BUYING TIME: REVIEW and GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
BUYING TIME
BY PAMELA SAMUELS YOUNG

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer. But just when he's about to hit rock bottom, he stumbles upon a business with the potential to solve all of his problems.

In Waverly's new line of work, he comes to the aid of people in desperate need of cash. But there's a catch. His clients must be terminally ill and willing to sign over rights to their life insurance policies before they can collect a dime. Waverly then finds investors eager to advance them thousands of dollars—including a hefty broker's fee for himself—in exchange for a significant return on their investment once the clients take their last breath.

The stakes get higher when Waverly brokers the policy of the cancer-stricken wife of Lawrence Erickson, a high-powered lawyer who's bucking to become the next U.S. Attorney General. When Waverly's clients start dying sooner than they should, both Waverly and Erickson—who has some skeletons of his own to hide—are unwittingly drawn into a perilous web of greed, blackmail and murder.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Corporate attorney Pamela Samuels Young has always abided by the philosophy that you create the change you want to see. Fed up with never seeing women or people of color depicted as savvy, hot shot attorneys in the legal thrillers she read, the Compton Native decided to create her own characters. Despite the demands of a busy legal career, Pamela accomplished her ambitious goal by rising at four in the morning to write before work, dedicating her weekends to writing and even spending her vacation time glued to her laptop for ten or more hours a day. The Essence magazine bestselling author now has four fast-paced legal thrillers to show for her efforts.

Pamela’s debut novel, Every Reasonable Doubt (February 2006), won the Black Expressions Book Club’s Fiction Writing Contest, received an honorable mention in the SEAK Legal Fiction Writing Competition and was a finalist for USA Book News’ Best Books of 2006 awards in the mystery, suspense and thriller category. Her second novel, In Firm Pursuit (January 2007) was honored by Romantic Times magazine as a finalist for Best African-American Novel of 2007. Murder on the Down Low (September 2008), Pamela’s third release, was an “Editor’s Pick” by Black Expressions magazine and a finalist for the 2009 African-American Literary Awards in the mystery category. Pamela then published her first stand-alone novel, Buying Time (November 2009). The Black Caucus of the American Library Association honored Buying Time with its 2010 Fiction Award, calling the book "a captivating, suspenseful thriller." Her short story, Setup, was selected for the 2006 Sisters in Crime anthology, LAndmarked for Murder.

Courtesy of www.pamelasamuels-young.com, Ms. Young's website where you can find many more fascinating articles and information about writing and Ms. Young.

MY REVIEW:

BUYING TIME by Pamela Samuels-Young is a riveting action thriller, filled with blackmail, murder, politics, and even romance. It is centered around the main character Waverly Sloan who is a desperate man. A lawyer by profession, he is in trouble and about to be disbarred but panics about what will happen to his marriage if he doesn’t have the resources to keep his high-maintenance wife happy. Deidra is beautiful and enjoys living the life style she has become accustomed to and the main reason she married Waverly. When he meets someone who leads him to believe he can make easy money in the viatical business, Waverly is eager to get on board. At this point, he figures he has nothing to lose but that is his first big mistake.

The viatical industry is a relatively new form of insurance investing that allows for the sale of one’s life insurance in order to make life for the seller more comfortable and stress-free. With certain tax breaks and laws to keep it legal, it basically allows anyone diagnosed with less than two years to live, to sell their life insurance to use the money in any way they so choose.

Waverly becomes a broker who enables terminally ill clients in need of immediate cash to cash out. They sign over the rights to their life insurance policies for a percentage of the face value. Waverly then pays out to them the cash in exchange for being named the sole beneficiary of their life insurance policies upon their death. Waverly gets a large broker's fee on each deal and soon is making more money than he ever made as a lawyer. He tries to convince himself that he is giving hope to the terminally ill in order to soothe his conscience. In reality, Waverly is a very nice guy who just doesn’t want to lose his beautiful wife.

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Evans heads up a special task force to investigate the company that Waverly works for because his clients begin to die much sooner than expected and it raises some red flags. Evans uses her forces to set-up a plan to catch these cold-blooded businessmen by having an undercover agent pretend to be a terminally ill patient in need of immediate cash.

It was hard to put this book down as Samuels-Young is experienced in the subject as a lawyer herself and so the book certainly rings true as the reader tries to guess who is causing these earlier than expected deaths. She gives the characters depth and the plot the twists that keep the reader hanging on. I found myself trying to figure out who was the real villain. Luckily for me, Samuels-Young cleverly brings the story to conclusion with no loose ends which I REALLY like to see in a book. I have not read any of Pamela’s work before but will surely be on the look out for more now.

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO PAMELA SAMUELS-YOUNG,
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