Contemporary Authors

• It All Falls Down - 2018 William Morrow, New York, NY
• The Lost Ones - 2017 William Morrow, New York, NY

• Amazon -

  Sheena Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in political science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Kamal has also worked as a crime and investigative journalism researcher for the film and television industry-- academic knowledge and experience that inspired this debut novel. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

  Praise for Eyes Like Mine (U.K) /The Lost Ones (U.S.):

  "Utterly compelling, rich with voice and psychological insight, populated with heartbreakingly real characters, The Lost Ones will stay with you for a long, long time after you finish the last page. Perhaps forever."
  --Jeffery Deaver, #1 International Bestselling Author

  "A brave, unflinching heroine and brave, unflinching writing add up to an extraordinary debut - highly recommended."
  --Lee Child, #1 International Bestselling Author

  "Suspenseful, atmospheric and often deeply moving, THE LOST ONES features one of the most complicated and fascinating protagonists I've come across in a long time. I'd follow Nora Watts (and her dog Whisper) anywhere."
  --Alison Gaylin, USA Today Bestselling Author

• Fantastic Fiction -

  Sheena Kamal
  Caribbean

  Sheena Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness.
  Kamal has also worked as a crime and investigative journalism researcher for the film and television industry--academic knowledge and experience that inspired her novel Eyes Like Mine. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

  New Books
  June 2018
  (paperback)

  In The Grip Of It
  (Nora Watts)June 2018
  (hardback)

  It All Falls Down
  (Nora Watts, book 2)
  Series
  Nora Watts
  1. The Lost Ones (2017)
  aka Eyes Like Mine
  2. It All Falls Down (2018)
  In The Grip Of It (2018)

• Whistler Writers Festival website - http://whistlerwritersfest.com/sheena-kamal-on-risk/

  Sheena Kamal on Risk
  S. H. Kamal ap1The very act of writing requires a leap of faith, a somewhat crazed belief that, with your words, you can create a story that another person—a living, breathing human being— will want to read. It’s the riskiest thing imaginable to sit and face a blank page armed with nothing but this belief and the germ of some idea or another.

  When I decided to write my debut novel The Lost Ones, I took it a step further. I knew that the setting was going to be in Vancouver but, at the time, I lived in Toronto. I’d only been to the west coast once, many years before, as an actor looking for work during pilot season. I never did get any work, but something about my experience in the city struck a nerve. It appealed to my imagination, particularly for this story. But how could I write Vancouver authentically when I was stuck in cold, congested Toronto?

  Move there, of course!

  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the right thing to do. So I quit my job, upended my life, and relocated to rainy Vancouver to write a novel that no one had asked for, and that I didn’t know how to write (having never written a novel before).

  There were many bumps along the way, but I did manage to write the book. Two years after I had that initial idea that took me to Vancouver, I had a book deal. Several, in fact. The Lost Ones is on its way to being published in 15 countries. And when I look back at that risk I took? Best decision I ever made.

• From Publisher -

  Sheena Kamal holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, which she attended on Canada's most prestigious scholarship, received for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness in Toronto. She went on to work in the film and TV industry, most recently as a researcher for a crime drama series being developed for television. Her research into crime and investigative journalism inspired Eyes Like Mine.

• The Thrill Begins - http://thrillbegins.com/2017/06/01/debut-author-spotlight-sheena-kamal/

  Debut Author Spotlight: Sheena Kamal
  By Sam Wiebe

  Sheena Kamal is one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction. Her debut novel, The Lost Ones (Eyes Like Mine in the UK), is a harrowing, fast-paced thriller that introduces Nora Watts, an assistant to a legal investigator in Vancouver whose personal demons led to her giving up her child for adoption years ago. When the adoptive parents get in touch to tell Nora her now-teenaged daughter has gone missing, Nora must confront all sorts of danger to find her.

  I sat down with Sheena to discuss setting novels in Vancouver, balancing humor with thrills, and literary influences.

  SK: Hi Sam, thanks for agreeing to interview me! I was very nervous asking you, because I’d seen you on panels and at Vancouver crime fiction events, and was intimidated by your general air of busyness and your height. (I am intimidated by everyone’s height). So I’m very grateful that you had the time to do it– especially since you were recently Writer in Residence at the Vancouver Public Library and just launched your book Invisible Dead in the U.S.

  SW: Happy to do it, Sheena! Let’s start with the protagonist of The Lost Ones, Nora Watts. She’s highly resourceful and tenacious, while also displaying tremendous vulnerability. How did you come up with her?

  SK: Nora came to me very organically. I started becoming serious about writing when I worked in the film/TV industry, so what I saw first was a logline about a woman who discovers the daughter she’d given up for adoption has gone missing, and she doesn’t trust the authorities to look for the girl. Who doesn’t trust the cops? Someone who’s had bad experiences with them, an outsider, a loner. Then I wrote a line about her singing the blues and I suddenly got her personality. I sensed she had a huge identity crisis that’s always hovering over her shoulders. Writing the story can be difficult, but understanding Nora never is.

  How was it for you creating Dave Wakeland? Did you think about him a lot first or did he manifest on the page right away?

  SW: With Invisible Dead, I knew I wanted a protagonist who’d embody some of the old school virtues of classic detective fiction, but who wouldn’t feel anachronistic. I wanted to avoid the cliche of the heroic loner in a corrupt world; in some ways the novel is about Wakeland coming to grips with his own complicity in the social ills he investigates.

