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The Cause Lives: Warriors for Equal Rights
All Alice wants is to retire. Until the call for justice gets in the way.
Alice Arden can’t wait to retire in eighteen months, but her boss at the federal discrimination and harassment agency she works at has other ideas. She assigns Alice to head a newly created task force responsible for catching more lawbreakers, and Alice can’t refuse.
Already burned out and suffering from a worsening disability that might put her in a wheelchair, Alice finds more than she had bargained for in her new team with racism, a sociophobe, and hidden agendas at play. Threats on their lives because of a case they’re working on drive Alice to the bottle until she discovers an unnerving secret.
Forget retirement. Alice is about to embark on delivering justice in the sexual harassment case of her career, and if she goes down, it’ll be with guns blazing.
Alice Arden can’t wait to retire in eighteen months, but her boss at the federal discrimination and harassment agency she works at has other ideas. She assigns Alice to head a newly created task force responsible for catching more lawbreakers, and Alice can’t refuse.
Already burned out and suffering from a worsening disability that might put her in a wheelchair, Alice finds more than she had bargained for in her new team with racism, a sociophobe, and hidden agendas at play. Threats on their lives because of a case they’re working on drive Alice to the bottle until she discovers an unnerving secret.
Forget retirement. Alice is about to embark on delivering justice in the sexual harassment case of her career, and if she goes down, it’ll be with guns blazing.
264 pages, ebook
Published February 1, 2019
2 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Marie W. Watts
9 books84 followersAn award-winning author, Marie W. Watts, is living her dream of being a writer. Her novel, Tough Trail Home, has received acclaim as a winner of the 2024 PenCraft Seasonal Book Award Summer Competition for Fiction - Women’s Genre; Winner in the 2024 Storytrade Book Awards “Regional Fiction ‐ USA Southwest” category; 2024 Speak Up Talk Radio International Firebird Book Award Winner, and The Outstanding Creator Award for Best Fiction Book of Summer 2024 (2nd place).
Her novel has garnered reviews such as “inspiring,” “fantastic read,” “beautiful scenery, heart, and hope,” and “a wonderful story about resilience and resourcefulness.”
She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons.
Follow Marie and her stories about life at www.mariewatts.com.
Her novel has garnered reviews such as “inspiring,” “fantastic read,” “beautiful scenery, heart, and hope,” and “a wonderful story about resilience and resourcefulness.”
She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons.
Follow Marie and her stories about life at www.mariewatts.com.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 25, 2020
I was sent a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review via Reedsy Discover, with thanks to them and the author. This fact has in no way impacted upon my review.
Link: https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the...
This is a book I wish I could say more about. When we first meet our main character, Alice, she is burnt out to the point of exhaustion and eighteen months short of her early retirement date. Finding out she's being transferred under the rouse of volunteering to take the role within a new office of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in Texas, she, of course, isn't very happy. Her unease with her new role not only stems from her own exhaustion with her job, but her battle with alcoholism is also beginning to take its toll on her day-to-day, and then there's her team...Or should I say a bunch of colleagues with little to nothing in common? This is when I started to veer off this book, but before we get to what I didn't enjoy, I'm going to mention what I did.
Firstly, I found Alice to be quite a resilient main character in the face of the endless troubles she faced from her team, her superiors and her own mental health issues. Her constant dedication to her job, even recognising her own biases and developing upon them in regards to victims is something I think many in high-pressure roles can relate too, and if they can't, bias recognition should be learnt. Just because one represents victims, no one can be guilty until proven so.
Secondly, I found the writing in this book to flow fairly well in setting the scenes we find our characters in. The cases are typically well thought out and detailed based heavily in the real cases the EEOC would actually conduct investigations into. As a law student, I enjoyed this, seeing how the author's real-life experiences have integrated realistically and skillfully into the storyline.
This all being said, however, there are some points for improvement within this book. Firstly, while I condemn Alice's character for recognising her biases, it's often a day late and a dollar short, particularly when it comes to one of her team, a former ex-con named JJ. JJ had served 20 years in prison for aggravated assault and Alice makes sure everyone and their granny knows she's not happy about this. If it's mentioned once, it's mentioned a thousand times. Also, the inadequacy of Alice's team probably would reflect current day mindsets within equality commissions, not only do we meet a homophobe, but we also have an ableist and a racist. Clearly the people you'd want caring for you in an equality related crisis. I understand these characteristics are added to the characters to make them seem more realistic and give them a basis to grow from, but I felt like it was simply used for character development rather than showing the structural problems that often exist within government agencies.
