Sunday, January 31, 2016

A Sad Day

This has been a long, difficult day. My husband's mother passed away this evening. She'd been on hospice since coming home from the hospital earlier in January, so while it was not unexpected, it was still not an easy day. (I lost my own mother in October 2000, and a dear friend who was like a surrogate mother to me in September 2014, and now another mother, who has been my mother-in-law for nearly 32 years) I do not like the terminology hospice uses- actively dying. I don't know how it could be better phrased though- Seeking peace after a long decline? Preparing for the end of life? Separating from the mortal vessel?

I don't think there is a comforting euphemism for the process of dying.

It annoys me that I know so many beautiful words but I cannot make any of those words describe the passing of a loved one in a less harsh and stinging manner.


Saturday, January 30, 2016

Have Joined the Twits (Uh, on Twitter)

I just signed up and now have a Twitter account. You can find me at SusanBuffum3. Tweet me a hello as I move out of the Dark Ages where I communicate in general with a chalky piece of rock in pictographs on the cave wall.
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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Love Me Knots Giveaway on Goodreads

The giveaway for 6 signed first edition copies of Love Me Knots begins tomorrow, January 27th on Goodreads. This book is a collection of 5 of my favorite little romance stories- Stage Stop, Making the Right Choice, Sweetheart Lake, Flintlock and Scalpel and Not Always Black and White (in which I imagine what would have happened if Rex and Lucy didn't get back together at the end of The Subtlety of Light and Shadow)

In Stage Stop a photojournalist travels to Nevada to stay with a man who bought a ghost town back when she was a little girl. She wants to write an article about it now, and gathers enough material to make a coffee table book besides. There is a rattlesnake and a secret discovered in Stage Stop.

In Making the Right Choice a young woman raised in wealth and being forced to marry  the son of her father's equally wealthy friend so they can merge their companies has been testing her wings in the real world and discovers she's a lot happier there, however her family continues to railroad her toward marriage to a man she does not love. She loses her heart to a rough-around-the-edges farmer with a violent home life, but he is the one with a vision for the future. As her wedding day arrives, Ellisan has to make a choice.

A young man returns home and discovers that the girl next door is the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

A female doctor is rudely awakened by an intruder in her home one night- a British redcoat from 1775! She quickly mobilizes her co-workers to save his life, and while the other doctors believe he has some sort of situational amnesia brought on by role-playing as a re-enactor, she becomes more and more convinced that he really did pass through a warp in time.

Two years after they broke up, remote, dark, damaged but brilliant and wealthy artist Rex Royce pursues young Lucie Palmer. At first she's not sure why he's suddenly come back into her life, but then she realizes that there is still something between them- something that they both want. Will they manage to make it work this time around?

I like to write about characters with flaws and vulnerabilities. I like to give them challenges to overcome. I like to make my characters fall in love...and of course live happily ever after despite all odds.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Miss Peculiar's II Giveaway Ends

Just want to thank all the people who entered the giveaway for copies of Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II. It makes me feel good that a basically unknown author who is doing everything herself as a self-publisher, can draw that much attention to one of her books. Feedback has been positive and encouraging so that makes me happy and I will continue to write...not that a poor response and negative comments would slow me down any. Writing is my passion and I'm just happy that people are discovering the stories I write and enjoying them. I'll be putting Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume III up shortly as a giveaway on Goodreads in February. Right now Love Me Knots is going up on January 27th in time for Valentine's Day as the book contains five of my favorite sweet little romance stories.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Cupid's Darts- A Sweet Hearts Collection

I just finished putting together 14 short stories and a novelette in a collection for Valentine's Day. It is in the final proofing stage-awaiting proof copies. I'm thinking I might change the cover from red and pink to two shades of pink as right now with it's little cherub on the front it looks too much like a Christmas book!

I had fun putting this collection together. It includes two stories that I recently put up on wattpad- Tangerine Twist and The Best Man. In Tangerine Twist an unconventional girl spontaneously decides to attend the funeral of one of her former classmate's relatives. She and Beaman Rhys are light years apart on the society scale- she's barely earning a living and he's incredibly wealthy, but sparks unexpectedly fly at the wake where she creates a stir, and continue to smolder at the funeral and reception the following day, igniting a mutual passion.