  For me, the classic detective writers like MacDonald, Chandler, on through Walter Mosley and Sue Grafton, were my literary points of reference. In writing a thriller, were there thriller or crime writers who inspired you? Certain things you wanted to draw from or avoid in the thriller genre?

  SK: At the time, I was less influenced by the classic authors than I should have been (sorry, I know, I’m going to do better next book- I promise). But if I thought in terms of who I wanted to be like, I might never have done it. For me, the genre mostly helped me figure out what I didn’t want to write.

  I remember the last crime fic novel I’d read before starting to write the book, in which the heroine was some kind of male fantasy wet dream. I thought, nah. I didn’t just want to avoid that trope, I wanted it to fall off a cliff and die. I recently read Sara Paretsky for the first time and immediately felt a connection. She probably would have been an inspiration had I read her earlier, but she certainly is now.

  What I did draw from the genre is the sense of place and atmosphere that you get in Nordic Noir. The Pacific Northwest lends itself well to moody fiction and I thought I could tap into that.

  SW: Let’s talk about Vancouver and the Northwest as a setting. The city is unique in that it’s a colonial settlement on the unceded territory of three different First Nations, and it’s one of the biggest immigration hubs in North America. Yet it also has the same problems as a lot of big cities: gentrification, addiction, crime. Why set The Lost Ones here?

  SK: It was the only option for me, really. When the idea came to me I was sitting in a production office in Toronto, imagining a dark story set amidst the startling beauty of Vancouver. Thrown in was the fact that so many people want to live here and almost nobody can afford to, and the city’s gritty, bleak side.

  Plus, the novelty of the city played a large part in drawing me here. It allowed me to get out of my comfort zone as a person and a writer. The local crime fiction community in Vancouver has been incredibly supportive of me, but when I first got out here I knew no one and had to go it alone. It sucked on a personal level, but I think it made the book stronger. Plus, as you mentioned, it’s a complex place that’s grappling with its own identity.

  There’s so much here that bears examining, and it can be quite an exciting place to write– as you know, since your books are set here. Why did you choose Vancouver?

  SW: I don’t really think it was a choice, at least not a conscious one. Vancouver is the only city I know well, and it never occurred to me to set my books anywhere else.

  I’m very ill-informed about ‘what the market wants,’ but after I wrote Last of the Independents I learned there’s a stigma in the publishing world against books set in certain places. I’ve been lucky in that Random House Canada and Quercus USA have both taken a chance on Invisible Dead. Between us and writers like Dietrich Kalteis and Linda Richards, I think Vancouver is becoming a viable setting for crime fiction.

  The Lost Ones is a fast-paced thriller that deals with some serious subject matter, but it also incorporates moments of humor. How do you strike that balance?

  SK: It’s interesting that you mention that, because I think Invisible Dead has a great deal of humor in it. It’s part of why I liked the book so much, the sense that Dave Wakeland doesn’t take himself too seriously. It’s an endearing quality.

  SW: Thanks. The right tone is hard to strike. Raymond Chandler called it “a lively sense of the grotesque.” The Lost Ones is awash with great one-liners that establish Nora’s character and comment on her world. One of my favorites is, “When you feel like having an enema without all that pesky shitting, try using the provincial ferry system.”

  SK: Oh man, BC Ferries. I still have nightmares about having to take the ferry to work! That line came from personal experience.

  With Nora’s story, I didn’t plan the humor, it came as an extension of her. I would say that humor is how many people deal with pain– and Nora has had a lot of it in her life. So to talk about the pain, I had to give her a sense of humor. A fairly inappropriate one, I must say. It allowed me to not take myself seriously, as well, given that this is my first novel– one that I left my flatlining career in film/TV to write.

  SW: You’ve worked in the film and TV industry as an actor, stand-in, stunt double and researcher. How has that shaped your writing?

  SK: I’ve been told The Lost Ones is quite cinematic, which was entirely unintentional, but taking a step back I see that it is largely informed by my experiences in the screen arts. I’m also quite into outlining, which is the first step of screenwriting and where my research background comes in. I don’t always stick to my outlines, but they help me find a direction. In addition to that, I’ve taken so many acting classes in the past decade that it certainly bleeds into how I approach character. I think that’s why Nora’s voice is so strong. I owe that to my performance training.

  SW: What’s next for Nora Watts, and for you?

  SK: Nora’s story will be a trilogy and the sequel will take place largely in Detroit. So I’m finishing up on some edits for that book and then I’m planning the third and final installment of the series. How about you? When can we expect to see Dave Wakeland again?

  SW: The second in the series is called Cut You Down. It’ll be out next year. I don’t want to give too much away while I’m in the throes of editing, but I wanted to play with the idea of the femme fatale, and what that might entail in a world where gender and sexuality are a lot more complex. I also wanted to address gentrification, which is rapidly pricing most people our age out of Vancouver.

  This was fun. Thanks, Sheena!

  SK: Oooh, that sounds exciting. I can’t wait to read it. Thanks, Sam!

  Sheena Kamal’s THE LOST ONES is out July 25, 2017, from William Morrow, and was released in the UK this February as EYES LIKE MINE. To learn more about THE LOST ONES, click on the cover below:

  Sam Wiebe’s INVISIBLE DEAD was released May 2nd by Quercus USA. To learn more about Invisible Dead, click on the cover below:

• Straight - https://www.straight.com/arts/967681/book-changed-your-life-sheena-kamal

  The Book That Changed Your Life: Sheena Kamal
  by Brian Lynch on September 16th, 2017 at 8:00 AM

  The Word Vancouver festival is gearing up for its 2017 edition with a huge and inclusive lineup of authors, appearing at venues around town from September 19 to 24.

