Secrets Threaten to Unravel Family Ties in The Wool Over Their Eyes
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At 18, Natalia Foster knew seven things about the biological father she’d never met: he was tall, dark, handsome and Italian. He was also married to someone other than Natalia’s mother, had three children and, clearly, no morals. Now, at age 28, Natalia knows something new: her father is dying.
The Wool Over Their Eyes, from Dione Martin, is an authentic, heartfelt story about complex family dynamics and the emotions that must be unpacked when long-buried secrets push their way to the surface.
Illegitimate and bi-racial, Natalia is the secret that her father, Joe, planned to take to his grave. His wife and family know nothing of Natalia’s existence — or that her mother is Black — but when word spreads that Joe has only months to live, Natalia feels compelled to meet him and salvage what little time with him she has left. But at what cost to Joe’s devoted wife, Rosa, and their grown children?
In the midst of Natalia’s family drama and pain is also a love story. Natalia must choose between two loves — a long-lost one and a new one. Her ex-boyfriend, Tyler Davis, who captured her heart and connected with her soul, resurfaces. But she meets a handsome doctor, David Duplessis, who’d cared for her father. Just as the relationship begins to blossom, David commits an act that severs her trust and sends her spiraling further into her dark abyss.
The Wool Over Their Eyes is loosely based on Martin’s personal experiences. She drew upon her own memories and insights of growing up without her biological father and being betrayed in her own marriage to inform her narrative and give her characters depth and authenticity.
“I wrote The Wool Over Their Eyes for fatherless girls, for women who have been betrayed, for those who have been rejected because of their race (or otherness) and for families that have been torn apart by secrets, lies and deception,” Martin reflects. “Healing is possible – through change, through empathy, through faith and through forgiveness.”
Author Dione Martin was born and raised in New Orleans, where she spent much of her childhood and teen years reading. She earned her Bachelor’s in English from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her Master’s in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a senior communications director at Brinker International. She lives in Dallas with her two daughters and enjoys running, cooking, performing arts and attempting DIY projects. The Wool Over Their Eyes is her debut novel, and she is working on her next one.
For more information about the author, please visit www.dione-martin.com or follow her on Twitter (@DioneMartin30), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/dione-martin/) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/dionehmartin).
The Wool Over Their Eyes Publisher: Inspire on Purpose ISBN-10: 1948903539 ISBN-13: 978-1948903530 Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Chelsea Smith Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Should a Person with Autism Be Allowed to Become a Professional Boxer and Put His Life at Risk?
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It’s a struggle that parents of children with special needs face every day and well into that child’s adulthood: how much decision-making latitude is safe?
NOKI is an empowering story from Douglas Farrago, MD, about a young man with autism who wants to become a professional boxer. Life’s circumstances have dictated the reason for him choosing this path. The lawless world of boxing has its reasons for embracing Noki and his abilities. And they are not good ones. So, the debate wages on: Should Noki be allowed to make the life-altering decision to enter the ring and put his life on the line?
Meanwhile, what few know is that Noki is actually a savant and can imitate and transform himself into any legendary boxer he wants — a plot twist that allows NOKI to pay homage to some of the greatest boxers of all time.
Dr. Farrago draws upon his experiences as an All-American collegiate boxer, a sports medicine trainer for professional boxers in Houston and his decades-long career in medicine during which he worked with autism patients to lend authenticity to his characters and narrative.
“Noki becomes somewhat of a hero to those with special needs in this story, which I think is pretty cool,” he said. “I felt it would be nice if a story showed that those with autism don’t need to be anything but themselves, and maybe it is the rest of us who need to change.”
Ultimately, NOKI is a heartwarming story that will spark real conversations about the limits that society places on people with special needs. Knowingly or not.
Author Douglas Farrago, MD, is board certified in the specialty of Family Practice. Recently retired, he had a large following of autistic and special needs patients in his career. Dr. Farrago is the inventor of the Knee Saver, which is currently in the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Knee Saver and its knock-offs are worn by many major league baseball catchers. He also invented the CryoHelmet, used by athletes for head injuries as well as migraine sufferers.
Dr. Farrago received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia in 1987, his Master of Education degree in Exercise Science from the University of Houston in 1990 and his Medical Degree from the University of Texas at Houston in 1994. His residency training occurred way up north at the Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Dr. Farrago still blogs every day on his website Authenticmedicine.com and lectures worldwide about the present crisis in our healthcare system and the effect it has on the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Farrago has written six books to date, his latest one being NOKI.
Parents and Educators: Both Can Help Children Attain Academic Heights
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Children who arrive at school with an emotional commitment to learn are ideally equipped to excel academically. A second factor in their learning success is the set of values that guides the lessons they’re taught during their most impressionable years (preschool–grade 5). These are among the insights of Dr. Cornelius Grove, who has spent decades exploring the cultural factors that affect children’s performance in classrooms.
Consider Dr. Grove’s 138-page book for parents, The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel. Here he explores the ways in which East Asian parents instill in their children respect for academic knowledge and receptiveness to the formal learning process. After a seven-chapter explanation of cultural values underlying East Asian parents’ mindset, he offers three chapters revealing their specific supportive practices. It’s an outline for action for American parents who deeply value academic learning.
A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel, is the 148-page companion volume to the above book. Dr. Grove examines the school side of the learning equation. East Asian lower-grade lessons gain the advantage because of their tenacious, narrow, yet multifaceted focus on the day’s topic. He addresses, among other things, how East Asians regard teaching and the reasons for pupils’ math superiority. Choice magazine (June issue) “highly recommends” this book for “general readers through faculty.”
“People who’ve had experience in unfamiliar cultures often remark that they now see their own culture with fresh eyes,” Dr. Grove explains. “It’s as though they’ve looked into a mirror and seen alternative possibilities for themselves. They realize that their usual ways of doing things are not etched in stone; instead, they’re choices. Different choices could be made.”
Although each book effortlessly stands alone, The Drive to Learn and A Mirror for Americans combine to encourage complementary reassessments by parents and lower-grade teachers about the more impactful roles they could be playing in upgrading the academic performance and the eventual college readiness of the youngest Americans.
For more detailed overviews, visit TheDriveToLearn.info and AMirrorForAmericans.info.
Author Cornelius N. Grove holds a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Johns Hopkins and a Doctor of Education from Columbia. He has had a decades-long fascination with the cultural factors that affect children’s ability to learn in school. At a 2005 conference in Singapore, he spoke about the two instructional styles found around the world. In 2013 he wrote The Aptitude Myth: How an Ancient Belief Came to Undermine Children’s Learning Today, a historical study of why most Americans believe that inborn ability determines school performance. For two recently published encyclopedias (2015 and 2017), he wrote entries on “pedagogy across cultures.” And now with A Mirror for Americans and The Drive to Learn, he is revealing the complementary roles home and school play in strengthening children’s academic capabilities.
The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland) Hardback: 978-1-4758-1509-2 Paperback: 978-1-4758-1510-8 eBook: 978-1-4758-1511-5 Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.
A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland) Hardback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4460-3 Paperback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4461-0 eBook: ISBN 978-1-4758-4462-7 Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.
Trish Stevens Teresa Hinojosa Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 832.569.5773 Direct 281.333.3507 Phone [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