In The Best Man a young man is paired with his married sister at his best friend's wedding- and he's bored. He's tired of bar pick-ups and casual dating now that his friend is settling down. His eye is caught by one of the servers at the reception and he begins flirting with her. His sister is aghast that he would do such a thing, and annoyed with him. The server, Daisy, whom he calls Pepper because of her red hair, is at first a little put off by all his requests but she accommodates him without comment. She goes off duty before the reception will end so he boldly invites her to go home, change into a dress and come back to dance with him- hoping that she will but not really thinking it will happen- but she surprises him.

A young woman trying to rush her sick puppy to the vet accidently locks him in her running car. She dials a wrong number trying to get help. The owner of the business she accidentally calls sends one of his employees who is a volunteer firefighter to assist her. With her car now out of gas, Billy takes her and Derby to the vet. All he asks in return is that she attend his stepbrother's wedding that afternoon as his date.

A window washer finds romance on the nineteenth floor of  skyscraper in the Window Washer.

A medical secretary is surprised when the doctor she works for celebrates Secretary's Day for the first time in the five years that she's worked for him.

A first grade teacher plans a special Valentine's Day party for her class but she is the one who receives the most special Valentine's Day surprise that day.

An office worker discovers who it is that makes the coffee in the office he enjoys every day.

A young woman who has a car in need of frequent repairs runs into the mechanic who works on her car at a coffee shop and discovers he has the ability to repair her love life as well as her car.

A construction worker looking for a massage parlor wanders into a bookstore when he reads the street number his co-worker gave him wrong-and finds the book shops owner to his liking.

An artistic, brooding college student finds the sunny free-spirited girl who works on the college literary magazine with him rather annoying in her always upbeat nature, but when he rescues her from an assault on campus and her light seems to have been extinguished he feels compelled to help reignite her bright flame.

A baseball player comes to the rescue of a reporter who covers the games when she is assaulted by a rival reporter, even though he's annoyed by her frequently taking his picture. He discovers an unusual bond with the girl when she goes missing and helps the police in their search for her.

A man returns to town in search of the girl he left behind after high school.

A young woman who's inherited a crumbling estate finds a partner in the restoration project when a ne'er-do-well young man has a bike accident on her property one dark and stormy night.

A widower takes a bride uniting two large Irish families.

An a young man helping his father plan his mother's funeral discovers that the creepy, morbid girl he knew in high school is a consummate professional in her family's business, and that she had a surprising connection with his late mother.

The collection should be out by Valentine's Day- available on Amazon.com and bn.com

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Eye Strain

Suffering from eye strain- too much looking at cellphone, computer and e-reader screens lately. Need to take a break to rest my sore eyes....will be back when they calm down...Technology will be my health downfall!! I swear!

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Mongrel Fiction and the Rescue Bookstore

I was putting together some stories for Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume IV and a future volume of sweet and sometimes quirky little romance stories when it occurred to me that I write literary fiction that is rather genre defiant in that it really doesn't fit in any specific genre. I write mongrel fiction as it is a blend of genres, not purebred Romance, Sci-Fi, Paranormal, etc.

I should open a little corner bookshop and call it Rescue Books. People could come in and for a small fee, under $20, adopt one of my books and carry it home to love and cherish. They could tell all their friends that they own a rescue book, and maybe they'll go back and adopt another rescue book to keep the one they already own company on the bookshelf.

The world is full of people who do good deeds. My good deed is entertaining people.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Fun With Fiction

Writing fiction is like painting with words. I believe Voltare said that and I wholeheartedly agree. That is why I dislike social media- because it is a vast medium upon which you can paint word pictures that aren't necessarily truthful. For example, I could search the internet and probably find a picture of a vehicle like mine that has been in an accident, steal the picture and then post it on my social media page with something like "I had a bad accident today but I'm okay..." and continue on to fill in some details and post it.  It's fiction but who would know?

My previous post- was it real or fiction? How would you know? 

Writers have an amazing ability to draw you into a world that does not exist. They populate it with people you feel as if you know but those people do not really exist, yet you love them, you hate them you wish they were your friend, your co-worker, your neighbor, a classmate or even a family member. I have read so many books where I wish I could step into the story and grab the character and give them a good shake, or take them for coffee and have a heart to heart talk with them about their wrong choices...I have created characters who have broken my heart and characters who live in my heart that I can't let go of.

I try to have fun when I write but there have been times when I've written angry, written sad, written goofy, written playful...and written just outright funny. I have a streak of sarcasm and cynicism in me a mile wide and at the bottom of that chasm flows a river named Irony. The little town of Humor perches on the precipice and laughter flows down hill from all the little houses there.

Be careful what you read because it can draw you in like a mesmerist and make you dance like a monkey.

Here's something interesting and fun that I do to amuse myself when writing. I weave one thing from my real life into each story or novel that I create. It's a game I play with my daughter who reads everything that I write. My challenge is for her to find that ne thing- a favorite food, a piece of clothing, a place we've visited, a room in our house, a book we've both read, a cat we owned at one time, a friend I've fictionalized as a character in a story, a car one of us has driven or wants to own...it's a literary scavenger hunt- and yes, she usually finds it because she's very analytical and she's played the game since she was a child and I wrote stories for her back then.

Even when I'm writing something absolutely ponderous I still have to have a little fun with the words- playing with alliteration or something similar.

I have always been a creative person. Growing up I slept with a notebook and a pencil beside my pillow. I learned how to write in the dark because I didn't always have a flashlight and I didn't want to be turning the light on and off all throughout the night disturbing my sister and brother- we didn't close our doors because we had cats who liked to come and go throughout the night. I got to be pretty good at writing in the dark- fairly straight lines of prose. I still will get up at night if something comes to me and I'll wander up to the kitchen and write whatever it is on a 5X8 lined pad on the counter, tear off the sheet and leave it for myself on the kitchen table. Old habits never die, not in this house.

My sister, who is also a writer, gets mad at me and tells me I don't talk writing seriously. I do. I am very hard on myself choosing the right word that I want, the perfect word that reflects exactly how I want the character to think or feel or express themselves, or how I want a scene painted, a background to appear. I love words and I love language. I write fast and furious but then I tinker and amend until the story is absolutely perfect in my opinion with all the words exactly how I want them to be, saying what I want them to say and leaving unsaid those things the reader needs to think about long after the book has been read so they want to go back and reread the book again and fill in the blanks with insight. I work hard at what I do...and I have fun.

Writing should be a labor of love not an agony of hard labor.

Just remember- everybody writes fiction. Fiction can be as simple as embellishment of the truth.


I Thought My Head Would Explode Today So I Am Venting Steam Tonight

I have a stressful day job and this time of year the stress level leaps to the top of Mount Crumpet and blows it's horn in my ear daily. The stress level increases when the people I work for fail to do their job which leads to the people they deal with calling my desk and screaming at me for failing to do something that I am entirely in the dark about because there is ZERO communication between those promising people things and me who has to deliver on those EMPTY promises because no one bothers to tell me anything! I WILL NOT take the blame for their screw-ups. I am laying the blame squarely back in their court where it belongs. They think they've got stress- try sitting in my cubicle for 8 hours and having people scream at you while you're sitting there first of all trying to guess who it is who is yelling at you because they don't come right out and say their names and obviously think you know who they are and why they're so pissed off; secondly trying to figure out exactly what they are so spitting mad about because many people are shockingly inarticulate and cannot say what they want or need in a comprehendible fashion and lastly thinking that you are going to spontaneously combust because now you're mad because you have to deal with these angry people all because NO ONE COMMUNICATES like they should even though we have what amounts to electronic messaging but these promise makers all bandy your name around quite freely while making these promises they can't even be bothered to clue you in that they've made....I am just so frustrated and angry because these are the same whiners who complain if you don't do something for them immediately and then you get yelled at for that too. What it apparently amounts to is I am supposed to take the blame for every screw-up that people who get paid a heck of a lot more money than I do make- well, not anymore. I'm fed up and disgusted. Today was the day that changed the course of how I deal with my co-workers...
...do I feel better now? I really don't know. Like I used to tell one of my co-workers, the good part about being a writer is that if you have a really horrendous day you can always go home and kill the puppy ( a euphemism for killing off a character in a piece of fiction that you write, not a real puppy, of course! You can just create a miserable character and drop a piano on him or something and it makes you happy without actual harm coming to a real live person...
so please excuse me now...I am going to go kill the puppy.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

GIVEAWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

The Goodreads GIVEAWAY for first edition signed copies of Talon:An Intimate Familiarity ends tonight at 11:59PM.  Around 350 people have put their names in for this giveaway.

