Dan's new novel
Sled Doug
COMING SOON FROM PARKA PRESS
Sled Doug, the fourth novel from Canadian writer Dan Dowhal, will be published by Northern publisher Parka Press. The ebook will be released in August, with print editions to be available in September.
Sled Doug is the story of an unusual boy who lives with a team of sled dogs in the Northern Yukon and believes himslef to be a mamber of the pack. When he comes to the attention of an unscrupulous social worker who wants to exploit the case for his own gain, the lives of Doug and all those around him are thrown into turmoil. For Mountie corporal Marie Leclaire, who gets swept up in the situation, it becomes battle between duty and conscience.
“For the past 13 years I've been co-parenting a team of sled dogs,” Dowhal jokes. “It's been a hell of a lot of work. I look at this book as their way of paying me back,”
Writing of Sled Doug was made possible with financial support from Leading Lady Literature and the Yukon Arts Fund. The novel is being published by Parka Press of Dawson City, Yukon.
Disgraced pro hockey enforcer Shane “Bronco” Bronkovsky crashes his motorcycle in the Southern New Mexico desert where, injured and helpless, he is robbed by mysterious passers-by. Rescued by Tammy DeWitt, Shane is taken to the hardscrabble ranch she runs with two other formerly-abused women, where his injuries are treated by the dodgy Doc Sanchez.
Shocked to discover the ranch raises rattlesnakes, Shane comes to relish the honest work and peace found there. His life becomes entangled with those of the local denizens, including the ranch’s children. A romance with Tammy develops, but Shane cannot escape his past. As his troubles catch up to him, Shane is drawn into the violent world of the Mexican drug cartels.
Through the lives he touches and the people he helps, Shane strives for redemption. Yet, even as he struggles to tame the demons within, and adjust to life away from the spotlight of professional sports, his past and present collide in an explosive climax.
Abused and withdrawn, the child of a troubled marriage, young Flam Grub takes refuge in books. When the latchkey kid instinctively gravitates to the bookstore beneath his family's flat, his obsession crystallizes as he falls under the tutelage of Page Turner, the shop's owner, and grows up as a lover of literature, and especially poetry.
Flam, however, carries the burden of a pathologically introverted nature, and the perceived shame of an unusual name that brings him nothing but abuse from his peers. As adulthood arrives, the angst-ridden and suicidal Flam must struggle to escape the netherworld of his own life.
This coming-of-age saga follows Flam as he attends vocational college to train as an undertaker, then enters the funerary profession as a wide-eyed neophyte. Hypersensitive and lonely, he pours his aching heart out into poetry, and fights to hold on. Thanks to his intelligence, decency, and spirituality, Flam bravely finds his way into the light — influenced by the characters he meets along the way.
Quirky, sometimes dark, sometimes funny, but ultimately uplifting, this book will have you rooting for the unforgettable Flam Grub.
As one of the trio of ad men who created Phasmatia, Evans knows where all the skeletons are buried, and is ready to tell all—provided he manages to live long enough. His close friend and co-conspirator, Stan Shiu, whose technical genius helped spark the religion's rapid rise, has already been murdered by Sky Fisher's retinue of killer monks. Now they're searching for Evans.
The whistle-blower recounts the religion's genesis and its growth from a get-rich-quick Dot-Com scheme to the Next Big Thing that spreads like wildfire over the web … and the planet. He also exposes the corruption and power lust that festers at the top, even while his hope for a potential new era of spirituality and faith burns brightly.
The events in this gripping novel could well pop up on your computer screen tomorrow. Our wired age of social networks, virtual worlds, and media manipulation is examined in the context of humankind's timeless need for spiritual sustenance and divine hope.
“A terrific read from a strong, new voice.”
Dowhal's rich, evocative prose lets his hapless, young hero leap off the page.
This is a funny novel with a dark underlay about a young man coping with the bedlam he was born into. A wonderful yarn of today's chaotic world.
Box 1502, Dawson City,
Yukon, Canada Y0B 1G0