Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Jus Breathe by B. Lynn Carter

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Jus Breathe by B. Lynn Carter. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a fantastic guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Jus Breathe

Author: B. Lynn Carter

Publisher: Liminal Books

Publication Date: October 11th 2022

Print Length: 410 pages

Genre: Women's Speculative Fiction

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Their seesaw love affair started when she was five, even though they didn’t meet until she was eighteen. It started the day she heard Daddy slur, “She ain’t mine. You had the nerve to name her Dawn. Look at her! You shudda named her Midnight!” Then Daddy left . . . for good. And the loving music that had filled Dawn’s life went silent.

That was the day that a “Midnight” Duckling invaded the mirror, took up residence in her chest, and controlled her ability to breathe. That was the day she learned to recognize “leaving time” . . . her superpower.

Couched in speculation, Jus Breathe is the tale of a young Black woman’s struggle to defy her inner “Duckling” and embrace her true self. Set in New York City during the turbulent sixties, it’s an improbable love story with precarious impulses, secret pasts, and inner demons.

Dawn, a survivor, flees her stepfather’s violent home. While struggling to attend college, she perfects sofa-surfing and hones her superpower, her ability to leave a situation in an instant.

But in the mist of the chaotic uprising that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, serendipity spins Dawn into beautiful Danny’s rollercoaster world.

Toxically in love, no longer a “leaver,” Dawn realizes that in order to survive, she must break free of Danny’s dominance. But that Duckling, who has allied with Danny, threatens to squeeze the life-breath from her if she dares to leave . . . that ugly, midnight-black Duckling, she has to kill.

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EXCERPT:

There was pain. It shot up from my jaw to my brain and back down again. Ghostly figures were, moving fast, a blur of white overalls, the smell of wall paint, shuffling feet, a scuffle.

That voice was rolling through my brain—one word, an echo from far away.

“Attack . . .”

It’s summer. It’s always summer when I slip into those childhood days. The boys have hijacked my Spalding ball, again. I chase them. I sic Sigfried on them. She does her most ferocious growl and a playful tug of war on their shoestrings as I yell, “Attack!! Attack!!”

“Attack!!”

A voice was shrieking that word. It occurred to me that it was my own voice, gradually returning me to the stark reality of the situation; back to ‘moving-in day,’ to what just happened, to the moment that my mother’s new husband’s fist impacted my face; back to Sigfreid lunging at his neck, taking him down, to the painters trying to free him from her grip, trying to get me to call her off.

Dazed, I remained in my head, lingered in the fantasy that my big-boned shepherd could take a man down like that, fascinated that she even had it in her. I think I did call her off or maybe she relented of her own accord. That’s when “that thing” took possession of my lungs, again. Gasping for air, I think maybe all of them, the painters . . . my mother’s husband, were franticly yelling.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born and raised in the Bronx, NYC, B. Lynn Carter graduated The City College of New York with a degree in creative writing. She’s also studied at the Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College.

Her short story "One Wild Ride," published in Aaduna magazine, was nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2014. She’s had short stories and poetry published in the Blue Lake Review, Drunk Monkeys, Ascent Aspirations, Enhance Magazine, The Story Shack, and the Bronx Memoir Project, among others. Besides “Jus Breathe,” Ms. Carter has written two additional full-length novels. She is also listed in Poets & Writers directory of writers.

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GUEST POST:

- How alike and/or different are you and the main character of your book?

This is a question that almost all of my beta readers have asked. It’s true. There are many glaring similarities. Dawn is a young, dark-skinned, Black woman, living in the 60’s, attending CCNY through the SEEK Program; a program that is designed to help poor and minority kids get through college. I am a dark-skinned Black woman. And though the world no longer considers me young, (I disagree) I did attend CCNY in the 60’s. I was a SEEK student. Like Dawn in the story, I escaped my violent stepfather. I left home at sixteen and lived from place to place for two years. I consider those days my “gypsy days.”

So yes, the bones of the story are shaped by my own life experiences. However, in the story, Dawn is burdened by the “dark skinned complex” inflicted on her by her father. I, on the other hand, never suffered with that issue. Like my mother always says, “Lynn, that gurl thinks she’s people!”

It's Dawn’s battles with this insecurity that allows me to take the reader through the ups and downs of her life. As she slowly realizes that she’s a woman who is deserving of love, Dawn battles to overcome her demons. Specifically she must find a way to defeat that Ugly Black Creature in the mirror, the creature that rules her by controlling her ability to breathe. She must find a way to kill that creature . . . before it finds a way to kill her.

As for me , my demons have always taken a much more mundane role.

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GIVEAWAY:

B. Lynn Carter will be awarding $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!

(All the Ups and Downs is not responsible for this giveaway, its entries, or the prize. Goddess Fish Promotions and the author assume all responsibility over this giveaway.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway