughing onlookers, and flashing bayonets. After the despairing veterans scattered back across the country, shocked Americans blamed Hoover for the debacle and voted him out of office during the presidential election that November. 

Today, too many of us have a short memory regarding our country’s treatment of returning veterans. I hope the novel serves as a cautionary tale for those who may think that homelessness, joblessness, and psychological adjustment to civilian life are unique challenges for our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, nearly 50,000 veterans were homeless in 2014, almost one of every nine. There is, thankfully, more assistance for returning servicemen and women now than in 1932, but effort to eradicate this scourge continues.

For information:

Images, public domain:

3. Burning Veterans Camp (1932)

Public Domain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#/media/File:Evictbonusarmy.jpg

4. Bonus Army Fight (1932)

Public Domain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army#/media/File:Evictbonusarmy.jpg

Praise for The Yanks are Starving:

“[A] wonderful source of historical fact wrapped in a compelling novel.” — Historical Novel Society Reviews

“[A] vivid picture of not only men being deprived of their veterans’ rights, but of their human rights as well.…Craney performs a valuable service by chronicling it in this admirable book.” — Military Writers Society of America

Buy Links:

Universal Link:  https://books2read.com/Yanks

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Yanks-Are-Starving-Novel-Bonus-ebook/dp/B00G8OZ3MM
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00G8OZ3MM
Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00G8OZ3MM

Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00G8OZ3MM

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-yanks-are-starving-glen-craney/1117253154

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-yanks-are-starving

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-yanks-are-starving/id726771775

Author Bio:

Glen Craney

Glen Craney is an author, screenwriter, journalist, and lawyer. A graduate of Indiana University Law School and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he is the recipient of the Nicholl Fellowship Prize from the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Chaucer and Laramie First-Place Awards for historical fiction. He is also a four-time indieBRAG Medallion winner, a Military Writers Society of America Gold Medalist, a four-time Foreword Magazine Book-of-the-Year Award Finalist, and an Historical Novel Society Reviews Editor’s Choice honoree. He lives in Malibu and has served as the president of the Southern California Chapter of the HNS.

Social Media Links:

Website: www.glencraney.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/glencraney

Facebook: www.facebook.com/GlenCraneyAuthor

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/glen-craney

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Glen-Craney/e/B002C1VQZ8

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/1516207.Glen_Craney

Alibis, Crying Eyes, and Mental Health Awareness That’s what Good Authors Are Made Of!. With Best Selling Author

@MaryLSchmidt You can listen to it on Goodpods (where you can also follow me to see my other favorites).

https://goodpods.app.link/jSfJpdrucxb #USA #MentalHealthAwareness #childloss #bullies

Book Title: ROSALIND: DNA’s Invisible Woman

Author: Jessie Mills

Publication Date: 15 March 2022 (print), 18 February 2022 (digital)

Publisher: Ingram Spark/Alpha Helix Publishing

Page Length: 310 pages

Genre: Historical fiction / narrative non-fiction

Twitter Handle: @byjessiemills @cathiedunn

Instagram:  @jessiemillsauthor  @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags:  #rosalindfranklin #invisiblewomen #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Blog Tour Schedule page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2022/12/blog-tour-rosalind-dnas-invisible-woman.html

Book Title and Author Name:

ROSALIND by Jessie Mills

Blurb:

‘A luminous, pin-sharp portrait of a true trailblazer. Mills’s writing simply glows.’ Zoë Howe, Author, Artist and RLF Writing Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge

Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman tells the true story of the woman who discovered the structure of DNA, whose work was co-opted by three men who won a Nobel prize for the discovery.

Her story is one of hope, perseverance, love and betrayal.

Driven by her faith in science, Rosalind Franklin persisted with her education in the face of formidable obstacles, including the de-reservation of women from war science.

In Norway at the start of World War II, her place at Cambridge’s first women’s college was thrown into jeopardy.

A decade later, she fled Paris upon the news that the research director at the State Chemicals Lab was having an affair. They continued to write to each other in secret. 

Rosalind knew when embarking on science, a gentleman’s profession, that the odds would be stacked against a woman’s success. But she did not foresee that her pay would later be cut on account of her age and gender, that she would be burned by the plagiarism rife among her male contemporaries or face her own battle with cancer.

When she took a research post at King’s College London, the head of the physics department switched her subject to DNA at the last minute.

She was tasked with discovering its structure using X-ray crystallography. Could she become the first scientist to map the DNA molecule and would the discovery ultimately be worth it?

When two researchers at Cambridge University, her alma mater, built a three-chain model of DNA weeks after seeing her lecture, she knew that it was wrong.

Scientists at each of the three labs competing in the race to find DNA’s structure had guessed that the molecule had three chains. Her evidence proved them wrong. But would anybody listen?

This is the story of DNA that you won’t find in the history books…  

The woman behind science’s greatest discovery has been variously referred to as ‘an obsessive woman’, ‘difficult’, and ‘the dark lady of DNA’. Why was she called these names, and were they justified?

Written by journalist and former Wall Street Journal (PRO) editor Jessica Mills Davies, following nearly three years of intensive archival research, the novel aims to give Rosalind Franklin a voice for the first time in history. Her story is the most well-documented account of ‘the Matilda effect’ and its corollary ‘the Matthew Effect’, whereby women’s contributions to science and other professions are often ignored or misappropriated.

The Exeter Novel Prize-longlisted novel is peppered with copies of original correspondence between her and her contemporaries, illustrating how three men got away with the biggest heist in scientific history.

Extract from ROSALIND: DNA’s INVISIBLE WOMAN, Prologue

The chance of making a major scientific discovery is minuscule. Nearly half are by accident. Serendipity, or mishap by another name, pulls scientists from the clutches of flat Earths and illusory sirens. Controlled experiments frame those fallacies and rescript the world’s truths. At King’s College London, we were specks of dust in the gargantuan cosmos, investigating the very secrets of life. Progress was not a lightning-bolt moment, it was hours of toil, in a basement that smelled of mothballs. If you had asked me then if I knew we would find the structure of DNA, I would have said, simply, that the data speaks for itself. Its voice is audible for those who listen.

The mysteries of the universe reside in the simplest of shapes. The twisted loop of a figure of eight was visible in my X-ray photographs. Two strands of the genetic code entwined together beneath the glass, intersected at the centre, and flecked with atomic dots. I traced their smooth lines, back and forth, back, eight, back. The meandering curve of the infinity sign hides an eternity of secrets.

Rosalind Franklin

Buy Links:

Universal Link: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman | Universal Book Links Help You Find Books at Your Favorite Store! (books2read.com)

Amazon UK: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman: Amazon.co.uk: Mills: 9781399918978: Books

Amazon US: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman: Mills: 9781399918978: Amazon.com: Books

Amazon CA: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman: Mills: 9781399918978: Books – Amazon.ca

Amazon AU: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman : Mills: Amazon.com.au: Books

Barnes and Noble: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman by Mills, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Waterstones: Rosalind by Mills | Waterstones

Kobo: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman eBook by Jessie Mills – EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United Kingdom

Blackwell’s: Rosalind: DNA’s Invisible Woman : Mills : 9781399918978 : Blackwell’s (blackwells.co.uk)

(Also available on APPLE BOOKS)

Author Bio:

Jessie Mills

Jessica is a journalist and author. She has written for publications such as The Independent, The Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, where she investigated the use of flammable cladding in hospital intensive care units in 2020.

Before that she was a member of the steering committee for Women at Dow Jones, where she spent several years as an editor and led the team that uncovered the misuse of funds at Abraaj.

Her debut novel tells the true story of Rosalind Franklin, the invisible woman behind the discovery of DNA’s double helix. It was longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize 2020.

Social Media Links:

Website: Jessie Mills Davies (jessiemillsauthor.com)

Twitter: Jessica J. Mills Davies 💙 (@Byjessiemills) / Twitter

Facebook: Rosalind Franklin and the pay gap – Home | Facebook

LinkedIn: LinkedIn

Instagram: Jessie Mills (@jessiemillsauthor) • Instagram photos and videos

Pinterest: www.pinterest.co.uk/jessiemillsdavies/

Amazon Author Page: Amazon.co.uk: Jessie Mills: Books, Biography, Blogs, Audiobooks, Kindle

Goodreads: Jessie Mills (Author of Rosalind) (goodreads.com)

Extract from ROSALIND: DNA’s INVISIBLE WOMAN, Part XI, chapter 37 (Song of Songs | Shīr Hashīrīm)

Cambridge, 1957

‘How did you get the poliovirus past immigration?’ Francis asks from the hallway.