  We asked a group of these acclaimed writers to tell us about their most memorable reading experiences. Which books shaped their imaginations early on? Which ones taught them about the power of the written word?

  Here’s what Vancouver’s Sheena Kamal told us. Alongside her work as an activist and journalist, Kamal has published a suspense-filled debut novel, The Lost Ones. She’ll discuss the book at 1:55 p.m. on September 24, in the Alma VanDusen Room of the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch.

  I have many favourites, but one book that particularly resonates with me is The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. It’s a brilliant book by any measure, but what stays with me is the main character’s ability to operate a truth-telling compass. She holds a question in her mind without thinking directly about it, and the compass provides the answer.

  In many ways, this reflects how I write. I hold something in my mind, some idea or the other, and my intuition guides me. So when I’m under deadline, trying too hard to make the words flow, I think of this compass trick. In this way, The Golden Compass has had a profound impact on my life because it informs how I approach my work. Plus, it has armoured bears. Who can resist that?

• Writing.ie - https://www.writing.ie/interviews/i-am-not-your-sidekick-writing-a-woman-of-colour-by-sheena-kamal/

  I Am Not Your Sidekick by Sheena Kamal
  w-ie-small
  Sheena Kamal © 13 February 2017.
  Posted in the Magazine ( · Crime · Interviews ).

  Hello, there, crime fighter! How are you? You feeling good? You feel like solving mysteries because of an innate sense of justice and some deep, dark driving force that will play throughout your storyline?

  Awesome. Just wanted to say hi. It’s me, ‘woman of colour’—the brown lady in the background who will do everything I can to help you do your job while you battle your demons. I have no demons because I’m a professional. I’m also attractive, sincere, well-meaning and so very boring I might as well be a houseplant. Every now and then my sassy sense of humour will show through and we’ll have a good laugh to lighten the moment before you go off to do the important work that you do, in whatever mood you happen to be in when you do it. Because you are allowed to be human. I am not. The good, the bad, the ugly—that’s all you.

  Does this sound familiar?

  I was recently asked on a panel to talk about, hmm, being a woman of colour or writing a woman of colour? One of those two, I can’t quite remember. I was too busy tripping over my tongue to pay much attention to what I was saying. I don’t like to discuss this subject. Who does? It’s uncomfortable and I’m no expert. I’ve thought about being offended by these kinds of questions, but that’s just immature. There is very little racial diversity in the genre I write in, and people have noticed. They want to talk about it with me, but yeah. Discomfort. All around.

  I write crime fiction, but I often need a break from reading it. Don’t get me wrong: there’s a lot to love about this genre and I do love it a lot. But while gender is being addressed in a very real way, race is not. I’m not sure that anyone really knows how to do this but some people try. I read these stories and I see the helpful brown woman, or the hard-working Asian assistant and I think: this again? It’s very frustrating to read these same cautious characterizations time and again. You don’t often get a plucky heroine or a flawed one who is not white.

  The simple answer is to write more women of colour, but that’s not as easy as you might imagine. Representations of women of colour in fiction are incredibly fraught. It feels as though you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There is no way to do it right, really, because there are so few examples that whatever you come up with can be torn down as easily as it is lifted up. Inclusion is nice, but meaningful inclusion means sensitivity – and that’s hard when you’re trying to create a fully realized human being.

  Let me explain what I mean.

  Nora Watts, the main character of my debut novel, Eyes Like Mine, is a mixed-race woman. Her mother was an immigrant and her father was an indigenous man who had been adopted and didn’t know anything about his birth family. Nora is an outsider who has no connection to her cultural heritage on either side. But she looks like an indigenous woman, and that affects how people treat her. This is a minefield. I chose this back story for her because my story is centered on a missing girl and you cannot speak of the disappeared in Canada without talking about the extremely high rates of indigenous girls and women that go missing in my country. To not have it in there would be like erasure, but I don’t want to appropriate culture or play into stereotypes.

  This is as easy a trap for me to fall into as anyone else.

  I am a woman of colour who wrote a different kind of woman of colour and questioned my intentions consistently throughout the process. I know how much it matters for people who aren’t often represented to be included, but it is important to be included thoughtfully.

  I read everything I can on how to do this in a sensitive manner. I asked people I know (and some people I didn’t) for advice on what lines cannot be crossed by an outsider like me. Nora was never going to be plugged into her culture, so that worked for the story, but I still had to be mindful. I kept asking myself if this is why the flip side of representation is erasure. I kept asking myself if I would be okay with erasure. I wasn’t. I wanted to say something about the place that I live and I want my woman of colour to be front and center. To be flawed and human and not exist as someone else’s prop. I don’t want her to be a symbol of anything other than a complicated woman who must make some very difficult choices.

  I don’t know if I achieved all this, but I did my best. And Nora? Well, she’s nobody’s sidekick.

