DOUBLE EXPOSURE by Jeannee Sacken - Review, Interview & Giveaway

 

DOUBLE EXPOSURE (Ten16Press) by Jeannee Sacken is book two in the Annie Hawkins Green Series. You don't have to read book one, BEHIND THE LENS to know what's going on in DOUBLE EXPOSURE, but after reading DOUBLE EXPOSURE, I put BEHIND THE LENS on my TBR. I think you will, too.

So let's start at the beginning, Annie Hawkins is a badass woman war photojournalist and is finally planning to dump the last name of her ex. She's in a relationship with a Navy Seal, Finn Cerelli. He's the love of her life and I know readers will be swooning over this tough, sensitive, protective guy who supports just about everything she does.

Annie is 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 in Afghanistan and expect Annie to deliver the money to Afghanistan. Her ex and Mel's stepmom continue to annoy both of them. And to make matters worse, Annie 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 and there's a bounty on her.

Reading DOUBLE EXPOSURE is an adrenalin rush. Every time I started reading, I felt as if I should put on my flak jacket, also known as body armor. It's also a wonderful story about women's friendships and how love can help a person through adversity. 

Here's a quick interview with Jeannee:

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 Juárez. 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 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 Nambia 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.

What was the biggest challenge for you in writing this book?

Research and world building. Although I’ve traveled all over the world for my own photography, I’ve never been to Afghanistan. I am not Muslim. I’ve never been in the military. I don’t have children, much less a teenage daughter. The research was endless. But I learned quickly that the internet can be your best friend as long as you quadruple-check everything. Then I had cultural and religious sensitivity readers, a naval officer, and attorneys vet my work. 

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 fi re-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.

Who do you most wish would read your book?

When I started writing this series, I envisioned middle-aged women (like Annie) being most likely to read my novels. They did read and let me know that they very much appreciated seeing a forty-something woman having a successful career and a love a air. Then I started hearing from mothers that their teenage daughters read and loved Behind the Lens. I’ve also heard from women in their eighties and nineties who have “fallen hard for Cerelli.” I didn’t expect to hear from the Muslim community and from people in the U.S. military, but I did. And they told me that they’ve literally cried while reading and sometimes had to set the book aside—they were that moved. That means the world to me because they’re telling me that I got it right.

A former English professor, Jeannée Sacken is a photojournalist who travels throughout Africa, South America, and Asia documenting the lives of women and children. Behind the Lens is her debut novel.

Double Exposure, her second novel featuring Annie Hawkins Green, is slated for release in October 2022. She lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin with her husband and cats and loves to make guest appearances at book clubs to discuss her novels.

Follow Jeannée Sacken at https://www.jeanneesacken.com.

Thanks to GetRed PR we have one copy to giveaway. Just tell us what you know about Afghanistan. We'll announce a winner soon. Good luck.

GIVEAWAY: USA only please