New books by Peace Corps writers — January 2019

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — Click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards.

We now include a one-sentence description — provided by the author — for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  1) to order the book and 2) to volunteer to review it. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at peacecorpsworldwide@gmail.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions.

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Fury
John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)
Crossroad Press
289 pages
January 27, 2019
$4.95 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindl

A single, upwardly mobile professional woman, Jennifer Winters is typical of her kind until she falls victim to events that aren’t typical at all . . . strange memories of a past no woman could ever have lived, a primal lust for both blood and sexual gratification, and most terrifying of all, a primitive rage that wreaks destruction — even kills — with astonishing ease.

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The Shaman of Turtle Valley
(novel)
Clifford W. Garstang (Korea 1976–77)
Braddock Avenue Books
May 2019
$16.95 (paperback)

The Alexanders have farmed the land in Turtle Valley for generations, and When Gulf War veteran Aiken Alexander brings home a young and pregnant South Korean bride, he hopes at long last to claim his own place. However, things do not go according to plan.

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Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace
Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67)
Flatiron Books Publisher
304 pages
January 29, 2019
$27.99 (hardcover), $14.99 (Kindle). $32.45 (Audiobook)

To know Donald J. Trump it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. 

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You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories
Kristen  Roupenian (Kenya 2003–05)
Gallery/Scout Press
January 2019
$24.99 (paperback), $12.99 (Kindle)

You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them.

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With Kennedy in the Land of the Dead: A Novel of the 1960s
William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962-64)
Peace Corps Writers
315 pages
January 26, 2019
$20.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle)

After the death of President Kennedy, Gilbert Stone, a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Ethiopia moves to San Francisco where he is caught up in the hippie movement and anti-Vietnam war protests during the 1960s.

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Pounding the Rock: Basketball Dreams and Real Life in a Bronx High School
Marc Skelton (Moldova
Doubleday Publisher
256 pages
March 12, 2019
$12.99 (Kindle), $25.95 (Hardcover)

Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships . . . and learn Russian history  . . . and graduate  . . . and go on to college. Since 2007, the year Marc Skelton took over as head coach, the Panthers’ record has been 228-68, and they’ve won three Public School Athletic League championships and one statewide championship. This tiny 400-student school has become a powerhouse on the basketball court, as well as a public education success story and a symbol of the regeneration of its once blighted neighborhood. 

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