  (c) Sheena Kamal

  Author photo (c) Malcolm Tweedy

  About Eyes Like Mine:

  It’s late. The phone rings.
  The man on the other end says his daughter is missing.
  Your daughter.
  The baby you gave away over fifteen years ago.
  What do you do?
  Nora Watts isn’t sure that she wants to get involved. Troubled, messed up, and with more than enough problems of her own, Nora doesn’t want to revisit the past. But then she sees the photograph. A girl, a teenager, with her eyes. How can she turn her back on her?
  But going in search of her daughter brings Nora into contact with a past that she would rather forget, a past that she has worked hard to put behind her, but which is always there, waiting for her . . .
  In Eyes Like Mine, Sheena Kamal has created a kick-ass protagonist who will give Lisbeth Salander a run for her money. Intuitive, not always likeable, and deeply flawed, Nora Watts is a new heroine for our time.

  Sheena Kamal is the author of Eyes Like Mine, published by Zaffre, out now.

  Pick up a copy online here.

  Share this post:

• Writer's Digest - http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/got-agent-sheena-kamal-lost-ones

  How I Got My Agent: Sheena Kamal, The Lost Ones
  By: Guest Column | July 27, 2017
  29
  When it comes to writing fiction, I feel like the new kid on the block. I’ve been writing in some capacity for many years, but sometime in early 2014 I realized that I had a novel in me—which was a bit of a shock. I’d been pursuing screenwriting with no success at that time and had few connections. My writing network consisted of one published crime writer, who’d told me once that he gets many requests for introductions to his agent and generally doesn’t respond to them. This was understandable, but discouraging.

  This guest post is by Sheena Kamal. Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in political science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. Kamal has also worked as a crime and investigative journalism researcher for the film and television industry—academic knowledge and experience that inspired her debut novel THE LOST ONES. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

  I’d never taken a writing class or gone to a writer’s conference. I truly did not know how to start trying to find a literary agent—but I knew I couldn’t do it without a finished book. So I quit my job in Toronto, moved across the country to Vancouver, and wrote until I almost went cross-eyed. Day in and day out, the book was all I could see.

  When I had a draft of the manuscript, my author friend told me that my best chance of getting an agent was to go to Pitchfest in New York, hosted by the Thrillerfest conference. His agent would be there that year and he said I could drop his name in my pitch. I was exhilarated. This was my shot. I wanted to meet his agent, of course, but there was another agent I had my eye on: Miriam Kriss, from the Irene Goodman Agency. Something clicked for me from her bio on the conference website and I ended up lining up at her table first. When I met her, I felt we hit it off. She was friendly and easy to talk to. My nervousness disappeared. My positive experience with Miriam set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. That day, I saw nine agents—and all nine requested material.

  I was elated, but exhausted. Being exhausted didn’t seem to matter too much, though, because the pitching had gone better than I’d expected. That evening I sat at the bar of the conference venue, trying to gather my strength to hoof the forty-minute walk back to my dingy hotel, when a man sat next to me.

  [New Agent Alerts: Click here to find agents who are currently seeking writers]

  The man introduced himself and said he’d spent the afternoon pitching, as well. He recognized me from the line-ups. We talked a bit about that and I was genuinely interested to learn of his military background and his experiences. But over the course of a roughly twenty-minute conversation, some of what he said began to sink in. He’d said that he’d seen a lot of thirty-year old women at these events and they don’t have much of a grasp on military life. Which is fair, I suppose, but thrillers don’t have to be about military life so I didn’t think too much about it. Then, toward the end of our conversation, he proceeded to tell me that he was sure that I was going to be very successful, but he’d like me to remember that things are often deeper than they seemed. That I need to look beneath the surface.

  At the time, my manuscript was called Deep Current. It is about what is unseen, and women who are invisible.

  A wave of soberness washed over me. I was around thirty at the time and had never been in the military. I realized that my new friend had been insulting me for almost the entire time we’d been talking—and I hadn’t even noticed! So much for women’s intuition.

  I was alone, on a trip I had to borrow money to take so that I could give my dream a chance, and here was a fellow writer taking shots without even knowing anything about my book, the subject matters I tackle, or the struggles I went through to be there that day. I felt like an idiot.

  I left New York soon after, three days earlier than planned. That conversation at the bar shook me. Despite the kindness of almost everyone there, I felt like I didn’t belong. It was my first book, my first pitch, my first writer’s conference. What the hell was I thinking?

  Nevertheless, I sent out submissions to the agents who’d requested material and found my way back to Vancouver. I tried as hard as I could to hold onto the elation I’d felt after pitching. There were some great moments. Miriam requested the entire manuscript after reading the first few chapters. My friend’s agent seemed excited to get my material. These were small victories.

  Over the next few months, however, the rejections came piling in. I obsessed over the manuscript. My friend’s agent turned the book down. I thought about the man at the bar who implied my currents were shallow.

  I brooded and tried to re-read The Iliad, because anyone who reads Homer has got to have some depth to them, right? I didn’t make it past the first page. I’d read it in college and already knew what was going to happen. Besides, the first page of The Iliad is the best page, in my opinion. I thought about picking up War and Peace, but it was too heavy. It literally couldn’t fit it in my bag.

  My dream, the one that I’d upended my entire life to give a chance to, seemed to be slipping away. Then, a few months after Thrillerfest, I got an email from Miriam. She was interested in working with me, and asked for some revisions to the manuscript, which I happily provided.

  Almost two months later, Miriam called me with an update. I had deals in the U.K., the U.S., France, and Germany. Miriam told me that she thought my editor at William Morrow and I would get along very well—and she was absolutely right. Her instincts for me as an author and the book have never failed me. After a moment, she gently broke the news to me that the title would have to change, because Deep Current wasn’t quite right. That’s all right, I thought. I know things are deeper than they seem. I don’t need my title of my book to be a euphemism for my work. I don’t need to prove anything to men at bars.

