March 8 is International Women’s Day. So what’s that all about? I have previously written about International Women’s Day, and you can find that blog post here.
The theme for IWD this year is #choosetochallenge:
A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day.
We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge.
internationalwomensday.com
It’s been a tough year for women around the world. Facing illness, suddenly becoming caregivers for parents or other loved ones, working from home, having children at home remote learning or homeschooling. We didn’t foresee lengthy quarantines and limits on our social activities and communication. We didn’t know all of the people that we were going to lose. Virtual hugs go out to all of you.
I’ve seen a couple of graphics this week celebrating women’s achievements in the world.
Resources
You can find out more about IWD and what you can do to celebrate and to advance the cause of equality on these pages:
Books
And how about reading about women? Books are a great way to expand your world and your perspective, even when travel and social opportunities are limited.
I have asked around for female protagonists from other cultures or countries, and here are a few books to consider. You can also check out my previous recommendations.
Questing for a Dream
Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling author P.D. Workman’s compelling and poignant account of Native teen Nadie Laplante’s quest for meaning and purpose. This thought-provoking and eye-opening story of poverty, prejudice and addiction will inspire readers of all ages and remind them that they are not alone.
Nadie is a bright, caring teen growing up Manitoba Cree growing up in abject poverty. She tries to balance school attendance, caring for her younger cousin Luyu, and spending time with handsome, impish Mouse, her best friend and confidante. Together, they strive to find the path to happiness on the reservation.
But tragedy strikes and Nadie’s is devastated by Luyu’s accidental death. Unable to find comfort in Mouse’s arms or Grandfather’s traditional mourning rites, Nadie leaves the band and strikes off on her own, searching for meaning and a new life in the outside world.
Can Nadie find happiness and a place of her own in a foreign world where she is abused and discriminated against? Completely alone for the first time in her life, it is a challenge such as Nadie has never before faced.
“P.D. Workman’s skilled narrative of Nadie and her poignant journey to wholeness is a thoughtful expose of shattered dreams and tragic youth sure to resonate with every reader.”
“An inspiring book which can encourage the reader to face the challenges in life’s journey and to accept the lessons that come as a result.”
By the author of the award-winning Ruby, Between the Cracks, this engaging and unforgettable story of Nadie’s journey to find a place in the world amidst heartache and hopelessness will inspire you to face your challenges with courage and become a happier and stronger person.
Download Bonus!
Easily one of the most thought-provoking and compelling reads of the year, Ms. Workman has written a masterful contemporary account of one native teen’s journey from home and the possibilities for hope even for those drowning in poverty, prejudice, and addiction … A must-read tale for any book lover!
Sarah E. Bradley, InD’tale Magazine
Parks Pat Mysteries
My new Parks Pat Mysteries series is coming out in September, and those books are available for preorder now. Detective Margeurite “Parks Pat” Patenaude is a single Metis woman with a teen daughter and with a grandfather nearby in an independent care center who has just moved from Winnipeg to Calgary’s homicide department.
Looking for a police procedural set in picturesque Canada? Let Award-winning and Bestselling Author P.D. Workman take you her favourite Calgary parks, as Métis detective Margie Patenaude investigates murders in this fast-paced new series.
These short mysteries are just right for those days when you could use a break from your busy life. Take a walk in a Calgary park with Parks Pat.
Out with the Sunset
There’s nothing like jumping straight into the deep end.
Margie Patenaude is new in town and wasn’t expecting to get called to a murder scene on her daughter’s first day of school.
It’s an ugly murder in a beautiful setting. How can Calgary’s park-goers feel safe with a murderer still on the streets—or pathways? Margie and the team are on the case while at the same time she and her daughter try to acclimatize to the new city.
If she wants her coworkers to believe that she’s not just a ‘diversity hire,’ she needs to show them what she’s made of and track this killer down.
Lose yourself in a new mystery today!
And more…
And here are some books including women from other cultures or countries from a few other authors, for your reading enjoyment. Pick a few of them up today!
Poisoned in Paradise
Public Health Officer Rynelle MacLeod loves keeping her Caribbean island pristine for visitors. But when a visiting billionaire is struck down with food poisoning, she has to cut her own vacation short to stop a nasty crisis. And she’s sure the skin-and-bones stalker who keeps hitting on her is actually a reporter sniffing out a dirty scoop.
NASA Astronaut Joe Johnson struggles to blend into the blue-water paradise. Secretly on an underwater mission, the ISS-stationed scientist is focused on avoiding people and pathogens and getting his gravity-laden body back into shape. But it’s the larger-than-life, germ-busting beauty he continually bumps into that’s making his heart work overtime.
In a race to prevent microbial mayhem, Rynelle slowly warms up to the scrawny man interfering with tracking down the toxin-inducing culprit. But when Joe thinks she’s about to expose his hidden research habitat, he’s forced to choose between career contamination and an out-of-this-world romance.
Murder at Kangaroo Downs
If you enjoyed watching Rosemary and Thyme – the TV show where two gardeners dig up a dead body in every episode – you’ll love reading about Emily and Maggie, two quirky veterinarians, who travel around Australia treating animals and stumbling over unwelcome corpses.
When Emily and Maggie arrive at Kangaroo Downs to officiate at the opening of its new race-track, they expect to find the usual friendly ambiance characteristic of all small country towns – not the Chief Steward, their very first client, seated behind an ‘engaged’ sign in the local Diner’s restroom – deader than last week’s news.
Not everyone is happy about the new race-track in Kangaroo Downs. Unexplained accidents have been happening at the track. Like workmen falling off sabotaged ladders, the starting gates malfunctioning, an administrator getting electrocuted as he tested the two-way radio in the stewards’ room, broken glass found scattered on the track and the caretaker’s tractor up and disappearing overnight.
With a deranged murderer on the loose, all Emily and Maggie want to do is complete their assignment and hit the road again. That is – until Emily discovers her car stripped of its wheels and CANCELLED written in red paint on the windshield. Angrier than a couple of bees stuck in a vegemite jar, both Emily and Maggie are determined to unearth the identity of the saboteur.
Deadly Secrets
Shelley has never been brave. But she feels compelled to find the truth about her friend’s suspicious death. Everything points to a high-level conspiracy. Why would the Prime Minister be involved? What does a mining company have to do with it?
Can ordinary people thwart a powerful conspiracy?
Shelley Ormond’s life is about to change forever. Her friend, a young refugee, dies suddenly and the federal police have shrouded her case in secrecy. Shelley has never been bold, but she will have to break the rules and jeopardise her safe, public service career to learn the truth.
Her new friend Adrian, a medical researcher, is studying a mysterious illness in the Australian outback. Young children are becoming fatally ill, but there’s no obvious cause although suspicious mining activity in the area is worth investigating.
Shelley delves deeper and is drawn into a sinister world of police cover-ups, organised crime, government corruption, and corporate greed. If she obeys the law, the powerful can go on breaking it. The stakes are high, and the treacherous schemers will do anything to keep their deadly secrets.
Lives don’t matter, not even hers.
Edge of the Storm
A terrorist threat comes to Rome … the Mossad is on the hunt to thwart the attack, only to discover one of them is the bomb.
Halo moves to Rome to mentor a new agent. On a routine informant contact, Halo is ambushed and taken prisoner. The search for her lands in the lap of her rookie agent, Blackbird. With a small team, Blackbird goes on the hunt to find her partner. She soon discovers the terrorist threat wants to destroy one of the Vatican’s most cherished treasures.
What makes the search horrific is the bomb will not only be devastating, but Halo is the fuse.
Originally part of Russell Blake’s JET Amazon Kindle Worlds.
One Monsoon in Mumbai
Trouble and Laughter and Mushy Stuff.
A nerdy hero, a dashing villain…
and an interfering auntie.
Life’s complicated for Seema Rawat, cyberspy.
From picking pockets in the slums of Mumbai to being picked as an agent by Intelligence Bureau’s hacking unit, Seema has come a long way. For her first assignment, she has to romance the suspect and break into his systems.
The target, Adhith, isn’t the kind of criminal she’s met before.
Looks, charm, money, and power… he has it all.
Well… Seema never backed away from a challenge. There are just two problems. Her auntie keeps a very close eye on her virtue. Then there’s Vikram—Adhith’s boss and BFF—who’s nerdy and awkward and altogether adorable.
Also, he’s a tech wizard.
His specialty? Cybersecurity..
A Goan Holiday
Romance and Drama and What-Might-Have-Beens.
Mysterious exes, a nosy neighbour…
and Interpol at her door.
Anjali’s life is one hot mess.
Interpol insists the Joshi charity clinic in Goa is a front for criminal activity no matter what Dr Anjali Joshi thinks of the ridiculous idea. Her busybody neighbour makes things worse by spreading rumours about Anjali’s lack of mental marbles and her… er… questionable morals.
She goes to the beach café only for a little reprieve.
Except she stumbles into Joe.
Anjali never expected to see her brooding ex from college who vanished years ago without a single word to her. She doesn’t have time to rip his heart out and stomp on it. Or to kiss him.
Nor does she expect to see Rishi, her perfect ex.
He claims he wants her back.
Dark Whispers
How much do you trust your doctor?
When a patient in hypnosis describes an experience of abuse at the hands of her doctor, psychologist Megan Wright starts investigating. Determined to find out the truth and stop the abuse, but bound to silence by the ethics of confidentiality, Megan enters the dark mind of a dangerously disturbed man in a deadly battle of wits and wills.
Red Heeled Rebels Boxset
(Description for book 1 of 3)
The day her parents die in a suspicious car accident, Asha’s perfect life is shattered.
She is the lone survivor, and the authorities have no choice. She is thrust into a family she never knew existed.
Desperate and alone, all Asha wants is to belong again, but she soon discovers her new home hides dark secrets.
Nothing is what it seems.
They’re conspiring against her. So, she plots her escape. She will need all her cunning and guile to flee from her brutal fate, but every step she takes traps her into an unthinkable future.
What will Asha have to sacrifice for her freedom?
The Plot
An unconventional romance…
At eighteen, Yoko Hirano falls prey to a human trafficking organization and is forced into a lifestyle nightmares are made of. When the young Japanese girl escapes, her only focus is exacting revenge and saving other girls from the same fate by bringing down Michael Chen, the powerful mobster who destroyed her innocence.
Between two misfits…
Four years later she meets antiques dealer Mark Chandler, the only man who ever treated her with respect. Though she is torn by her unfamiliar feelings for him, Yoko’s grand scheme doesn’t involve falling in love, and a man like Mark would never want her if he discovered her past. What she doesn’t know is that he has his own dark secrets…
Brought together by love and revenge.
Mark never thought he could lose his head over a woman, but the haunted eyes of his beautiful new employee fill his soul with desire and tenderness. When he learns about what had happened to her, his vengeance knows no limits. Nor does his resolve to help her heal and discover love.