royalties for my books that released in September, October, November, and December 2011 to THE PROVIDENCE HOUSE. I am also at this time including all royalties between now and January 1st for my May release as well.
I was married to a violent man with a
badge...a federal badge. I'd tried three times early in our marriage to leave, but there's nowhere to run when your opponent has the kind of power and resources at his fingertips my former husband had.
I don't need to turn your stomachs with the details of what he did to me, except to tell you the law was not on my side. Local law enforcment does not want to err on the side that's opposite a federal agent, so even though I had tried to go to the police several times,
I was turned away. I learned very quickly that was not the right route to go.
I'd like to say I got brave for my own sake, but I didn't.
I got brave for my children. I could not allow my monster to begin doing to them what he was doing to me...and trust me I had reason to fear such actions.
I don't remember how I learned the house across the way and hidden from the curious eyes of others, that no one talked about was a shelter for battered women and their families.
The HOW doesn't really matter...what does is they were there...a phone call away, and that phone call opened the floodgates for the terrified woman I was to begin the long and difficult process of becoming the me I am today.
The Providence House...it exists on donation, and I regret is a necessary place. They gave me the courage and the support to stand up and demand an
end to the violence. I would not be alive today had they not been there. My children would not be alive today, had they not been there.
I am an author at the very beginning of my writing career, and because of the physical damage done to me, I am disabled. Donating my royalties is a meager gesture, but it's all I can do.
I do not often promote myself. It's the hardest part of being a writer, but I will happily promote The Providence House. I'll also gladly
beg on their behalf that you give my writing a chance so I can give a little back to The Providence House for saving me and my children.
Allow me to tell you more about My Charity:
Providence House Domestic Violence Services
Providence House Domestic Violence Services(PHDVS) of Catholic Charities provides comprehensive services for victims of domestic abuse and their children free of charge at outreach offices and emergency safehouses in Burlington and Ocean Counties. Providence House Domestic Violence Services assists victims of domestic abuse and their children with an array of services that include: emergency shelter, a 24 hour hotline, counseling services, a comprehensive children’s program, a parenting education program and a program specifically designed to assist victims age 50 and older. These services are offered at no cost to individuals and are invaluable to victims and their children who are struggling to break free from the cycle of violence in their homes.
These free and confidential services for victims of domestic violence rely upon the generosity of donors and volunteers. Being a part of our team is not only rewarding but life-changing. Help us to end the cycle of violence in our community today.
Providence House is one of the oldest and most comprehensive domestic violence providers in New Jersey and is accredited through the national Council on Accreditation. In Burlington County, PHDVS has been offering services for more than 30 years and for more than 20 in Ocean County.
And now I will tell you about my stories. Below are the titles and their sale pages. I hope you will check them out.
1. Beyond Yesterday
Pamela Monroe blames Reba MacEntire’s video for her song Fancy. In the video, Fancy, a beautiful, rich, powerful woman returns to the run-down shack of her youth, reliving the squalor that sent her away. Had it not been for Fancy, Pam would never have been lured back to her own tar paper shack and the misery she’d known there.
The voice on the wind has a story Pam is meant to hear, pulling her more deeply into the pain of her past. She wants to run, but the wind won’t let her leave.
Will she survive the wind’s objective and learn to move beyond yesterday? Or will she perish in the overwhelming agony of her yesterday?
Excerpt:
Come to me, the wind seemed to say. Come to me now.
The wind’s tongues wrapped around her reluctance and pulled her toward a pair of intricately carved wooden doors. With paint chips pealing, like the rind from a withered orange, the doors blew open, cracking against the walls with such a snap, she literally jumped two feet into the air.
A finger of fear scraped the length of her spine.
Run, her courage screamed, but instead of jumping onto the balustrade and sailing down and out of this real house of horrors, she crossed the line and moved into the room. Her eyes scanned the entire length of the walls. She could see no obvious gaps in the mortar or plaster to explain the curling grasp of the wind.
The wall on the far side of what surely had been her grandmother’s suite was composed of floor-to-ceiling windows, dusty and smudged, but all amazingly intact. The shafts of sunlight pouring in were grimy with the accumulation of dust motes and mold spores. The room smelled thick and made it hard to breathe.
I need air!
She hoped the windows still opened.
She walked across the room, side-stepping the large canopy bed on the platform that made up the majority of the left side of the room, and the chaise lounge that was just to the right of the wall of windows.
The sills were thick with dust. Ignoring the mountains of grime, she reached for the latch, pushed until it conceded, and then gave the lower panel a shove with all of her might. The window did not give up the battle with ease. After much effort, and no shortage of muttered curses, the window jerked and then lurched its way up until she could stick her head out and inhale the fresher air into her twitching nostrils.
Once her lungs were not threatening to strangle her under the layers of dust she inhaled, she turned back into the room. So this is where her grandmother had slept.
She barely remembered the tiny woman who had been her grandmother. Evelyn Monrow never seemed to leave this house. Only the hard man, Evelyn’s husband, had ever ventured out from the sequestered sanctity of the mansion’s walls, and only to make trouble for those that lived in that wretched shack.
What were you like, Grandmother?
Come here. The wind spoke again. This time it called her toward the bed.
“Okay,” she said out loud, “I’m losing it! It’s definitely time for me to leave.”
She began backing away, eyeing the whole room with suspicion. She only got as far as the middle of the room before a gust of wind, powerful enough to lift her off her feet, cycloned in, lifted her into the air and dropped her smack onto that yawning bed. She landed hard onto the aged mattress, sending a cloud of dust mushrooming into the air, choking her in its fallout. She coughed so hard tears were streaming down her face before she stopped. When the tears stopped and her eyes refocused she saw it.
2. Suc-U
Ambreton Nightshade works for the breed company SUC-U, which stands broadly for Succubus United. She’s nearing her one thousandth birthday when the heartthrob that has been causing all the sucs to drool in the break room calls. The suc he ordered the night before did not show up. Unheard of!
Bre sees her chance, issuing a full refund and an offer for the approaching night no red blooded male could ever refuse, she makes her case.
Will she take this client beyond the ecstasy her sisters have already taken him to, and once she actually claps eyes upon him, is she ever going to let any of those sisters near his prime meat again?
Excerpt:
Slowly, quietly, her heart beat and his softened huffs the only sounds punctuating the endlessness of night, she reached her right hand toward him. She’d decided to begin with that proudly plump big toe on his left foot. Could he be ticklish? Did she want him giggling from her touch, or gasping from the searing hot brand of her fingers dancing across his skin?
How many sucs before her had stood here pondering the banquet of wealth before them? She hated every single one of them and hoped they’d burn in the fiery pits of hell.
Not a charitable attitude to have, but she had no charity in her where Drake Phaeton seemed to be concerned.
She did not understand her fury. Just like her, all previous sucs were just doing their jobs. That did not matter one whit to her now. She would scratch the scales off of any of her sisters if they ever approached Drake Phaeton again!3. Champagne Afternoon
On a dare she finds herself here at a nudist camp, hovering inside the shower, praying the floor will open up before the water turns to ice and she has no choice but walk across that cavernous floor-to-ceiling windowed room and climb into the Olympic sized hot tub.
The idea is frightening enough when she believes she had this portion of the nudist camp all to herself, but the Fates stepped in and the other shower ran, turned off, letting her hear the slapping steps of another bather making the water churn upon entry out there to see all her insecurities.
Run! She needed to run. But she would never be able to live with herself if she turned coward after the four long hours it took to drive her.
It’s now or never!
Excerpt:
The days when this aging body of mine breathed life into the skimpiest of bikinis were distant memories. Shifting sands of time had created mountains and hills where once there had been inches of smooth desert flatlands. Assorted networks of silvery scars, some from childbirth, and some not, mapped a course more detailed and winding than a spider’s web, with a few too many detours and side trails for my peace of mind.
“You’re not as hopeless as you think.” Dr. Harrison had said more than once in response to my voiced insecurities. “Yes, your body has changed, but not as greatly as you seem to think. Forget the programming you’ve allowed yourself to buy into. It’s time to take a chance and let the real you shine through.”
The real me. Morosely, my gaze traveled down the slippery length of me. The real me was far too many pounds heavier, several inches thicker, and a whole lot more frightened than I was at sixteen and thought a hundred twenty five pounds was obese. What I wouldn’t give to be a hundred twenty five pounds again.
“Take a chance.” Dr. Harrison’s words echoed and re-echoed inside my head, and with the jetting water nearing iceberg sharp coldness, by the very second, I soon would have no choice.
Stiffening my shoulders, I gave myself one final pep-talk, murmuring. “You’ve made it this far, woman, you’re not going to turn coward now, are you?”
4. The Christmas War-has no sale date or buy page yet.
Blurb:
It's a typical day in Mick's life. A successful stockbroker, he battles the morning traffic, the zip of numbers across the exchange banner while making fortunes grow for his clients, and the number pounding after-images continue to haunt his brain as he drives home.This is his well ordered life.
Home. His work life is numbers, routine, and rational. His home life? Secrets percolate behind closed doors...dangerous secrets...secrets that are about to tip over.
Will Mick survive the explosion about to blow the lid off his private, seemingly perfect world? Will any of them outlast the approaching turmoil and the world finally looking in and seeing the truth behind their closed doors? Or will death and destruction be the ultimate penalty for their secrets revealed?
Excerpt:
And lastly is the oops member of the family. Diana is only six. She was not supposed to be. Mother had religiously taken her birth control, but Diana happened.—Mother only marginally adheres to the preaching of the Church—.A first grader, she is truly the apple in all of our eyes. In some ways, Diana represented my Mother’s greatest accomplishment. None of her friends had managed to conceive a child that close to menopause, and while taking The Pill. Diana raised Mother to the status of one upon whom a miracle was created. That’s heady stuff, dontcha know?
Now you know a little bit about the books. I hope you will find one or two that'll interest you enough to help me give a little back to the wonderful people at The Providence House, for helping my children and I live Beyond our ownYesterday.
Thank you most humbly, and
have a wonderful holiday season.
The Christmas War - Book Two in the Christmas Miracles series - December 2011
Irene Cavington was not going to fail. She needed her daughter legally married before midnight in nine more days, and not even her daughter was going to stand in her way.
Hank Childress, new minister at the Northeringale church took one look at Beck Cavington and fell head over pulpit in love with the feisty confection maker. That he was lowbrow and she from the upper crust would not deter him.
Beck Cavington could not forgive herself for the person she used to be, so how could she be worthy of a fine man such as Reverend Hank Childress...but oh how she wished she were...and, if she were, wouldn't that fry her Mother's britches too?
...a blue blood down on his financial luck, and the man Irene has chosen to force Beck into unholy wedlock to for a measly five million; a small amount actually..money can buy anything, and Irene intends to keep it all...five mill is but a drop.
Four people, one miracle in this Book Two of the Christmas Miracle Series.