Tonight at midnight ANOTHER GIVEAWAY begins on Goodreads for 6 signed first edition copies of The Achetypes-First Generation.

I ALSO have a FLASH GIVEAWAY going on my author page on facebook in which the first three people who send me an email to sebuffum415@gmail.com with their name and mailing address and the title of the one book of mine that they want to read most will receive a signed first edition copy of that book in return. All book titles and descriptions can be found on Amazon.com and bn.com by typing my name into the BOOKS search bar. Most of the books can also be found- photo of cover and description on the Title By Author page on this blog site.  I'm not 100% certain but I think the only book not on the Titles page here is the most recently published Life Skills,  but you can find it on Amazon and probably bn.com now or can find the post about it here on the blog.

Additional Giveaways will be forthcoming around Valentine's Day. Keep your eyes open and you may be one of the lucky winners of a free book!

Sunday, January 10, 2016

CATS HAVE NIGHTMARES, TOO

Whenever I have to take a muscle relaxer for my RA symptoms I have a vivid nightmare. Friday night within forty minutes of falling asleep I was wide awake, heart pounding. I have claustrophobia pretty bad. I have panic attacks when I am in enclosed spaces. I had a dream that a spirit came to me and said that if I was in pain and I wanted to scream where I could not be heard that I was to meet her in a certain location. That certain location, where I became just a disembodied voice among other disembodied voices, was a rectangular box with ripples of white satin lining on all sides. My disembodied self was located in  the lower right corner of the box. I said, "I'm here," and the same spirit voice answered that she was also there from the upper right area of the enclosure. Then other voices began saying, "I'm here, too," and I freaked out- while simultaneously realizing that the spirit had more or less lured me into a casket of some sort!

I woke up having a panic attack and had to get out of bed and pace the house while trying to calm myself down. The image of the white satin lined box and feeling trapped, claustrophobic, isolated and anxious remained with me for almost an hour. The image of the "box" is still quite vivid in my mind. I am haunted by it now.

Last night I was in a dead sleep having a more pleasant dream when I felt sudden pain in my hand and woke up, startled. It only took me a moment to realize what the pain was- my little cat was snuggled up against my side, his back paw in the palm of my hand which is how he likes to sleep because his toe pads are cold at night. He was asleep, but when I jumped, he woke up. He had been having a nightmare and he'd rabbit-kicked the heel of my hand, digging his claws in and ripping my hand open in a couple places! I still wasn't absolutely sure exactly what had happened, what had woken me up as it had all blurred together but when I felt blood on my hand I muttered something and the cat shot off the bed as if the devil was chasing him. I got up and patched my hand up with antibiotic ointment and Band-Aids and then went back to bed. I'm pretty sure the cat had a nightmare and was dreaming that he was fighting another cat (he had been horsing around, mock wrestling and fighting with his big brother just before bedtime). My husband didn't wake up so I know it was no unusual noise or movement in the house that had startled the cat and woken me up. I went back to bed and a short time later the cat returned and snuggled up against me again and we were fine through the rest of the night.

I guess it was just a weekend for nightmares.


Saturday, January 9, 2016

Goodreads Giveaways Coming up This Week

I have two Goodreads Giveaways opening this week. The first opens at midnight on January 12th. Six signed first edition copies of The Archetypes-First Generation will be available to six lucky people! I'm psyched because this was such a fun book to write. I love the characters. Beans is one of my all time favorites- there is something so vulnerable about him, and then he grows and develops right before the readers' eyes and comes into his true self.

The second giveaway opens Saturday January 16th and is for six signed first edition copies of Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II. The first book in this series drew a lot of attention and earned me my first five star rating from a perfect stranger! Volume 2 contains three novellas. The first story, The Magic of Cross and Crowe, is about wildly popular Las Vegas magicians Sebastian Cross and Simon Crowe. Simon needs a new assistant and he chooses a small town New England girl named Tessie, or Pepper. Sebastian and Simon are more than they appear to be.  In the second novella, The Girl With the Ivy Tattoo set in a funeral home called The Cedars, Adrian Frey-Dayne, one of the two embalmers, helps receptionist Eveleen Glenrowan when her tattoo artist father is mowed down and killed on his motorcycle by a Hummer. Adrian has a couple of secrets. In the disturbing novella Thunderheads, the third daughter, Jessie, discovers a strange young man living in the attic of her extremely dysfunctional family's mansion. Why is he there? Jessie's life is difficult, her home life fraught with violence, animosity and indifference. Her family's massive fortune was made when they opened an asylum before the turn of the century in a neighboring town. As the violence escalates in her home and Jessie is victimized in horrific ways, Pen moves in and out of her life, now biding his time until her graduation day when he puts a plan into action that settles a surprising number of old scores and also frees Jessie from an eighteen year nightmare.

Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume III may be offered in a future giveaway, and perhaps The Archetypes-Shockwaves which is the second book in that trilogy.

Right now I am completely revisions to Love Me Knots which may be a Valentine's Day giveaway on Goodreads.

And now, if you've read this blog post this far and you live in the United States, send me an email (sebuffum415@gmail.com) with your name and address and the title of the one book of mine that you want to read the most and I will mail you a signed first edition. I will pick three winners of this flash giveaway next Saturday. Only send one email. You can find all the books listed and described on another page of this blog site- Titles by Author, or something like that. You'll find it. Good luck!! :)

Friday, January 8, 2016

Suffering From Something

I am in the midst of one of the worst flare-ups of whatever this health issue is that I have. I worked all day- hard. I am feeling chilled to the very marrow of my bones while everyone else in the house is warm and comfortable. I am exhausted and feeling miserable. I do not feel like I have a cold or anything. It is more like total body inflammation from the back of my head down to my tailbone, with the added joy of persistent numbness in the front of my thighs and a icepick stabbing pains in my neck. I do not believe this is rheumatoid arthritis. I do believe it is time for a third or fourth opinion. I can go for months and months and feel fine and then suddenly I am a mass of misery and fatigue and the inability to concentrate.

I just want to sleep.

I did finish proofreading and editing the third story in Love Me Knots. We'll see how I feel in the morning. Next up to tackle is the little time traveler romance about the British redcoat during the battle of Lexington who suddenly passes through a time warp into the year 2015 where a female doctor rushes to save him from a mortal gunshot wound.

I will stop sniveling and whining and just go to bed now and be done with this day. 

As Scarlett O'Hara says in Gone With The Wind, "Tomorrow is another day." (At least I hope it is because I do not want to live this one over again!

Monday, January 4, 2016

LOL about Tangerine Twist

Last night I was looking through a binder of stories that have weddings and funerals as themes. I came across a story called Tangerine Twist and totally did not remember what it was about. So I sat at the kitchen table and began reading it- OMG! I was LOL.  My husband was in the living room watching sports and he's going, "What are you laughing about?" I couldn't explain it so I just kept saying, "Oh, just something I wrote that's funny."

It's the story of an offbeat young woman from the wrong side of town who used to be invited to a wealthy family's home for their cat's birthday parties when she was young.  She was sort of the rich boy's mother's "pet project" but after high school he lost track of her and got engaged to a wealthy young woman who never cared much for "Tangerine."  He's always thought Tangerine has moved out west and is therefore surprised when she turns up, totally inappropriately dressed, at his great-uncle's funeral. His great uncle was a hoarder and the young man has been living in the mansion with him trying to care for him and keep him safe. Tangerine does documentary films and is working on one about "invisible children"- those throw away kids who fall between the cracks in society. He is kind of shocked to see her, but also feels a surprising attraction to her. She's a wise-cracking character who often tells it like it is. He asks her to attend the funeral service at the church and the reception afterwards the following day, and goes so far as to tell her exactly how he wants her to dress. Surprisingly she finds herself shopping that evening for the outfit he's asked her to wear. The next day she tones her hair and make-up down significantly, dresses as she's been asked to dress and totally blows him out of the water, but she's still the same offbeat Tangerine he has secretly adored since they were children. When she tries to leave the reception he follows her and not wanting to lose contact with her suggests she film a documentary about hoarding, filming at the mansion. She likes that idea and agrees. Tangerine's observations and remarks are outrageous and funny. She's a colorful character while Beaman is a wealthy young man craving color in his boring, bland, good boy life. There's rapid repartee, and an obvious longstanding but unspoken, unacted upon affection between them despite their social strata separation.

I am still laughing tonight...watch for this one in a future collection of stories!

Saturday, January 2, 2016

GOODREADS GIVEAWAY #3

Talon:An Intimate Familiarity is featured in my third Goodreads Giveaway which starts January 3rd, 2016 at midnight!  Only three copies of this supernatural romance novel are available. This is the first book in the Talon trilogy. Both this book and the second book in the series are available on Amazon.com and directly from me.  I am close to finishing the third and final book.

As usual in my books there is a lot going on- in the Talon series things are happening on earth and in all the realms beyond.  In this first book in the trilogy young Bryce Briscoe is struggling to survive on her own in the city of Revere after leaving home where she has always been considered a freak. A fellow classmate steers her toward the night desk clerk job at City Morgue.  The elderly, kind and generous Dr. James Everett helps her land the job after an inauspicious initial interview with Human Resources. Soon she meets Dr. Everett's tall, dark and handsome, but terrible frosty and rude assistant Dr. Giles Talon. Something is familiar about him to Bryce. It seems he's been a part of her life since she was a child. They have a volatile relationship rife with misunderstandings, arguments and flares of temper but gradually the truth about who and what she is and who and what he is reveals itself despite Dr. Liliya Romanenko's best attempts to prevent Dr. Talon from working with Bryce and helping her to become what she is destined to be.

It's another one of those books people tell me they can't put down once they pick it up and start reading it- they just have to know what happens next!


Auspicious Beginnings Revision

Auspicious Beginnings is undergoing a major revision. It was basically a throw together book from a number of stories drawn from my earlier works dating back to 2000-2011.  Kelly had chosen a number of her favorites and formatted them for me while John and I were on vacation in September 2015. When I got home I quickly threw them together and had the book printed. I feel it is the most neglected of my books, so this weekend I have reread all the stories making corrections, edits and a few changes.  I'm in the process of reformatting the book (margins) and adding two stories to bring it back to just over its original page count of 296 pages (decreasing the wide margins dropped the page count into the 260s so I added two more stories from the list to bring it back up.)

These stories are all sweet little romances dealing with the beginning of new relationships and how following how they develop. Several of them were written during my French phase for my late playwright friend, Jim Curran, who liked to go to Monte Carlo. He was a friend of Grace Kelly's from the 1950's ( I believe) when she was in New York studying acting. Jim's bright red Monte Carlo Grand Prix racing windbreaker hangs in my basement closet, rescued during the tag sale held to liquidate his estate here in Westfield last fall. I was always sending him stories via email and he shared his stories with me. I have some of his manuscripts in my filing cabinet in the den still. My sister and I helped him research and produce a short Marilyn Monroe play that he wrote which was performed in a funeral home in Northampton back in the early 1990's when Kelly was little. I was the sound effects person and provided him a ton of research material from my MM collection . It was fun.

Five of the stories in Auspicious Beginnings have cats or kittens in them- I am from a long line of cat lovers. We always had cats when I was growing up. The longest I have been without a cat is about two and three quarters years after we lost Hyper to cancer shortly after Kelly was born in 1991 until we adopted stray cat Marty in the fall of 1994 when Kelly was three years old. Several of my family members have an excessive amount of cats but we have two- Revere and Riley-Beans, both rescue cats adopted in 2011, Revere in June after we lost Isador, and Riley-Beans in November after the sudden death of sweet five-year old Diego who had cardiac issues.

I'll be taking Auspicious Beginnings off Amazon shortly while I upload the new file. It should be back up for sale again by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, at midnight January 3rd Talon:An Intimate Familiarity becomes a Goodreads Giveaway offering (3 copies available).


Friday, January 1, 2016

Life Skills

Life Skills, my November 2016 NaNo Novel is now available on Amazon.com and directly from me by contacting me at sebuffum415@gmail.com. It is the story of Lissa Beresford, a young woman who has suffered abuse by her father. One night she cracks and spills her horror story to a young man who has had abuse issues of his own with whom she was paired in high school as his partner in Life Skills class. Remy Brice has carried a torch for her for years and he is not about to lose the girl he loves by allowing her to slip into the abyss. Together they navigate the muddy swirling waters that threaten to pull them apart. With the help of Remy's family and family friends Lissa follows a path they forge together toward a happier future. The novel includes a bonus Christmas story chapter which is a trademark of my novels/series.