Tag: memoir

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June giveaway: Samantha Dunn’s Faith in Carlos Gomez

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Andrea in Los Angeles! ***

I’ve been blogging about salsa dancing the last few weeks — so fittingly, this month’s giveaway is a salsa memoir!

Samantha Dunn’s book Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex, and Salvation starts with the newly divorced, thirty-something Samantha’s introduction to salsa — via a lover who quickly becomes an ex lover because he turns out to have other lovers — then quickly spirals down to her sleeping with her very short salsa instructor — then spins into a heartwarming story of her actually learning to dance — on the dance floor and off.

The memoir covers a lot of ground: the colorful Los Angeles salsa scene, a strained and competitive mother-daughter relationship, and Samantha’s love of horses.

Get a copy of now, or sign up with your email below to be entered to win a free copy! Already signed up for my newsletter? Then you’re already entered!

Enter your email below for a chance to win a free copy of Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex, and Salvation. Already signed up for my newsletter? Then you’re already entered! US addresses only; giveaway ends June 30 at 11:59 pm.

Enter to win!


Come back mid-month to read a Five Firsts interview with Samantha Dunn.

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February Giveaway: Julia Scheeres’s Jesus Land

*** Winner selected! Congratulations to Daniel in Murray, KY ***

What’s it like growing up white — with an adopted black brother — in 1980s rural Indiana? Tough — and much, much tougher if the two of you are not only taunted by racist peers at school but abused and neglected by your religious, punitive parents at home.

In her searing memoir Jesus Land, Julia Sheeres tells the story of her and her brother David in painful and riveting detail. The kids try to fend for themselves while caring for each other in an increasingly turbulent environment — enduring physical and sexual abuse — until they’re sent to a religious reform school in the Dominican Republic. There, the siblings are disciplined with draconian rules that shame and isolate and silence students, subjugating them into obedience.

Raised by religious parents myself, reading Jesus Land was a cathartic experience for me. It’s a fascinating and disturbingly close look at key social issues that still plague us today: racism, sexual assault, and child abuse carried out in the name of god, both in the quiet secrecy of family homes and the formalized settings of religious institutions.

Get a copy of Jesus Land now, or sign up with your email below to be entered to win a free copy! Already signed up for my newsletter? Then you’re already entered!

*** This giveaway is now closed, but join my email list to be entered into future giveaways! ***

Come back mid-month to read a Five Firsts interview with Julia Scheeres.