Lone Star Book Blog Tour: The Water Lord by Matt Minor (Review)

THE WATER LORD

by
MATT MINOR

Genre: Political Suspense
Publisher: Dead Tree Publishing
Publication Date: April 2, 2018
Number of Pages: 249 pages
 
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE GIVEAWAY! 

 
A town has gone dry, and the general manager of a water district is found dead, presumably a suicide. His crazed widow is in denial and recklessly loose-lipped. Texas House District 100 is again in turmoil, and the interests of the landed class against urban sprawl are at odds.
 
Enter John David Dothan (The Representative). The world’s hippest legislator is back, but he is a changed man. Post-stroke Dothan dons an eccentric cane and is married to his former chief of staff, Tryphena Taylor. The two lovers reside peacefully tucked away in a country cottage with their rescued cat. But they are swimming against the tide.
 
Caught between the past and the future, the rural and the urban, the representative is trapped in a no-win situation both politically and emotionally. When a constituent brings to his attention a mysterious ‘retention pond’ things grow increasingly murky. The waters turn completely dark when Dothan learns his forbidden first love, former State Senator Rachael Logan has been hospitalized.
 
Armed with only his cane and sidekick, Mason Dixon (The District Manager), who serves as his new Chief of Staff, Dothan sets aside the ambiguities of politics and love in search of clarity and righteousness. But the cost of doing the right thing might not just be his young marriage…but Tryphena’s life.
 
 
PRAISE FOR THE WATER LORD:
“Great pacing and a well-written storyline. I look forward to reading more from Matt Minor!” – My Reading Addiction

“Matt Minor has great attention to detail and makes everything from the setting to the characters feel very real. It makes for a wonderfully written and very suspenseful novel.” – Momma and Her Stories
 
“A well-crafted suspense! The plot kept me turning the pages and I finished this novel very fast. Matt Minor’s voice is a breath of fresh air, smart, witty and full of twists… I will read more books by this author!” – Indie Express
 
“Matt Minor has created a novel in which the main character shows growth…I like flawed characters and if they can overcome things, it really speaks to me.” – A Life Through Books
 
 

 
 
 
“This is Texas. The further the sun climbs, the older the world looks.”

The Water Lord is entertaining all the way through. John David (JD) Dothan is slammed with a full plate of both professional and personal problems that twist and tangle until the very end and beyond.

While a town gone dry is a big issue in The Water Lord, it becomes an even bigger issue for JD and his wife, Tryphena. What should be more of a honeymoon period for these two lovebirds turns out to be anything but as JD goes about his Representative duties and digs deeper into the mystery behind the missing water. When things turn dangerous and deadly, the plot takes off, and the characters can only hang on for dear life.

An interesting yet puzzling aspect of The Water Lord is that JD’s part is in the present tense, and Tryphena’s part is the past tense. This tense switching definitely encourages some heavy literary speculation on why the husband is living in the moment and the wife is reflecting on the past. Who can say except the author, of course, but conjecturing on all the reasons why has been quite engaging for me as an English literature major.

The tension in The Water Lord builds beautifully as the danger increases and the questions keep coming. The relationship between JD and Tryphena is dynamic and enigmatic and supplies a hefty amount of that tension. Their oscillating feelings for each other and Tryphena’s baffling stalker provide an odd yet exhilarating backdrop to the political tremors that are shaking up everybody’s world. 

The ending is both hopeful and unfinished, so perhaps there is more to come in this series. But let’s talk about JD’s cane because it is consistently mentioned and described. As a gift from his wife, the cane assists JD after his stroke, but the cane’s intricate design holds more meaning than even JD first thought and definitely opens up new avenues of speculation. Read The Water Lord and form your own opinion about this carved motif. You can also reflect on who can be trusted, who truly loves whom, and who the actual Water Lord is. This interesting mystery is packed with political upheaval, cracked relationships, and a cat named Galveston that just might have a more important role to fill than a simple feline companion.

While The Water Lord can stand on its own, I recommend diving into Matt Minor’s previous novels that have some of the same characters to obtain a fuller and more rounded view of this fabulous fictional political environment and characterization.

Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win an eBook of The Water Lord by Matt Minor.


 
Matt Minor presently serves as a Chief of Staff in the Texas House of Representatives. In the Texas House he has served under the Pensions Committee, Government Efficiency and Reform, Investments and Financial Services, Bond Indebtedness, and Way and Means. He has worked as a political campaign manager and is a public speaker. Matt has authored official state publications, oversees syndicated editorials, (both political and cultural) and is a speech writer and district radio legislative commentator. Prior to his life in state politics, Matt was a professional musician and entertainer. Matt’s hobbies are centered on the arts, including the craft of poetry, an interest that has brought academic recognition and numerous awards.
 
His first novel, The Representative was an Amazon Political Fiction Bestseller the summer of 2015, and was accepted and archived into the Texas State Legislative Library. In April of 2016, The Representative won an IPPY Gold medal for Southern Fiction. In the summer of 2016 he released his second novel, The District Manager.
 
Matt Minor resides on his ranch property in Wharton County, Texas. He lives in Austin during legislative session.
 
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THREE WINNERS GET AN E-BOOK COPY!

JANUARY 8-17, 2019

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