Thank you GetRedPrBooks & Ten16Press #partner, for the advanced copy of Double Exposure in exchange for this feature.
Today, I’m happy to be featuring this book, which published yesterday. Please see what others have said about the book and learn the inspiration behind the book. And if you check out my instagram post for today, you will see that this is our October #GetRedPRBookclub Pick…if you would like to join, please let me know.
Publisher: Ten16Press
Published: September 27, 2022
Summary:
November 2015-Seasoned war photojournalist Annie Hawkins returns home after an assignment to find her life falling apart. She’s under investigation for an incident that happened six months earlier in Afghanistan. Her best friend’s daughter, Seema, is still missing, apparently with her Taliban boyfriend. Her daughter Mel and friends are busy fundraising to rebuild the Wad Qol Secondary School for Girls and expect Annie to deliver the money. To make matters worse, she has a major argument with the love of her life, Finn Cerelli, and they’re no longer speaking.
When Annie returns to Afghanistan to cover peace talks between the government and the Taliban, she takes a side trip to Wad Qol, where she discovers that not everyone wants the new school. Sabotage delays construction, and when a worker ends up dead, it’s clear the militants are to blame. It’s also obvious that they know exactly where Annie is.
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PRAISE FOR DOUBLE EXPOSURE:
“This high-intensity story with even higher stakes has a female protagonist that is relatable in her struggles, but also a role model in her convictions. With a close connection to the military, this story encapsulates the intricacies of correspondents and the struggles of PTSD and nightmares after being embedded in a war zone. Readers will enjoy this refreshing take of a female central character in a mostly male-dominated genre.” –Booklist
“. . . Annie Hawkins Green is without a doubt currently my favorite badass woman. She is smart, strong, gutsy, and kind, but at the same time flawed, with emotions (and lingering PTSD) that cause some of her decisions to take her into situations that range from mildly upsetting to life-threateningly dangerous. . . . Sacken’s prose is brilliant.” –Patricia Sands, author of the best-selling Love in Provence series
“Jeannée Sacken has done it again. A well-researched story and intriguing suspense that grips you till the end.” –Kathryn Gauci, best-selling author of The Secret of the Grand Hôtel du Lac
“Captivating, fast-paced, and unsettling, Double Exposure is a story of strength, love, perseverance, and resilience. Chock-full of raw emotion and visceral pain, it made me weep then rage at the plight of females in Afghanistan.” –Laurie Buchanan, author of the Sean McPherson novels
“With smart narration, nuanced characters, and thought-provoking situations reminiscent of Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Sacken brilliantly explores the story of Annie Hawkins, a photojournalist torn between the needs of her teenage daughter back home and her own deep-seated desire to change the lives of the women in a small Afghan village.” -Maggie Smith, author of Truth and Other Lies
“Double Exposure thrusts the reader into full-out romantic suspense. Not only is the tension high and the immersion visceral, but the romance is deeply emotional (I fell hard for Cerelli).” -Jennifer Trethewey, author of historical romance
“A superbly crafted and thrilling sequel with enough twists and turns to keep you riveted right up to the tension-filled finale. Jeannée Sacken captures the beauty and complexity of Afghanistan through the eyes and lens of Annie Hawkins-always with a tough, yet tender touch.” -Debra Thomas, Sarton Award winner of Luz
“This is an intense read that focuses on the inner strength of women, the power of profound friendships, the love that aids survival during the hardest moments in life, and appreciation for one another despite cultural and religious divides. . . . Hopefully, the saga of war photojournalist Annie continues beyond Double Exposure.” -Heba Elkobaitry, Muslim Cultural Advisement Consultant
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A former English professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeannée Sacken is now a photojournalist who travels the world, documenting the lives of women and children. She also photographs wildlife and is deeply committed to the conservation of endangered species. When not traveling, she lives with her husband and three cats in Shorewood, Wisconsin, where she’s hard at work on the next novel in the award-winning Annie Hawkins series. Follow Jeannée at jeanneesacken.com
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BEHIND THE BOOK
LEARN MORE ABOUT DOUBLE EXPOSURE
Where did you first get the idea for this series?
I had written an earlier novel with Annie Hawkins Green as a human rights attorney investigating the deaths of women factory workers in Ciudad Juarez. That book didn’t hang together, so I set it aside. Years later, when I looked at it again, I realized that I still loved the main character: Annie Hawkins Green. Except that she needed to be a war photographer. Which meant I needed a war. Enter Afghanistan. I’ve long been interested in Afghanistan, its people, the wars they have endured, and the culture and food and hospitality that enrich their lives. I was also taken by the women and men who are fighting to bring their country into the 21st century in opposition to the Taliban–a patriarchal and feudal group looking to impose their violent beliefs on the entire country. Behind the Lens came together. Then Double Exposure, raising issues of women’s friendship and mother/daughter relationships, but also guilt and redemption, PTSD, and the struggle for girls’ education.
Like your main character, Annie Hawkins Green, you are a photojournalist. How autobiographical is Double Exposure?
There are some superficial similarities. Like Annie, I have red hair and I’m a photographer, but I’m not a conflict zone photographer. I’ve been in some dangerous situations – canoeing hippo and crocodile alley on the Zambezi River, having my lodge in Namibia burn down around me, and driving off-road through a snowstorm in far-western Mongolia – and have been able to fictionalize those events as well as the adrenaline rush and fear in both Double Exposure and Behind the Lens.
How does being a photographer influence your writing?
Photography is all about painting with light and shadows. In my novels, I like to juxtapose scenes of violence with scenes of love and everyday life, which can make the violence that much more powerful. The shadows also come into play for Annie because much of what happens is literally in the shadows or the darkness of night; she senses what could be happening, but she’s never sure. As a photographer, I’m all about having a point of view. As a first-person narrator, Annie is plagued by guilt and PTSD, which have an impact on how she sees and interprets what’s happening around her and to her. I also take great care in framing my shot, sometimes using the “rule of thirds,” and I transfer that to how I structure a scene and the entire novel, constantly layering and upping the ante with the tension and suspense. I like my photographs to tell a story. Double Exposure is very visual, very cinematic, with framed scene after scene. Plus, throughout the novel, Annie takes photographs, some of which feature prominently as plot devices. Perhaps most important, as a photographer, I honor people’s invitations to step into their world, to capture their image. I respect their culture and their heritage. That is the kind of photographer Annie is as well.
As a former professor, you are committed to education, especially the education of women and girls. How does that commitment feature in Double Exposure?
In Behind the Lens, Annie barely escapes a Taliban ambush that leaves a feisty Afghan girl dying in her arms – shot because she violated the Taliban prohibition of girls learning to read and write. Seeking redemption for her role in the girl’s death, Annie helps fund a girls’ high school in the Panjshir Valley and teaches a photography workshop there. After the Taliban fire-bomb that school, Annie returns to Afghanistan in Double Exposure to rebuild the school. She is keenly aware, as her best friend Darya told her, that the only way there will be peace in a country with a long history of war and poverty is for Afghan girls and women to be educated.