• Sheena Kamal website - https://www.sheenakamal.com/

  Sheena Kamal was born in the Caribbean and immigrated to Canada as a child. She holds an HBA in political science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness.

  THE LOST ONES/EYES LIKE MINE is her debut novel. The sequel IT ALL FALLS DOWN will be released Summer 2018.

  Prior to writing novels, Kamal worked as a crime and investigative journalism researcher for the film and television industry--among other rather unsavoury professions.

  She is a drinker of wine, lover of fake news and enemy of the word 'unputdownable'. You are not Atlas. At some point you must put it down.

It All Falls Down
Publishers Weekly. 265.20 (May 14, 2018): p36+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
It All Falls Down

Sheena Kamal. Morrow, $26.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-256577-8

In Canadian author Kamal's disappointing sequel to 2017's The Lost Ones, danger looms when a mysterious stranger approaches Vancouver research assistant Nora Watts--who barely survived her last case, involving the kidnapping of the now-teenage daughter she gave up for adoption at birth. The man claims to have served with her late father, Sam Watts, as a Marine in Lebanon and hints that there might be more to learn about his suicide. Soon Nora is headed for her father's hometown of Detroit, where her initial inquiries uncover little about Sam, but do offer a tantalizing lead about someone else--the mother whose face she has never even seen. Meanwhile, back on the other side of the border, Nora's frenemy, PI Jon Brazuca, is also swimming into treacherous waters as he investigates an ostensibly unrelated case: the death by overdose of a billionaire's pregnant mistress. Kamal demonstrates a knack for putting her kick-ass heroine in harm's way, repeatedly, but unfortunately shows considerably less skill at crafting a coherent plot. Agent: Miriam Kriss, Irene Goodman Agency. (July)

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"It All Falls Down." Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2018, p. 36+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387404/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0a1ca847. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A539387404

Kamal, Sheena: IT ALL FALLS DOWN
Kirkus Reviews. (May 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Kamal, Sheena IT ALL FALLS DOWN Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $26.99 7, 3 ISBN: 978-0-06-256577-8

The troubled Nora Watts searches for the truth about her father's supposed suicide in Kamal's follow-up to The Lost Ones (2017).

Nora has a knack for finding missing people, but after a case involving her 16-year-old daughter, Bonnie, nearly killed her, she's taken on something more low key: helping her former employer, Sebastian Crow, who is dying of cancer, write his memoirs while taking much needed comfort in her dog, Whisper. When a man approaches her claiming to have served with her father, Samuel, in Lebanon, Nora decides to leave Vancouver and head to Detroit , where her father, a survivor of the Sixties Scoop in Canada--during which children of Indigenous heritage were forcibly put up for adoption--grew up. In the process, she makes shocking discoveries about her Palestinian mother, Sabrina, who abruptly left Nora and her sister, Lorelei, when they were little. After she's attacked in her hotel room, it's obvious that there may be much more to her father's death than she thought. Meanwhile, Nora's old AA sponsor, ex-cop Jon Brazuca, is asked by his billionaire friend, Bernard Lam, to find out who the dealer was who supplied his pregnant mistress, Clementine, with the drugs that killed her. Brazuca's search leads him to a dangerous gang that may have ties to the people who nearly killed Nora and Bonnie, and he discovers that Nora is in grave danger. Although not as bloody as the first book, this installment is no less compelling or gritty, and Nora, who remains as prickly and conflicted as ever, finds danger everywhere she goes. Kamal laces her narrative with a palpable melancholy, effectively capturing the urban decay of Detroit while emphasizing the vibrancy and hope of the people who inhabit it. An explosive finale, which takes place during Detroit's yearly Angel's Night, sets the stage for more to come from this complicated, flawed, and utterly enthralling heroine.

A stunning, emotionally resonant thriller.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Kamal, Sheena: IT ALL FALLS DOWN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538294090/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9b8bdfd6. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A538294090

Kamal, Sheena: THE LOST ONES
Kirkus Reviews. (May 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Kamal, Sheena THE LOST ONES Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $26.99 7, 25 ISBN: 978-0-06-256590-7

A Vancouver woman with demons to spare is asked to find a teen runaway in Kamal's searing debut.When Nora Watts receives a 5 a.m. phone call from a man named Everett Walsh insisting that she might know something about a missing girl, his desperation is palpable. Nora, who "help[s] look for missing people for a living," reluctantly meets with Everett and his wife, Lynn, and finds out that their 15-year-old daughter, Bonnie, is missing, but because she's run away before, the police won't take it seriously. Nora is their last resort, they tell her, because she's Bonnie's biological mother--she'd given the girl up for adoption 15 years earlier. At first, Nora doesn't want anything to do with the case, but something pulls at her, and as she digs deeper, it threatens to pull her all the way under. Nora narrates her own story, and she doesn't care if you like her. In fact, she keeps everyone at arm's length, taking comfort only in her beloved dog, Whisper, stealing from those who show her kindness, and refusing help from the private investigator and journalist who employ her. Estranged from her younger sister and a former child of the foster care system, she used to seek solace in the bottle, and it always threatens right at the edge of her vision. Nora's Vancouver in winter is one of endless natural beauty, but dark currents run beneath it that highlight the harsh treatment of indigenous people, especially girls and women, and the ease with which they are swept away and forgotten. It's a bracing reality that underscores Nora's painful, violent past, and debut novelist Kamal uses her own background in community activism to great effect. As Nora searches for Bonnie, the trail of corruption leads her to a wealthy family with ties to mining, but what would they have to do with a missing girl? The truth is beyond terrifying, and if readers think they know where this is going, they'll likely be surprised. The brutal finale tests Nora to her very limits. Though comparisons to Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander are inevitable, Nora blazes her own shining trail. A gritty, violent read with a tough, idiosyncratic, dryly witty heroine readers will root for even if they wouldn't want to invite her home.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Kamal, Sheena: THE LOST ONES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491934281/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=82141238. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A491934281