‘With a bit of ingenuity,’ I say, putting my book down.

‘You will tell me if you put it in the fridge, won’t you Rosy?’ Francis says. ‘So, you’re sure you won’t be joining us at the Eagle tonight?’

‘Not tonight, Francis, Odile and I have catching-up to do,’ I reply.

Odile laughs.

‘Ne t’inquiète pas pour eux,’ she says.

Odile grew up in Norfolk, but her French mother wanted her to be bilingual. She honoured her mother’s wish each time she spoke the language. She has given me the recipe for her mother’s French onion tart, who prescribes stock for that singular umami flavour. For breakfast, we have coffee with croissants and cheese. Odile’s accent is crisp, like glass. It is recognisably Germanic, a hangover from her time translating German to crack enemy code during the war. If anything, it is a Parisian accent, rather than textbook French.

‘I don’t like how they speak about you behind your back,’ she says once Francis has gone.

‘They don’t know you like I do.’

‘Scientists are in the business of asking questions,’ I say, adjusting the red patterned scarf around my head in the mirror over the fireplace.

Although the cancer has gone into remission, I cover my head with a scarf. It’s just until my hair grows back.

Odile pours us coffee from the cafetière.

I came to stay with the Cricks when Don was seconded to Cambridge so that we would have a chance of seeing each other again. From up high in the mountains during our trip to the Alps, the wings of my imagination could finally spread unencumbered.

At that moment, I didn’t need God. I just needed myself. My cancer went into remission the following year. So I travelled to Cambridge, where Don works, to live in the Cricks’ townhouse in Portugal Place. It has been a year since my diagnosis and even though my womb is gone, my mother still cannot accept the idea of me sharing a room with a man.

‘When you’re not married? Come on Rosalind, please!’ she said.

I packed my bags, promising not to stay with my parents for a moment longer than was necessary.

‘Scientists do indeed ask a lot of questions. It’s like that time Francis and Jim asked Dr Perutz if they could see your data,’ Odile says.

‘What?’ I respond.

‘Didn’t they tell you?’ Odile asks.

‘Tell me what?’ I say.

‘Well, I don’t like to interfere,’ Odile says, putting down her coffee cup.

‘Jim tried to describe your photograph to Francis, but you know what he’s like.’

‘What photograph?’

‘You know, the one Maurice showed him. The one that was in the Medical Research Council report,’ Odile says.

‘Those reports are meant to be confidential.’

Book Link

From Amazon:

My name is Willow Erwin, and I hate summer. My mother always said hate is a strong word, but in this case, it’s the right one. I haven’t found one good thing about the season. Most people tell me since I’m a teacher that reason alone should make it my favorite season, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. For me, summer brings everything I abhor; bugs, heat, sweating, and painful memories of a woman I will never see again.

Then, in the wink of one very beautiful blue eye, all of that changed. This is the story of Summer and how she taught me to love her. It’s about her quiet, and sometimes fearful, way of teaching me to embrace the moment, and to live recklessly. It’s about how both of us learned to forgive, to hope, to pray, and to love, even after summer ends.

My Review:

Mettner has written a compelling love story about two young women. Being gay and coming out are two things. Being comfortable around others as you fear you won’t be accepted for who you are, not what parts of society dictates. Love is love, end of story. The sweetness outshines the trials thrust upon two women from a deluded man filled with hate. Love can overcome hate!

Book Link and only .99 cents!

“As you have received a five star review, your book will be entered as a finalist into our contest, and the winners will be announced in May. Your book review will also be published on our website following the announcement of the winners.
We will be in touch with you again when the winners are announced and we wish you the very best of luck for this contest!
You may publish this review prior to the announcement of the winners, and you may add the badge to your book and any promotional materials, should you wish.” Beth

Reader’s Choice Book Awards

Author: Mary L Schmidt
Title: Her Alibi
Review completed: January 2023

A heart-breaking story of survival, by author Mary Schmidt

One of seven children, Mary tells the story of her childhood and growing up in a household where the children were neglected and abused by their mother, Marguerite. Mary describes the horrific mental and physical abuse she experienced and the trauma of living with a sociopath. Mary recalls her first memories of her mother’s rage, from around the age of two, when she was regularly beaten and force fed. She describes how she was often singled out by her mother throughout her childhood and blamed for the misdemeanors of her siblings. Unfortunately, Marguerite’s abuse was never discovered by the authorities. From the outside, Marguerite was a warm, loving and attentive parent, but behind closed doors, she was a monster who terrorized her children, her husband, and even her own mother.

While Mary describes a loving relationship with her father and grandmother, they could do little to intervene, help or protect the children, as they were subject to the same cruelty and feared the matriarch.

As an adult, Mary distanced herself from her mother, as did most of her siblings. But one day, her mother unexpectedly visits her home, and they spend several hours reconnecting and bonding. Mary had hoped for a reconciliation, but the next day she heard tragic news that her stepfather had been shot, and Mary questions the motivation for her mothers’ strange and sudden visit.

Her Alibi is a heart-breaking novel and a true crime memoir by author Mary L Schmidt. Mary describes the pain and trauma she suffered at the hands of her abusive mother, and the impact this had on her life, and the lives of her siblings. It is an open, honest, and graphic account of child abuse, told through Mary’s own tragic lived experience. Whilst this is a deeply upsetting story, there is some comfort that Mary survived and was successful in her own life, despite her mother’s maltreatment.

Star rating: 5 Stars
Summary: A compelling personal memoir about one woman’s lived experience of childhood abuse and trauma.

Book Link

From Amazon:

Fox was twelve when he faked his own death to escape his father Dagr and his precious tugboat, Odin’s Tillit. Cloaked in an identity produced from the inside of a tobacco can, he has become a glorified drug mule for Texas lawman Sheriff J. J. Raskin.

Sixteen-year-old Ren is at the helm of Odin’s Tillit, pushing rafts of logs and helping the sheriff make his problems disappear. Obligation, destiny, and Odin’s Tillit are bloodying the waters of British Columbia’s Arrow Lakes.

Fox and Ren know better, want better, but they cannot escape the clutches of the incorrigible or incorporeal forces around them.

As the principals come together, the past threatens to destroy Fox and Ren, even as the sheriff seeks to eliminate them. What does fate have in store for them? Only Odin’s Tillit knows.

My Review:

Captivating for sure. Life on a tugboat? Times changes often as the story unfolds, and you will amaze your brain as you read. I can easily visualize a movie or short TV series with this one.

106,322 #TwitterBanners included in #bookcovers#pinned to #BooksWorthReading When one shines, we all shine! Welcome to all! 🙂 Have a wonderful day! https://www.pinterest.com/marylschmidt/books-worth-reading/

Image courtesy of Tumisu via Pixabay Hi SErs! It’s a day of Harmony here at Story Empire 🙂 Today, I’d like to talk about epilogues in relation to … How to Use Prologues, Part 11, Prologues and Epilogues

How to Use Prologues, Part 11, Prologues and Epilogues — Legends of Windemere

Book Link

From Amazon:

The story of two siblings, two ‘illegitimate’ children bonded with love, ambiguous origins and a destiny determined to keep them apart.

Author Catherine Taylor takes time out from writing erotic fiction to relate her true-life story of growing up as an adopted child with her foster brother Michael. This often harrowing tale reveals their lives in the sixties and seventies, and through to Mother’s Day 1985 when Michael suddenly becomes a ‘missing person.’

In 2017, Catherine set out to resolve the facts surrounding her adoption by taking a DNA test. The results are not what she expects. An ambitious undertaking follows using genealogy records, DNA-matched relatives and the construction of a family tree of over three thousand people. As pieces began to fall into place, her search takes an unexpected turn.

While seeking an elusive parent, Catherine is vastly unprepared to receive news of Michael. The closed door of an unsolved mystery is suddenly thrown wide open and Catherine is faced with the aftermath affecting many more lives than her own.

My Review:

Taylor has written a touching genealogical memoir. Having had my own DNA checked, twice, I found a lot of relatives and three new first cousins and we interact regularly. I believe in what this uthor did, her research, her tenacity to know who her family was, the whole bit. With DNA, a can or two of worms are opened. Not all people want to know the familial tree, some are gutted without this type of information. Sometimes, a family line gets complicated, but I’ve not seen any family line that was perfect. No one is perfect. I felt the author’s anguish in my heart. Five stars.