Behind the Book: Why I wrote The Cabinet - #history #giveaway #GeorgeWashington @LMChervinsky

By Lindsay M. Chervinsky (Guest Blogger)

Most historians are inspired to write a book when they come across a question and don’t know the answer or can’t find it in an existing book. I’m no different!

I wanted to understand more about the origins of the president’s cabinet in the early years of the United States and I couldn’t find anything that answered my question. I read all of the books I could find about President George Washington, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. All of the books mentioned the cabinet and referred to the secretaries’ interactions, but no one explained where it came from, how it got started, or why.

So I decided to tell that story. From the very beginning, I was convinced that this tale was an important one to tell. The cabinet isn’t in the Constitution, yet we can all see that it still exists and wields an enormous amount of power. But as I completed my research and started to write, I discovered that the cabinet was even more central than even I had imagined. No legislation or constitutional amendment was ever passed to create the cabinet and there is very little public or congressional oversight over the president’s interactions with the department secretaries. As a result, Washington’s precedent governed his successors and continues to guide modern presidents.

I hope readers will take away a few lessons or concepts from reading The Cabinet. First, I want them to see the first cabinet as a group of intensely flawed, interesting humans. These guys weren’t marble busts! They had big personalities, opinions, passions, and quirks. That’s a much more interesting story than captured in your high school textbook.

Second, I hope readers will come away with a sense of the anxiety and intensity of the 1790s. In 2020, we know that the republic experiment worked, but they didn’t at the time. They were terrified that one misstep would lead to the downfall of the nation and they didn’t want to responsible for that fate. Similarly, there wasn’t a road map for Washington and the cabinet to follow; they were kind of making it up as they went along. They did their best and should be remembered as such, but they didn’t have all the answers.

Lastly, I hope readers will get a sense of just how much of our current political system is built on custom and norms. Most of what governs the daily activities of office holders isn’t written down, but instead is a bunch of commonly-accepted best practices established by previous politicians. That’s both an opportunity to advocate for change citizens don’t approve, but also doesn’t provide much legal protection against bad behavior. I hope that The Cabinet will provide some context for our current moment and offer some food for thought about what might be possible in the future.

Blurb

The US Constitution never established a presidential cabinet―the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government?

On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries―Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph―for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Washington was on his own.

Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, and constitutional challenges―and finding congressional help lacking―Washington decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to. He modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the Continental Army. In the early days, the cabinet served at the president’s pleasure. Washington tinkered with its structure throughout his administration, at times calling regular meetings, at other times preferring written advice and individual discussions.

Lindsay M. Chervinsky reveals the far-reaching consequences of Washington’s choice. The tensions in the cabinet between Hamilton and Jefferson heightened partisanship and contributed to the development of the first party system. And as Washington faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body to summon as needed, greatly expanding the role of the president and the executive branch.

Excerpt

At eleven thirty in the morning on August 22, 1789, a large cream-colored coach pulled up to the front door of Federal Hall at 26 Wall Street in New York City. Six matching, perfectly groomed horses pulled the elegant carriage with sparkling gold trim. The coachman, outfitted in crisp white- and red-trimmed livery, jumped down from the back of the carriage and opened the door. An elegantly dressed man with powdered hair stepped down with a portfolio of papers under his arm. He towered over his companion, Henry Knox, the acting secretary of war, and his slaves tending to his horses. His ornate coach and his imposing presence drew curious stares from strangers passing by on the street. He walked up to the front door of Federal Hall and was immediately announced to the Senate. George Washington, the first president of the United States, had arrived for his first visit to the United States Senate.

This was no ordinary meeting. Two years earlier, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia had agreed that the Senate would “advise and consent” on treaties and other questions of foreign policy. But in practice, how the president and the Senate would interact remained for the first officeholders to work out….

About the Author

Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Ph.D. a historian of Early America, the presidency, and the government – especially the president’s cabinet. She shares her research by writing everything from op-eds to books, speaking on podcasts and other media, and teaching every kind of audience. She is Scholar-in-Residence at the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies and Senior Fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies. Previously, she worked as a historian at the White House Historical Association. She received her B.A. in history and political science from the George Washington University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis. She has been featured in the Law and History Review, the Journal of the Early Republic, TIME, and the Washington Post. Her new book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, was published by the Belknap Imprint of Harvard University Press on April 7, 2020.

The New Criterion recently said of her book, “Fantastic…Unlike many works of popular history, The Cabinet never feels like hagiography. It lacks the reverence of works like Joseph J. Ellis’ Founder Brothers or the revisionist obsequiousness that now greets Alexander Hamilton’s name on stage…Chervinsky exemplifies the public-history ethos in her new book. The writing is clear and concise…She takes what could have been a dry institutional and political history of the Early Republic and transforms it into a compelling story of people and places.”

When she isn’t writing, researching, or talking about history, she can be found hiking with her husband and American Foxhound, John Quincy Dog Adams (Quincy for short).

Readers can request a personalized book plate here: https://www.lindsaychervinsky.com/book-plate

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Cabinet-Washington-Creation-American-Institution/dp/0674986482/

Harvard link: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674986480

Author Links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lmchervinsky

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lchervinsky/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lmchervinsky

Website: http://www.lindsaychervinsky.com/

Lindsay M. Chervinsky will be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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Review Tuesday: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver - #ReviewTuesday #Politics #Family

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Harper Collins, 2018

This is not supposed to happen in America. After working hard for decades, paying your taxes, bringing up your kids to be good citizens, you’re not supposed to find yourself destitute and close to homeless. Yet that’s the situation in which journalist Willa Knox and her professor husband Iano find themselves, when her magazine folds, the university where he’d finally got tenure closes, and they’re forced to move to a century-old house that’s literally crumbling around them. With no income and little savings, they’re only a few weeks away from living on the street.

The house, a legacy from Willa’s aunt, is part of the former Utopian community of Vineland, founded by a wealthy businessman who was either a visionary philanthropist or an egotistical despot, depending on who you believe. Its leaking roof, moldy walls and rotting floors also provide the shelter of last resort for Iano’s bigoted curmudgeon of a father, slowly expiring from multiple chronic diseases, and their radical socialist daughter Tig (Antigone). As if that were not enough, Willa also finds herself forced to take in a newborn baby boy when her son Zeke’s upper class girlfriend kills herself. Living hand to mouth, camping out on the ground floor of the old house as one room after another becomes unsafe, Willa wonders how the family is going to find their next meal, let alone deal with grandfather Nico’s health issues.

Meanwhile, more than a century earlier, another family struggles to make a life in Vineland. Thatcher Greenwood views himself as fortunate. Though he grew up in poverty and hardship, somehow he managed to snag the hand of lovely, elegant Rose. A self-educated scientist, he has been hired to teach in the Vineland school. He hopes he can support not only his beautiful and somewhat demanding wife, but also her mother and her teenage sister Polly, and make enough to repair their deteriorating dwelling. However, his ardent belief in the controversial evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin sets him on a collision course with the conservative powers in Vineland – a course that could easily lead to his dismissal. His growing friendship with his next door neighbor, amateur naturalist Mary Treat, is the only bright spot in his increasingly difficult existence.

As you might imagine from this brief description, Unsheltered is an ambitious novel with a broad scope. It touches upon many important themes: family ties and conflicts, man’s role in nature, social inequity, preserving history, physical and mental illness, and of course love. I say “of course” because ultimately that’s the only path that leads out of the morass: love for your partner, for your children, for your neighbors, for humanity.

Like all the Barbara Kingsolver books I’ve read, this one is rich with emotion, often painful. Life isn’t easy. Tragedies are to be expected. Yet somehow we manage to pull through.

The structure of the book is strongly parallel, to the extent that it felt somewhat contrived. The chapters alternate between the present (well – 2016, during the last presidential election in the U.S.) and the past. The last words in one chapter become the title of the following chapter. Other Kingsolver novels I’ve read felt much more relaxed and free-wheeling. In this book, it’s clear, the author has specific points she wants to make. Willa and Thatcher share many characteristics, as they inhabit the same space a century apart. In some ways the world has not changed; the same voices that excoriated Darwin in the nineteenth century condemn the warnings of the climate scientists in the twentieth.

I personally agree with most of Ms. Kingsolver’s positions, but I think I would have enjoyed Unsheltered more if it had been less blatantly political.

The characters in Unsheltered are wonderful, especially Tig, the dread-locked rebel who finds herself holding the family together, and the quietly self-directed Mary Treat. All of them grow and change, individually and in their relationships with the others. Meanwhile, as always, Ms. Kingsolver writes beautifully, the sort of prose where you find yourself going back to re-read a page just to savor its beauty. The book has a pleasingly unexpected ending, as long-nurtured hopes crumble but new possibilities appear. There’s not exactly a happily ever after, but you have the sense that Willa and her tribe will make it through. And after some of the more harrowing aspects of the book, that feels like a triumph.

When you're the president's daughter, everything is political .... #Romance #Suspense @SeelieKay

Blurb

When politics interferes with love, can love survive?

Getting married isn’t easy when your father’s the President of the United States! After reluctantly agreeing to a White House wedding, Sarah Lee Pearson, the president’s daughter, finds herself swept into a political maelstrom of unimagined proportions.

The White House staff and the first lady see the wedding as a political event, a way to sweep the president into his next term. Congress is complaining about the collateral costs. The media is delightfully rehashing every aspect of Sarah’s life, even those events that have nothing to do with the impending marriage. And the American public? Visions of an American royal wedding have swept them into a frenzy and vendors take advantage, making a quick buck off of everything from limited edition t-shirts to commemorative teacups.

Sarah and her fiancé, Sam, fight hard to ignore the craziness, but after learning a bounty has been put on their heads by an anti-government militia group, they have to decide whether a White House wedding is indeed worth it. And given all the hurtful controversy, perhaps a better solution is to not get married at all.

The White House Wedding Buy links:

• Publisher: extasy books
• Amazon: TBD
• Barnes and Noble: TBD
• Kobo: TBD
  
  

Excerpt

“How does my father feel about this?” Sarah asked.

“Your father wants you to do what makes you happy.”

Jamisen Powell entered his Chief of Staff’s office and nodded coldly at Jeremiah. He added, “He would never ask you to do otherwise.”

Sarah smiled and rose to kiss her father on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad. I knew you wouldn’t ask me to be a political stool pigeon.”

Jamie Powell chuckled. “No. That job apparently falls to staff.” He smiled at Sarah. “Look, hopefully, you only get married once. Make a memory that will mean the most to you and Sam. Nothing else matters.” He shook his head, “Maybe Jeremiah will get lucky and your sister, Melissa, will hook some poor sucker before the next election. She and her mother would be overjoyed planning a White House wedding.”

Jeremiah scowled. “I am only thinking about your re-election, Mr. President. Your first term has been a bit rocky. You need a solidifying factor, something that will grab the hearts and minds of the American public and provide a clear path into the next term. Your story, a daughter lost and found after twenty-five years, especially a daughter who just happens to be a stellar human being and a successful international law attorney, won their hearts in the first election.

“Walking that same daughter down the aisle, something you had never dreamed was possible? The ratings alone will rival a royal wedding. No offense, but Melissa’s marriage—if it ever happens—could never have the same impact. People don’t view her in the same light as Sarah. Melissa is a flighty socialite. Her deep-seated sense of entitlement offends. The ratings for her wedding would be nonexistent. But Sarah? She’s the golden child. The American public loves her.”

The president’s sapphire blue eyes, which mirrored Sarah’s, flashed with annoyance. “Be that as it may, I am not about to force either of my daughters into something they don’t want. Sarah has declined your request, and as far as I am concerned, that’s the end of it. You will have to find another solidifying factor, Jer. Surely I have done something that’s re-election worthy!”

About Seelie Kay

Seelie Kay is a nom de plume for an award-winning writer, editor, and author with more than 30 years of experience in law, journalism, marketing, and public relations. When Seelie writes about love and lust in the legal world, something kinky is bound to happen! In possession of a wicked pen and an overly inquisitive mind, Ms. Kay is the author of multiple works of fiction, including the Kinky Briefs series, the Feisty Lawyers series, The Garage Dweller, A Touchdown to Remember, The President’s Wife, and The President’s Daughter.

When not spinning her kinky tales, Ms. Kay ghostwrites nonfiction for lawyers and other professionals. She resides in a bucolic exurb outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she shares a home with her son and enjoys opera, gourmet cooking, organic gardening, and an occasional bottle of red wine.

Ms. Kay is an MS warrior and ruthlessly battles the disease on a daily basis. Her message to those diagnosed with MS: Never give up. You define MS, it does not define you!

Seelie's Social Links

Website: https://seeliekay.com/

Blog: https://www.seeliekay.blogspot.com

Twitter: @SeelieKay https://twitter.com/SeelieKay

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seelie.kay.77

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Seelie-Kay/e/B074RDRWNZ/

 

Prior Books

http://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs/

http://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs-too/

http://www.extasybooks.com/kinky-briefs-thrice/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-1734-5-kinky-briefs-quatro/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2023-9-kinky-briefs-cinque/

http://www.extasybooks.com/the-garage-dweller/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-1504-4-a-touchdown-to-remember/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-1795-6-the-presidents-wife/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2263-9-snatching-diana/

http://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2032-1-the-presidents-daughter

https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2291-2-infamy/

https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2349-0-seizing-hope/

https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2538-8-cult/

https://www.extasybooks.com/978-1-4874-2658-3-hope/

Charity Sunday: Doctors Without Borders #CharitySunday #humanitarian #MSF

Welcome to another Charity Sunday blog hop. I’m glad you could join me and my fellow bloggers to enjoy a bit of reading and make a small contribution to the world. Last month, I received fifteen comments and donated $20 to Room to Read, an organization dedicated to worldwide literacy, especially for young women. I’d love to see this month’s Charity Sunday generate an even better response.

Every time I do a Charity Sunday post, I’m faced with the choice of a cause to support. There’s no shortage of worthy charities, of course. However, I find that there’s all too often a political dimension to charities. I definitely have quite strong political views. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s appropriate, in most cases, to impose my views on others. In any case, trying to change someone else’s political position is rarely effective. I also don’t want to alienate readers who don’t agree with me.

Today, I’ve chosen to support one of my favorite organizations: Doctors Without Borders/Médécins Sans Frontières. MSF provides humanitarian and medical assistance to victims of epidemics, disasters and conflicts, and increasingly, to migrants and asylum seekers. The doctors and nurses who volunteer for MSF put their own lives in danger to care for their fellow human beings. MSF is renowned for its policy of treating those in need, whoever they are, regardless of their nationality or position in a conflict.

Immigration and asylum have become political hot topics in the past few years. You will undoubtedly have your own opinions on the question of whether immigration is a threat to society and how migrants should be treated. MSF rises above these political considerations. The organization will try to help people who need help—regardless of the legal issues. We are humans first and foremost. All of us, regardless of nationality, race, color or religion.

So please leave a comment – even one that disagrees with me. Every one means a dollar for MSF.

For my excerpt, I’ve got a bit from my short story “Vampires, Limited”. This story appeared in the charitable anthology Coming Together: In Vein, which I also edited. All sales of this anthology benefit – yes, you guessed it – MSF.

When you’ve finished with my excerpt, and hopefully left a comment, please visit the other authors participating in this month’s Charity Sunday event. You’ll find their links at the end of this post.

Thank you!

Casually he trailed a finger up the side of her neck and circled her earlobe. A shiver raced through her, winding tight around her nipples, spiraling down to her sex. He nipped at her ear, playful, but hard enough to make her gasp. “As for me, you know who I am, don’t you? Or at least, what I am.”

Lara knew what he was saying. She just couldn’t accept it.

“Here.” Still behind her, he grabbed her hand and placed her fingers on his throat. His skin was cooler than the air, cool and smooth as marble. “Do you feel any pulse?”

“No—but—it’s just not possible. It’s just a myth. A fashion, a fad. Everyone these days pretends...”

He brought her wrist to his lips, flicking his tongue over the spot where the veins were closest to the surface. His mouth was hot, unlike the rest of him. A violent shudder of desire rocked her body. “Close your eyes,” he murmured.

I should call off this farce now, Lara thought, but she obeyed anyway. Something pricked at her flesh where he held it against his mouth, the tiniest sting, hardly deserving the name pain. Then there was heat, and a pulling, not at her wrist but somehow at her heart, which leaped up in response and began to pump at twice its normal rate.

Red flooded the space behind her eyelids, scarlet, crimson, three-dimensional eddies of color like billowing clouds. A brief icicle of fear stabbed at her, then melted as warm, sweet pleasure flowed through her limbs. Her nipples, her pussy, everywhere there was this hot, wet current, aching and yet somehow not urgent.

“Relax,” he whispered. “Let go.” She heard his voice, coming from a long way off. She saw his eyes, burning through the red haze. They had darkened from blue to empty black. She felt herself tumbling into their depths. Some last fragment of self-consciousness cried out for her to resist, but she ignored it. He was too strong, his will irresistible, the gifts he offered too precious to refuse. She let herself drift. He cradled then released her. She felt herself beginning to drown in the scarlet river of his blood lust.

The shock of separation drove black spikes of pain into her temples. She opened her eyes, gasping for breath. Motes of red swam in her vision. She twisted around to look at him, in wonder and terror.

“Sorry,” he shrugged. “I didn’t know how else to convince you.”

“You’re—you’re the real thing, aren’t you?” Lara thought her chest would burst. “Nosferatu. Undead.” She rubbed at her throbbing head. “I never believed...”

“Believe,” he said, his voice low and solemn. Then all at once was back in his chair, leaving her heart slamming against her ribs. He smiled at her, that wide open, American country-boy smile. Lara worked to catch her breath, to calm herself to some semblance of normalcy.

Please leave a comment. And please visit the other bloggers participating in today’s event.

Review Tuesday: The Harder They Come by T.C. Boyle - #ReviewTuesday #rightwing #amreading

The Harder They Come by T. C. Boyle

Bloomsbury, 2015

Retired high school principal and ex-Marine Sten Stenson is vacationing in Costa Rica with his wife Coralee when their tour bus is hijacked by a trio of thugs. As the native gang threatens the group of senior citizens with knives and a gun, Sten’s military training takes over. On automatic, he grabs one of their attackers by the throat to immobilize him, ultimately choking the other man to death. To his fellow cruise passengers, Sten’s a hero, but all sorts of unpleasantness follows as he is forced to deal with the authorities and make moral compromises.

Sara Hovarty Jennings is a sovereign citizen. A forty-something divorcee who struggles with her weight, she works hard at her job as a farrier, takes meticulous care of her own personal property, loves her shaggy dog Kutya, and just wants to be left alone. She doesn’t pay taxes. She won’t register or insure her car just because the government says she must. She sure as hell isn’t going to wear a seat belt just because some law requires it. One evening she’s stopped by the police on California Route 20. She refuses to get out of the car as the officer demands. She ends up in jail overnight, with her car impounded and Kutya in quarantine because he hasn’t been vaccinated for rabies as the law demands.

Adam Stenson, Sten’s son, has always been a problem child. Now in his twenties, he’s living in a cabin in the northern California forest, drinking grain alcohol, growing drugs and becoming progressively less connected with reality. He identifies with, and takes the name of, the legendary mountain man John Colter. He’s determined to be as tough and crafty as his hero, to fight against the “aliens” who want to control him, to live free in the wilderness no matter what the cost.

When Sara encounters Adam, she persuades him to help her free her dog from the pound. They become lovers. Though Adam is peculiar, emotionally volatile, maybe dangerous, a bond develops between them. Everything unravels, though, when Adam, in the throes of his Colter-inspired hallucinations, shoots and kills two local men.

T.C. Boyle’s brilliant novel The Harder They Come revolves around these three rather extreme characters. Their beliefs and their actions should make them seem repugnant, or at least very foreign to someone like me, who espouses rather liberal political views. It is a measure of Boyle’s genius that he managed to make me feel sympathy for and warmth toward all three of theme, even the homicidal lunatic Adam.

In the real world I might label these people as right wing kooks. Boyle conveys their emotions with such conviction and their philosophies with such apparent logic that I found myself actually agreeing with them, at least to some extent. I admired Sara’s independence and courage. I felt Sten’s frustration with his aging body and his helpless despair in the face of his son’s psychological impairment, and understood how these feelings could engender deadly anger. I even could understand why Adam felt as he did, why he was so inspired by Colter, in a world where true agency is so difficult to achieve.

It took me a long time to finish The Harder They Come—more than a month, though of course I was reading quite a few other books concurrently. I found that I didn’t want to consume more than one or two chapters at a sitting, not because the book didn’t pull me in, but because I felt I needed a break to digest and to appreciate what I’d just read.

Boyle’s prose is so compact, so evocative, so precisely targeted, that one cannot help but marvel. He’s an expert at conveying the natural world as well as human emotions and behavior. The Harder They Come is set well north of San Francisco, near Mendocino and Fort Bragg, among the redwoods and the rednecks. The area used to be a thriving center of the logging industry, but that prosperity is long gone. Now Mexican gangs grow pot deep in the woods, the old rail line is used for tourist jaunts, the locals struggle, and everyone wonders what the future will bring.

The book beautifully conveys the natural beauty of the area, the wildness that still exists. It also evokes the quiet desperation of the people who inhabit the region, a desperation that expresses itself in prejudice and violence. Boyle focuses on Sten, Sara and Adam, makes them real, living, breathing human beings, but he’s also clear that they’re products of their time and environment. The Harder They Come could be viewed as a microcosm of contemporary American society, a cautionary tale on the consequences of extremism.

But Boyle isn’t on a soap box. He never is. He’s just painting pictures, encouraging us to draw our own conclusions. That’s why I feel that this novel is important. It goes beyond the stereotypes, probes more deeply into how these people—“these people” whom in another context I might be tempted to label as the enemy, as alien to me as the guys Adam murders—reason, think and feel. And my conclusion is that ultimately, we’re not that different after all.

Maybe more so-called liberal Americans should read this book.

Review: One Too by Sherrie Cronin -- #scifi #politics #humanrights @cinnabar01

Blurb

Telepathy creates as many problems as it solves, as most of the members of the secret organization x0 would admit. When new member Lola discovers another group of telepaths with a completely different approach, those problems multiply at the speed of thought.

Soon, Lola’s family and friends are in danger. Lucky for her, she’s not your average budding psychic. Each person with whom she is close has a special gift of their own. That’s good, because it’s going to take every power they possess to keep this other group from succeeding with their plan to eradicate x0.

Excerpt

“The way your mom describes how you see the future, it is so cool. Please. Touch me first. I want to know what’s going to happen to me.” Xuha made one of his exaggerated comic faces, this time a look of amplified eagerness.

Ariel directed a fierce look of annoyance at her mother.

“We are in the middle of a crisis here,” her mom responded. “So we’ve now got a ‘no secrets’ policy in this house. I’ve told everyone everything I know because we have to work together.”

“That will not be possible,” the blind Irish man said from the place where he had settled in on the couch.

Lola looked at this man named Cillian more closely. He was a tall, unusually attractive man in his mid-forties, with a rich brogue and the demeanor of someone of wealth and importance. He spoke like he was accustomed to being listened to.

“I beg your pardon?” Lola said as politely as she could.

“Ariel will need to be selective about what she tells you. It’s a pity that you chose to share her feyness with this entire group, but she and I will find ways to manage that damage. She needs to check with me before she says anything.”

Lola reminded herself that she was tired. Hungry. Under a lot of stress. And not used to strangers in her own house telling her what to do. She tried to soften her voice before she spoke, but she didn’t do a very good job of it.

“Ariel is my daughter and she will do no such thing. Her entire family is in danger and needs her help. What she does or doesn’t do is not your concern. I’m not even sure why you are here, but you may stay if and only if you don’t think it is your prerogative to tell us what to do.”

The rest of the room went silent.

My Review

Lola Zeitman is geophysicist who works for an oil company in Texas. She is also a telepath. She can read the thoughts of others as well as shielding her own thoughts from being overheard.

Lola’s eldest daughter Ariel can see the future—well, actually, alternative futures. Her middle child, daughter Teddie, can travel in the astral plane, leaving her physical body behind while sending her energy body to distant locations. Zane, Lola’s teenage son, has a different talent; he can morph his face and overall appearance to mimic other people. Meanwhile, Lola’s beloved husband Alex can slow down or accelerate his personal experience of time. This makes him a dynamite athlete, as well as helping him get through boring or painful experiences.

A family of superheroes? Hardly. Each of these powers has serious limitations. Sherrie Cronin has succeeded in creating a normal, close knit family who just happen to have talents that just might save the world—but only if they work together, and reach out to other specially-abled individuals around the globe.

In One Too, Sherrie Cronin’s surprisingly believable science fiction novel, the focus is not so much on superhuman powers as on the moral power an individual can bring to bear to fight evil. The fact that Lola and her family have these varied talents is less important than the way they use them. Their opponent is an uncomfortably familiar international news organization, Reel News, dedicated to stirring up conflict for profit. Warren Moore, the CEO of this massively influential company, has assembled a group of male telepaths to help him in this mission. The monads, as he calls them, are well-paid to ferret out stories that can advance Warren’s agenda. They accurately sense and report the fears of the public so the Reel News can amplify and exploit those fears.