The Lost Ones
Publishers Weekly. 264.19 (May 8, 2017): p38.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Lost Ones

Sheena Kamal. Morrow, $26.99 (352p)

ISBN 978-0-06-256590-7

At the start of Kamal's convoluted debut, Vancouver research assistant Nora Watts meets with Lynn and Everett Walsh about their missing 15-year-old daughter, Bonnie. Nora assumes that the couple want to hire her boss's PI firm to locate the girl, but, as it turns out, Nora is Bonnie's birth mother, and the Walshes think that Bonnie is trying to find her. Nora tries to put the matter from her mind, as Bonnie was born after a brutal rape that left Nora comatose for six months, but she can't stop thinking , about the teen and eventually decides to conduct her own search. Nora quickly discovers that she and the Walshes aren't the only ones hunting for Bonnie. While Kamal uses Nora's investigation' to spotlight important social issues such as homelessness, political corruption, and the mistreatment of Canada's indigenous population, the book's plot is unconvincing and overly dependent on coincidence. Nora is too idiosyncratic to feel real, and none of her relationships rings true, further sapping the tale of heft and verisimilitude. Agent: Miriam Kriss, Irene Goodman Agency. (July)

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Lost Ones." Publishers Weekly, 8 May 2017, p. 38. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491949064/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0a416965. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A491949064

The Lost Ones
Henrietta Verma
Booklist. 113.17 (May 1, 2017): p24.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Lost Ones. By Sheena Kamal. July 2017.352p. Morrow, $26.99 (9780062565907); e-book (9780062565761).

Life's been rough for Nora Watts, a First Nations Vancouver resident who's survived foster care, a brutal rape, and alcoholism. She struggles to get by, putting her street smarts to work as a research assistant to the only employer who will put up with her--a private-detective friend who's also in recovery. Nora is not used to caring for anyone but her worn-out dog, but when she finds out that the daughter she gave up for adoption is missing from her troubled adoptive family, she's unexpectedly torn. Things quickly turn dangerous as Nora fights corporate forces that want her missing-person mission to fail and that may even, she realizes, want her dead. The rainy PacificNorthwest is a fitting setting for this sometimes grim tale that also shows how determination and love can break through the grittiest facades. Actress and debut author Kamal has penned a believable survivor in Nora, a woman whose relentless struggles many readers will identify with. Give this to patrons who enjoy down-on-their-luck detectives, and mysteries by Tony Hillerman.--Henrietta Verma

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Verma, Henrietta. "The Lost Ones." Booklist, 1 May 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495034912/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7d7bdf0a. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A495034912

"It All Falls Down." Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2018, p. 36+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A539387404/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0a1ca847. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018. "Kamal, Sheena: IT ALL FALLS DOWN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538294090/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9b8bdfd6. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018. "Kamal, Sheena: THE LOST ONES." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491934281/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=82141238. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018. "The Lost Ones." Publishers Weekly, 8 May 2017, p. 38. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491949064/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=0a416965. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018. Verma, Henrietta. "The Lost Ones." Booklist, 1 May 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495034912/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7d7bdf0a. Accessed 18 Sept. 2018.

• Vancouver Sun
  https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/book-review-the-lost-ones-by-sheena-kamal
  Word count: 498

  Book review: The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal
  If you're looking for a book with a heroine that you'll fall head over heels in love with, The Lost Ones may not be the summer read for you.

  ALEESHA HARRIS Updated: July 25, 2017

  Canadian Sheena Kamal is the author of The Lost Ones. PNG

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  The Lost Ones

  By Sheena Kamal

  Harper Collins

  If you’re looking for a book with a heroine that you’ll fall head over heels in love with, The Lost Ones may not be the summer read for you.

  The Vancouver (and broader B.C.)-based thriller tells a griping tale of loss, loss and more loss … as well as a bit of love, but its main character, Nora Watts, is so deeply damaged she’s a tad difficult to fall for.

  But despite the lack of affection, there are a plethora of emotions in this gripping tale. Mostly suspense, disbelief and pity — not to mention anger, for the perils Watts and other women and girls in at-risk situations notoriously face.

  Fairly early in the novel we learn Watts, an Indigenous woman living in the Downtown Eastside, was a victim of a horrific sexual abuse encounter that left her near death and pregnant.

  Watts was forced to carry the child to term while under medical supervision and then put the baby girl up for adoption after delivery. Fast forward 15 years and Watts’ decision comes back to haunt her when her daughter, Bonnie, goes missing. In the dark of night, Watts learns of the disappearance when she receives a desperate call from the family that adopted the girl.

  Watts, who also happens to be a bit of a tracker and truth-finder by profession, reluctantly agrees to meet with the husband and wife who have been raising her child.

  But what first appears to be a tale of a teenage runaway and negligent parenting, unfolds throughout the 350-plus page book to reveal a twisted story of pain and violence. Watts, ever the reluctant mother, is pulled deeper into the dark truth surrounding her estranged daughter’s disappearance. As the network of people she trusts gets smaller and smaller (that number was pretty minimal to begin with), she discovers the disappearance has much more to do with herself than she ever could have imagined.

  In her debut novel, Kamal touches on several issues that consistently, and rightfully, occupy headline space — and conversations — in this province: the DTES; mining; foreign investment; the disparity of wealth; the disappearance and murder of Indigenous women.

  It’s a dark journey of abuse (mental, alcohol, sexual, emotional … the list goes on), but also perseverance. And, quite frankly, it’s one that’s not easy to put down — or forget.

  Aharris@postmedia.com

• Criminal Element
  https://www.criminalelement.com/review-the-lost-ones-by-sheena-kamal/
  Word count: 840

  Review: The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal
  BY DIRK ROBERTSON
  July 24, 2017
  The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal is a dark, compulsively readable psychological suspense debut, the first in a new series featuring the brilliant, fearless, chaotic, and deeply flawed Nora Watts—a character as heartbreakingly troubled, emotionally complex, and irresistibly compelling as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole.

  When you are a receptionist and research assistant for a private investigator and his award-winning journalist partner, one could assume life would be straightforward and simple. But that’s not the case for Nora Watts, mostly because she is neither. She lives in the basement underneath her place of work, unknown to her employers. This means she has no rent to pay and, more importantly, no one can find her. She does the finding.

  Her numerous skills, intuition, and contacts in various places means she is more than just an assistant or researcher. But Nora has a history that’s dark, toxic, and full of turmoil, which often leads her to find solace at the bottom of a bottle. Though she seeks out a support group and connects with a mentor, Nora’s only real companion is a dog named Whisper. Whisper shares Nora’s life, a life that gets more complicated and deadly by the page.

  When a couple turns up, Nora can’t understand how they have found her. They went to great lengths to locate Nora since they believe she is uniquely qualified for the task of finding their adopted daughter, Bonnie, who has gone missing. They are right. Nora is Bonnie’s birth mother. And she decides to take up the case.

  I am so interested in the sign that I almost don’t notice the man sitting in a dark sedan and watching the house. By the time I do see him it is already too late to turn back, so I adopt a casual, out-for-a-late-stroll pace. The man isn’t sleeping, so I know that he’s not a cop. Also he’s eating an apple. I have never before seen a cop eat an apple and, though I suspect it must happen from time to time, I can’t imagine it in a surveillance situation. Everett said that the police logged Bonnie as a runaway. Unlikely, then, that they’d maintain a presence.

  I pass him with Whisper and, after an initial glance in which he has inventoried my features and strands of dark hair creeping out from beneath my hoodie, he dismisses me. I am clearly not a threat, nor whomever he is looking out for, so he returns his attention to the house.

  It doesn’t bother me that he has seen my face because he’ll never remember what I look like come morning. If pressed, he might say “maybe native, average height, skinny.” If he was going to be mean about it, he’d add: “flat chest, no sense of style, ugly dog.”

  Nora’s investigation quickly turns dangerous as she encounters men who spit bullets on both their own behalf and that of the corporate gods who have their own reasons for making sure Bonnie is not found. It brings Nora face to face with her own tortured existence in a way that requires her complete attention, yet she still has to dodge hot lead as she doles out her own street justice in the form of a tire iron and an elbow to the nose.

  Everyone Nora encounters seems to have a piece of her past in their hands. It is as though she is putting together a very painful and complicated jigsaw puzzle. Not everyone is forthcoming in giving up the pieces, and Nora’s propensity for violence, when angered, comes in handy in making people give up what is intrinsically hers. However, the violence meted out by Nora doesn’t push you away, as it is deftly handled by Sheena Kamal. Nora has had so many wrongs perpetrated against her that you find yourself rooting for her when a boot finds its way home to a well-chosen place.

  The Lost Ones is a crime thriller, and Sheena Kamal has managed to achieve something quite remarkable: a story that both plays with your emotions and has you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what surprise is in store for you on the next page. The plot is tight from page one, and the pace continues to quicken throughout.

  A plot as clever as it is sinister, The Lost Ones is a superb portrait of what people in power think they can get away with until retribution comes calling. And it always does. I was completely lost in the tale and did not come up for air until the final page. Pick up a copy for yourself, and I bet you'll find it impossible to put down.

• Nudge
  https://nudge-book.com/blog/2018/07/it-all-falls-down-by-sheena-kamal/
  Word count: 371

  It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal
  Review published on July 16, 2018.
  The main character in this story is Nora Watts, a woman in search of answers to her complex, dark and troubled past, someone who is prepared to do anything to achieve her aims. Her father committed suicide when she was a child, abandoning her and her sister to the unsettling experience of a succession of foster homes. When approached by a man claims to have known her late father all the memories come flooding back in a deeply disturbing way. She realises that all the problems she has experienced in her life can be traced back to the trauma of that abandonment and so she sets off to Detroit in search of answers. However, rather than answers, she finds herself facing more questions about the truth of her past.