This is a perfect read for those who want a story that isn't ACTION BAM ACTION. This is more a lull, a gentle brew of sorts. Enjoyable but not without flaws.
Trigger Warning: Sexual assault, homophobia, racism, ableism, violence, mental health problems, addiction
Link: https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the...
This is a book I wish I could say more about. When we first meet our main character, Alice, she is burnt out to the point of exhaustion and eighteen months short of her early retirement date. Finding out she's being transferred under the rouse of volunteering to take the role within a new office of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission in Texas, she, of course, isn't very happy. Her unease with her new role not only stems from her own exhaustion with her job, but her battle with alcoholism is also beginning to take its toll on her day-to-day, and then there's her team...Or should I say a bunch of colleagues with little to nothing in common? This is when I started to veer off this book, but before we get to what I didn't enjoy, I'm going to mention what I did.
Firstly, I found Alice to be quite a resilient main character in the face of the endless troubles she faced from her team, her superiors and her own mental health issues. Her constant dedication to her job, even recognising her own biases and developing upon them in regards to victims is something I think many in high-pressure roles can relate too, and if they can't, bias recognition should be learnt. Just because one represents victims, no one can be guilty until proven so.
Secondly, I found the writing in this book to flow fairly well in setting the scenes we find our characters in. The cases are typically well thought out and detailed based heavily in the real cases the EEOC would actually conduct investigations into. As a law student, I enjoyed this, seeing how the author's real-life experiences have integrated realistically and skillfully into the storyline.
This all being said, however, there are some points for improvement within this book. Firstly, while I condemn Alice's character for recognising her biases, it's often a day late and a dollar short, particularly when it comes to one of her team, a former ex-con named JJ. JJ had served 20 years in prison for aggravated assault and Alice makes sure everyone and their granny knows she's not happy about this. If it's mentioned once, it's mentioned a thousand times. Also, the inadequacy of Alice's team probably would reflect current day mindsets within equality commissions, not only do we meet a homophobe, but we also have an ableist and a racist. Clearly the people you'd want caring for you in an equality related crisis. I understand these characteristics are added to the characters to make them seem more realistic and give them a basis to grow from, but I felt like it was simply used for character development rather than showing the structural problems that often exist within government agencies.
This is a perfect read for those who want a story that isn't ACTION BAM ACTION. This is more a lull, a gentle brew of sorts. Enjoyable but not without flaws.
Trigger Warning: Sexual assault, homophobia, racism, ableism, violence, mental health problems, addiction
September 7, 2021
*I received a free copy of this book, with thanks to the author. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.*
Fictional, but based on the author’s own experiences in the field of workplace equalities and discrimination, this book follows Alice and her team as they investigate and attempt to resolve a series of equal-opportunities-related complaints.
The majority of the story focuses less on the professional complaints the team is handling, and more on the team dynamics and their own personal (and personnel) issues – everything from addiction, disabilities, sexism, phobias, religious intolerance, racism, homophobia and rehabilitation is touched upon here, and the author does a really good job of showing the conflicts and difficulties faced by anyone working in a truly diverse office environment, with all of the personality clashes that might entail. It definitely looks like this team has been set up specifically to fail!
I was a little surprised when the story just ended suddenly, without resolving the current cases under investigation, or the bigger mystery of why the team has been set up the way they have. All the threads are left trailing towards the sequel, but with no climax here it left this book feeling strangely unfinished and unsatisfying.
I did get drawn in to the plot and characters, but not enough that I felt compelled to follow them any further on their mission, which is a bit of a shame, because I do think it is an important one and raises questions that we all should be considering regularly.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
Fictional, but based on the author’s own experiences in the field of workplace equalities and discrimination, this book follows Alice and her team as they investigate and attempt to resolve a series of equal-opportunities-related complaints.
The majority of the story focuses less on the professional complaints the team is handling, and more on the team dynamics and their own personal (and personnel) issues – everything from addiction, disabilities, sexism, phobias, religious intolerance, racism, homophobia and rehabilitation is touched upon here, and the author does a really good job of showing the conflicts and difficulties faced by anyone working in a truly diverse office environment, with all of the personality clashes that might entail. It definitely looks like this team has been set up specifically to fail!
I was a little surprised when the story just ended suddenly, without resolving the current cases under investigation, or the bigger mystery of why the team has been set up the way they have. All the threads are left trailing towards the sequel, but with no climax here it left this book feeling strangely unfinished and unsatisfying.
I did get drawn in to the plot and characters, but not enough that I felt compelled to follow them any further on their mission, which is a bit of a shame, because I do think it is an important one and raises questions that we all should be considering regularly.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
June 10, 2020
The Cause Lives is a great book is a great car/travel book. It’s one of those books that you can leave in your car and pull out to read while waiting for your kid’s practice to be over, waiting for the doctor or traveling to work. The storyline is like a simmer pot of rice on the stove. The story takes place at a new EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) office located in Austin, Texas. The office is missing a sign and filled with old office furniture. The employees of this office match the furniture thrown away from the workforce as rejects. The Director used to be the next shooting star, now she drinks her pain away while carrying a support dog. The office secretary suffers from an anxiety disorder, where she has to hide behind a makeshift wall. The field agents are a black activist, a redneck, an ex-con, a woman having an affair with a married man, and an Indian woman determined to find herself. Together these unlikely suspects bond together as a makeshift family and help one another on several discrimination cases that could cost them their lives and/or job. Mixed into the storyline are two beautiful loves. The author, Marie Watts, does an amazing job developing the characters and weaving a colorful storyline that leaves the reader wanting more.
February 3, 2021
Alice was on a new employment issue case for the EEOC. It was a sexual harassment allegation that forced a woman to quit. Alice certainly had prior experience in that as a teen working in fast food. She couldn’t’ just accept the victim’s testimony (she’d been burned by that before,) so she had to dig deep and investigate.
Under Alice’s management, a team of investigators take on other harassment and disability cases in the work place. All these cases are worked on at once. The multiple cases, at times, were confusing and a little hard to keep track of. Mostly deals with the office politics and the inner tension between the investigators, which can be lengthy and drone. Of course, I was more interested in Alices’ case about the woman being forced into sexual acts by her employer. Sex with a lion? Really? Not sure if I would believe that myself. This was the classic battle of He Said/She Said. Alice was certainly a smart cookie with good instincts. Someone was lying…but who? The best part in this whole thing was weeding through it and finding out.
A pretty good read.
Under Alice’s management, a team of investigators take on other harassment and disability cases in the work place. All these cases are worked on at once. The multiple cases, at times, were confusing and a little hard to keep track of. Mostly deals with the office politics and the inner tension between the investigators, which can be lengthy and drone. Of course, I was more interested in Alices’ case about the woman being forced into sexual acts by her employer. Sex with a lion? Really? Not sure if I would believe that myself. This was the classic battle of He Said/She Said. Alice was certainly a smart cookie with good instincts. Someone was lying…but who? The best part in this whole thing was weeding through it and finding out.
A pretty good read.
June 3, 2022
I found the story with Alice and her group of employees who fought against employee discrimination (sexual harassment, sexual coercion) interesting and full of action whereby Alice had an unfair boss who showed little support by way of funding for her discrimination cases and hiring an exconvict who had no experience and was unreliable in his work ethic. Over time, they came face to face with threats and incidences by those who loathed their cause to fight for justice in employment law.
What I struggled with were the multitude of characters, and I truly could not keep up with the diverse characters, which made it difficult to keep up with who was who. I also didn't like the multiple viewpoints of characters as it seemed like I only knew the characters at a superficial level. In spite of that, the story was interesting and authentic as the cases were based on the real life experiences of the author who had worked in employment law. Generally, a satisfying read.
What I struggled with were the multitude of characters, and I truly could not keep up with the diverse characters, which made it difficult to keep up with who was who. I also didn't like the multiple viewpoints of characters as it seemed like I only knew the characters at a superficial level. In spite of that, the story was interesting and authentic as the cases were based on the real life experiences of the author who had worked in employment law. Generally, a satisfying read.
March 22, 2019
Fiction but based on the author's own experiences in discrimination suits.
Storyline follows several investigators as they look into various discrimination cases.
Characters were a little shallow (though flawed and not perfect people). Definitely relevant for our times but it does not make you think well of the EEOC, seemingly underfunded and based on the competency of investigators and how much effort someone puts into investigations.
Ends rather abruptly, leaving you thinking that you must read the next one (it is going to be a series) before you get anywhere.
Overall some interesting points. I have been in HR and have seen many types of discrimination, so the topic was interesting to me, but overall it could have been a better story.
Storyline follows several investigators as they look into various discrimination cases.
Characters were a little shallow (though flawed and not perfect people). Definitely relevant for our times but it does not make you think well of the EEOC, seemingly underfunded and based on the competency of investigators and how much effort someone puts into investigations.
Ends rather abruptly, leaving you thinking that you must read the next one (it is going to be a series) before you get anywhere.
Overall some interesting points. I have been in HR and have seen many types of discrimination, so the topic was interesting to me, but overall it could have been a better story.