As the story opens, Warren tries to use Lola to do just that—to make her pacifism appear ridiculous. However, during the interview, one of his monads recognizes her powerful telepathic capabilities. Warren’s goals shift, becoming far more dangerous to Lola and her family. He will stop at nothing, not even murder, to either eradicate or control Lola and her loosely knit group of fellow telepaths, x^0.

I really enjoyed One Too. Although it has many characters, the author manages to make them distinct and sympathetic. Even Warren, the villain, has some positive qualities. The monads vary according to their personalities and the cultures to which they belong. I loved the fact that the heroine was a middle-aged mother of grown kids, not to mention a professional scientist. Both the concept and execution of this novel eschew the genre stereotypes that make many books so depressingly predictable.

I also appreciated the global scope of One Too. Though it begins in Texas, the book takes the reader all the way to South America, and ultimately, to Antarctica. Characters hail from Argentina, from Ireland, from Thailand, from Nigeria, from Turkey, even from Bhutan.

I have only two, relatively minor criticisms of the novel. First, I felt the pacing was too even. The book features a variety of crises, but somehow the narrative flow didn’t make those stand out for me. Though Lola and Alex have a terrifying brush with death near the end of the book, this didn’t seem any more urgent than their earlier, less perilous escapes from the clutches of Warren’s organization. This may be due to the fact that by the end of the book, the reader has become accustomed to the ingenious ways that different characters, with different abilities, pool their talents so that the strength of one offsets the weakness of another. I’d come to expect they’d succeed, so this reduced the tension.

My other concern is that perhaps the author makes her personal political and moral perspective too transparent in this tale. It’s clear from the preface and the afterward in this novel that One Too (which is part of the series 46 Ascending) has a particular agenda. I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Cronin’s views, but other readers might find the way she wears her political heart on her sleeve to be annoying. It might even be enough to make them put down the book.

I understand that in some sense, the author views this novel as a way of changing the world, if only in a small way. For instance, she is donating a percentage of all sales from the book to Amnesty International (an organization I also try to support). It’s difficult to be subtle about something you believe strongly. Still, from a reader’s perspective, it might be better to make the messages a bit less obvious.

Overall, though, I’m really happy I volunteered to read and review this novel. I hope that Ms. Cronin’s tour brings her many more readers.

About the Author

Sherrie grew up in Western Kansas thinking that there was no place in the universe more fascinating than outer space. After her mother vetoed astronaut as a career ambition, she went on to study journalism and physics in hopes of becoming a science writer.

She published her first science fiction short story long ago, and then waited a lot of tables while she looked for inspiration for the next story. When it finally came, it declared to her that it had to be whole book, nothing less. One night, while digesting this disturbing piece of news, she drank way too many shots of ouzo with her boyfriend. She woke up thirty-one years later demanding to know what was going on.

The boyfriend, who she had apparently long since married, asked her to calm down and explained that in a fit of practicality she had gone back to school and gotten a degree in geophysics and had spent the last 28 years interpreting seismic data in the oil industry. The good news, according to Mr. Cronin, was that she had found it at least mildly entertaining and ridiculously well-paying The bad news was that the two of them had still managed to spend almost all of the money.

Apparently she was now Mrs. Cronin, and the further good news was that they had produced three wonderful children whom they loved dearly, even though to be honest that is where a lot of the money had gone. Even better news was that Mr. Cronin turned out to be a warm-hearted, encouraging sort who was happy to see her awake and ready to write. "It's about time," were his exact words.

Sherrie Cronin discovered that over the ensuing decades Sally Ride had already managed to become the first woman in space and apparently had done a fine job of it. No one, however, had written the book that had been in Sherrie's head for decades. The only problem was, the book informed her sternly that it had now grown into a six book collection. Sherrie decided that she better start writing it before it got any longer. She's been wide awake ever since, and writing away.

Author Social Media Links

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cinnabar01

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Number46Ascending

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5805814.Sherrie_Cronin

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Sherrie-Cronin/e/B007FRMO9Q

Buy Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077NYTNSJ

Blog: http://www.46ascending.org/

Sherrie will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Politics and shifters make strange - but sexy - bedfellows! (@cw1985 #PNR #erotica #romance #gay)

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