I recently had the pleasure of reading an advance review copy of the mystery Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries (scheduled release date November 1st) by Joylene Nowell Butler, and will have the additional good fortune of hosting Butler this week as my guest author.

One of the interesting things about this novel is the team behind the publication and promotion. L. Diane Wolfe and Mason Canyon are two amazing women I met (virtually) through blogging. Both have created their own companies and are the forces behind Joylene Butler’s new release. Diane is the publisher, dba Dancing Lemur Press, LLC, and Mason is the literary publicist, dba MC Book Tours.

If that’s not enough recommendation for you to check out Butler’s blog tour posts (but start with mine here this week, of course) and sign up for her book giveaway, then let me tell you a little bit about Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries and see if it motivates you to hop right over to your favorite online book seller and order the book for yourself or for a gift. After all, we’ll be holiday shopping soon, right?

Mâtowak: Woman Who Cries is set in Canada. The novel is told from two points of view, a technique that worked well for building suspense. One POV character is RCMP Corporal Danny Killian who’s suffering from the as-yet unsolved murder of his wife, a case on which he’s not allowed to work. The second POV character is Sally Warner, the wife of murder victim Leland Warner who was a retired Minister of National Defense. Sally is the chief suspect, but there’s not a speck of evidence for Danny to use for an arrest. Sally is also suffering emotionally because her two adult sons died more than a year ago but the pain is fresh, as it would be for most mothers who outlive their children.

Joylene Nowell Butler builds suspense throughout the novel as she follows each of the characters through their routines and their emotional upheavals. Contemporary cultural issues such as suicide and ethnic prejudice are woven into the story without overwhelming the murder investigation. I was very close to the end of the novel before I felt I knew who the killer was, and I read the final chapters pretty fast to find out how the crime was committed. I’ll be giving this novel a solid 5 stars on Goodreads and Amazon.com.