  From the synopsis of this book I thought it would be a fast-paced thriller with an interesting psychological underpinning. However, I really struggled to feel any engagement with either the story or any of the characters, most of whom felt one-dimensional and rather stereotypical. Despite being action-packed, the pacing felt slow and sluggish and, with continual references to previous events and characters in Nora’s life but no clarity about any of them, it soon became clear that this was the second book in a series. If the writing is good it should be possible to read any book in a series as a standalone novel but for me this one didn’t work and, very unusually for me, I conceded defeat halfway through because I found it impossible to feel engaged with the story. The author’s first novel, Eyes Like Mine, received rave reviews so it’s possible that anyone who has read that would get more enjoyment from this follow on. It’s just a shame that for anyone who hasn’t there probably isn’t sufficient filling in of the backstory to make for seamless, enjoyable reading. To end on a more positive note, I did enjoy the vivid, evocative descriptions of Detroit!

  Linda Hepworth 2/2

  It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal
  Zaffre Publishing 9781785764103 pbk Jun 2018

• Vancouver Sun
  https://vancouversun.com/entertainment/local-arts/book-review-it-all-falls-down-by-sheena-kamal
  Word count: 427

  Book review: It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal
  Vancouver author Sheena Kamal is back with another entertaining read centred around character Nora Watts.

  ALEESHA HARRIS Updated: August 3, 2018
  Vancouver author Sheena Kamal.
  Vancouver author Sheena Kamal. HANDOUT / HARPER COLLINS CANADA

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  It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal.It All Falls Down

  By Sheena Kamal

  Harper Collins Canada

  Vancouver author Sheena Kamal is back with another entertaining read centred around the character Nora Watts.

  In her debut novel The Lost Ones, Kamal knit together a dark, twisted tale highlighting addiction, corruption and abduction centred around Watts, her daughter Bonnie and a troubled private investigator named Jon Brazuca.

  The moral of that story was trouble seems to find Watts, no matter what she does.

  That theme continues with Kamal’s second release. And it adds in the element that trouble continues to follow the central character, regardless of her actions — or her location.

  This time around, instead of Watts’s troubles being centred solely around B.C., the character travels to Detroit in the hopes of discovering the truth about her father’s death.

  What follows is an interesting (if slightly meandering) tale of discovery, deceit — and danger.

  Kamal introduces a wider range of characters in her second novel, including some bit-part people and a few characters that leave a mark — even if for a brief few chapters.

  While much of the story is set in Motor City, there is just enough of the tale centred back in Vancouver to tickle a local reader’s sense of hometown familiarity (often a treat when reading a novel).

  The book is well written and smart, though parts come across as a bit difficult to believe (Watts, it would seem, has supremely honed survival skills, even against skilled and armed attackers).

  While a few of the story lines come across a tad unfinished (what was the significance of the character Clementine? What’s really going on with Bonnie? Will Leo forgive Nora for staying silent about Seb?), It All Falls Down proves to be, yet again, an entertaining book that keeps a reader interested from start to finish.

  It’s a book that will likely have fans of Kamal’s characters — new and old — ready and waiting for her next Nora Watts-focused book release.

  aharris@postmedia.com

• NWI Times
  https://www.nwitimes.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/review-a-sense-of-sadness-permeates-it-all-falls-down/article_8a244af5-aa06-5fb7-b5f3-38f3781d6814.html
  Word count: 449

  APURGENT
  Review: A sense of sadness permeates 'It All Falls Down'
  Oline H. Cogdill Associated Press Jul 5, 2018
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  Book Review - It All Falls Down
  "It All Falls Down" (William Morrow), by Sheena Kamal

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  Canadian author Sheena Kamal continues to show how cultural touchstones reverberate into adulthood in her intriguing look at Vancouver research assistant Nora Watts, whose major investigations are uncovering her past.

  Nora technically isn't a detective, though she's worked for one, and her skills at finding people are unmatched. But Kamal's second novel delves deeper into Nora's prickly personality, shaped by her biracial background and the series of foster homes in which she was raised.

  "It All Falls Down" takes Nora further away from her tenuous comfort zone. She's approached by a stranger while walking her dog, Whisper, in a park. The man claims to have served in the Marines with her late father, Samuel, while they were stationed in Lebanon. He suggests that Samuel didn't commit suicide as Nora and her sister, Lorelei, have long believed, and that his death may be related to her father's life in Detroit. Samuel was one of the many children who were part of Canada's "Sixties Scoop," in which children of indigenous background were taken from their families and put up for adoption, often to American parents. Nora's trip to Detroit also yields a link to her mother, who left when she and Lorelei were toddlers. With no photographs, Nora doesn't know what her mother looked like, or what her background was.

  Back in Vancouver, private investigator Jon Brazuca, with whom Nora has a fractured relationship, is hired to investigate the drug overdose of a billionaire's pregnant mistress. Without resorting to cliches, Kamal deftly intersects the investigations of Nora and Jon in a believable plot. Both find themselves targets of killers, and neither knows why.

  Kamal's affinity for the unusual, character-driven mystery excels in "It All Falls Down." While Kamal supplies plenty of action and close calls, she concentrates on the characters' motivations. Nora's background has given her a mistrust of people and made her wary of emotions. Jon, who also was her AA sponsor, has never been able to break through her wall. Her closest relationship is with Whisper.

  A sense of sadness permeates the novel, from Kamal's gritty look at Detroit and unflinching look at Vancouver's neighborhoods to the flawed characters. Yet Kamal also injects a sense of hope and closure for Nora, and Whisper, and makes readers root for their future.

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