March 23, 2019
Entertaining read for most of the book, though it did drag at times. As a past government employee, this novel is spot-on regarding the lack of funding often available for basic necessities in many agencies, and politics comes into play far too often, defeating many needed community services and restricting their effectiveness. This novel touches on several different types of workplace harassment and the way these cases are investigated. Was very, very disappointed at the chopped-off ending.
October 7, 2019
I found this book interesting with a taste of what the Federal Agency for discrimination/employment/harrassment goes through when a case is opened to investigate. Several scenarios where presented in the book. It opened my eyes to see that the agency itself has it's own problems internally. I think the stories shared are more real in our world than not. It's a short and quick read to open your eyes of employment discrimination. I enjoyed the read .
June 5, 2020
The Cause Lives is a promising start to the trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It has an authentic feel to it, and the characters are flawed, but it makes them all the more human. This isn't your typical thriller, it's definitely more down to earth, but that also elevates the tension level. Especially with how blatant inequality is right now, the work of the EEOC is more important than ever, and brings the story closer to reality.
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August 13, 2020The Cause Lives: Warriors for Equal Rights is based on my 30+ years of experience working with the EEOC and investigating discrimination. The names have been changed of course, and the situations are not exactly as they happened, but a compilation of my experiences.
https://www.mariewatts.com/books/
https://www.mariewatts.com/books/
January 27, 2022
The author clearly knows her subject here, and I learned a lot from reading this. Some of the cases of sexual harassment in the book were eyebrow-raising, if not hair-raising, and the team of people investigating them seems like a mismatched team with issues of their own, which kept it interesting. It made me realize that the issues of discrimination are much more complex than I thought...
March 19, 2019
This book was amazing. An inside look at the EEOC and how they determine what cases to take and why. I loved the main character. She's tough as nails yet older than expected.
Very well researched and written. Highly recommended.
Very well researched and written. Highly recommended.
May 11, 2019
This book is loosely based on the experiences of the author who was a discrimination investigator. The characters and cases are real and believable. The heroine is portrayed as strong but she has her flaws. I enjoyed it and look forward to the next book in this series.
June 12, 2021
Wasn't sure how I would feel reading this book, but am glad I did. This turned out to be a really good read! Not what you would expect on some level and everything on another level! The characters and plot are balanced giving you what you want when reading.
March 6, 2022
I'm partial to unusual main characters, so when I saw the description of Alice Arden who "can't wait to retire" from her job at the "federal discrimination and harassment agency she works at," I was intrigued. When I discovered the book's author, Marie W. Watts, is retired from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a former human resources professional, I knew the book was written by someone knowledgeable about how all that worked.
So when I read about Alice's struggle to manage a team of squabbling adults--each struggling with their own unique challenges or prejudices--while overcoming the barriers her boss keeps throwing in front of her, I was absorbed. We can never really know what's going on with another person, as Alice discovers.
While Alice frustrated me in more ways than one and the secondary characters didn't always strike me as realistic, a few particularly well-drawn characters stood out: JJ (an ex-con) and Quiana (a sociophobe; yes this exists).
The book lacks a strong arc other than the general question of whether Alice succeeds in the job she's taken, but the various cases the office investigators take on and their tense interactions compelled me to read more. Numerous typographical errors (especially punctuation omissions) marred otherwise solid writing.
What made me almost quit were some stereotypes early on and Alice's alcoholism (don't try to tell me it's anything but that), which isn't resolved -- at least to my satisfaction -- by the end. Too many authors seem to prefer to drop their characters into bars to drink their worries away rather; that a book with so much else that's so unique leans so heavily on a cliche was very disappointing.
So when I read about Alice's struggle to manage a team of squabbling adults--each struggling with their own unique challenges or prejudices--while overcoming the barriers her boss keeps throwing in front of her, I was absorbed. We can never really know what's going on with another person, as Alice discovers.
While Alice frustrated me in more ways than one and the secondary characters didn't always strike me as realistic, a few particularly well-drawn characters stood out: JJ (an ex-con) and Quiana (a sociophobe; yes this exists).
The book lacks a strong arc other than the general question of whether Alice succeeds in the job she's taken, but the various cases the office investigators take on and their tense interactions compelled me to read more. Numerous typographical errors (especially punctuation omissions) marred otherwise solid writing.
What made me almost quit were some stereotypes early on and Alice's alcoholism (don't try to tell me it's anything but that), which isn't resolved -- at least to my satisfaction -- by the end. Too many authors seem to prefer to drop their characters into bars to drink their worries away rather; that a book with so much else that's so unique leans so heavily on a cliche was very disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews