BOOK REVIEW – THE FALL AND RISE OF TYLER JOHNSON

Posted on June 19, 2017 by P. C. Zick

The Fall and Rise of Tyler Johnson – Based on the journals and actual events of a young man turned fugitive By Patrice Johnson

Disclosure from P.C. Zick: I grew up in the same small town as the author. However, I have not seen her in nearly fifty years. My sister-in-law showed me the book on a recent visit. I immediately downloaded a copy and read the lengthy book in two days while traveling.

Riveting. Horrifying. Thrilling. And unbelievable, yet the book is not a work of fiction. This is the story of Patrice Johnson’s son, Tyler, and the choices he made while in panic mode in a post 9/11 world.

Once I began reading this nonfiction account that includes the journal writings and scientific ramblings of a young genius, I read late into the night and risked missing a family reunion. The story captured my attention at first because I knew the author. But the writing of both mother and son kept me glued to my Kindle whenever I could steal away from others on our recent trip to Michigan.

Tyler Johnson wasn’t a typical college student in some ways. His future lay before him as a physicist with papers published on quantum physics and artificial intelligence. But in other ways, he was typical. A last night of revelry at Caltech before he headed to the University of New Mexico to enter into a doctoral program led to some misguided decisions fueled by alcohol. One of his buddies, Danny Blair, threw a gasoline-filled bottle into a car lot filled with SUVs as a protest to the gas-guzzling vehicles. When several Hummers burn up in Danny’s stupid act of a drunken activist, the full force of the newly implemented national security laws come down hard on the head of Tyler, and he suddenly finds himself labeled as a domestic terrorist.

He panics, and his fear led him to the life of a fugitive on the island of Corsica with some furtive trips to Paris and Marseilles to seek a way out to another country that wouldn’t extradite him.

The story is about this young man’s journey told through his journals and his mother’s superb prose. Tyler and his girlfriend Yuki tremble in the dark shadows of crags, mountains, and woods. Survival in the most elemental way becomes the overriding agenda for each day. Not being captured sits on their shoulders and weighs much more than their hastily packed backpacks.

Through the creative nonfiction of Tyler’s mother, I became engrossed in the details that few of us ever have to think about. Where will they hide next? How will they find jobs without papers? Will they have water? These become the overriding thoughts of everyday life for the two. There are times when Yuki’s sanity seems in jeopardy, yet she always pulls through. Tyler keeps his sanity through his physics and math. The book includes his sketches of ideas and theorems far beyond anything I will ever be able to comprehend.

Most of the time while reading the book, I forgot who wrote it. I forgot everything except wondering if the people who sometimes befriended them could be trusted or if they’d ever find their beloved mutt that had adopted them while traversing the Corsican landscape. Sometimes, it came as a jolt to realize a grieving mother wrote this loving tribute to her son who became a victim of his own poor choices. I’ve made a ton of them in my lifetime, particularly when I was Tyler’s age. We all have. But most of our mistakes can either be swept away by moving forward or revoked through an apology or two. Tyler’s poor choice to flee the country rather than staying and working through the consequences with the support of his loving family ended in disaster.

At first, I thought the book ended abruptly. It left me with more questions than answers. But as I absorbed his story, I realized that Patrice Johnson ended a hopeless story with a note of hope. Then I read the title again, which I originally thought was The Rise and Fall of Tyler Johnson. But it is not. It is The Fall and Rise. Word order matters.

The love of a mother for her son shines through every word of this story focused on four years of his short life. I admire Patrice, Tyler’s father, and Tyler’s sister for bringing his tragic tale to the public. Since finishing the book, I have thought about the choices I’ve made in my life. And the poor ones almost always were made from a place of fear.

It is my sincere hope that others will read this book and learn from Tyler’s life. That’s the very best legacy of all.

Please note that a portion of the royalties for The Fall and Rise of Tyler Johnson will be donated to Longmont Community Justice Partnership. LCJP is an alternative to the traditional criminal justice system and works with individuals such as Tyler if they are willing to take responsibility for their actions. Tyler’s sister, Kelsey, wrote the Foreword for the book and states, “To all of us who have made mistakes that seem irreversible, let us trust that repair is always an option. While we cannot take back our mistakes, we can mend the harms, and all parties may heal. No matter how badly we might mess up, potential for repair always exists. Like refuse composting and transforming into healthy soil that nourishes new life, our mistakes may fuel deep learning and relationships and wisdom.”

To purchase The Fall and Rise of Tyler Johnson, click the links below.

Paperback

Kindle

BOOK REVIEW FRIDAY – I, JOHN CULPEPPER BY LORI CRANE

Posted on May 8, 2015 by P. C. Zick

I sure hope author Lori Crane (click here for Author Wednesday interview) plans to release the next book in her new historical fiction series on the Culpepper family very soon. When I finished the first book, I, John Culpepper, I felt like I’d lost a good friend. I need to find out what happens in this spitfire’s life after . . . Sorry can’t say anything more than that without giving away a spoiler. Ms. Crane said when she first starting writing about this man (her 10th grandfather), she realized she had stumbled upon more than just one novel.

The author transports the reader back to the early 1600s and straight into the lives of the Culpepper family. Tensions start in the beginning chapter between John and his father, playing an integral part in the overall plot of I, John Culpepper.

While many things seem so different from our fast-paced lives today, universal emotions and relationships show us we have much in common with our ancestors, and learning about them may help us to avoid the same downfalls as them. Ms. Crane says the history of our ancestors is the collective history for us all. And it is clear, through the father and son relationship she tells in this story, that we do share a universal past.

Sometimes I put the book down to simply contemplate what it must have been like to travel two weeks or more to visit the family home by horseback. That trip today might take a few hours out of the day. What did the others do while waiting for a family member to return? Imagine how few books had been published up to that time. They must have memorized the ones they had. Reading this book puts into perspective how far we’ve really come in some areas. However, in others we haven’t grown quite as much. Or perhaps the lesson to take away from reading this book is that the conflicts we face in life provide us with the opportunity to grow and mature.

Beyond what we might learn, I, John Culpepper is simply an enjoyable read that I highly recommend.

Purchase links for I, John Culpepper

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Canada

Book Review Friday – Apart from Love by Uvi Poznansky

Posted on February 8, 2015 by P. C. Zick

I’m behind on writing reviews, but I hope the lapse will be forgiven with my review of an astounding book from Uvi Poznansky and her work of literary fiction, Apart from Love. Ms. Poznansky is a multi-talented author and artist, and with this novel, she creates a multi-faceted and multi-layered work of art.

The story is told through the first person narrations of Anita, the new wife of Lenny and step-mother to the other narrator, Ben. The point of view is unique because the story is more about the love between Ben’s parents, Lenny and Natasha, than the other two, who form another sort of love story. Ben’s separation from his home for ten years only shows the level of dysfunction in this family. I use the word “dysfunction” with disdain sometimes because it is overused to the point where it sometimes means very little. But if any family is dysfunctional, it is this one.

During Ben’s absence, the lack of communication with his mother and father is evident when he comes home. For a decade, he assumed his talented pianist mother is out on tour, when in fact, his father is hiding something quite important from his son about Natasha.

In the meantime, Lenny has remarried Anita who is one year younger than Ben. She’s a beauty–a younger version of Natasha. It’s complicated and completely dysfunctional in the true meaning of that word.

Literary techniques abound in Apart from Love. The author skillfully creates symbols and metaphors with the white piano in the living room, the antique mirror in the bedroom, and the tape recorder on the balcony. The point of view represents the author’s skill in writing dialogue that characterizes both Ben and Anita. It’s obvious when switching between chapters who is the narrator, even though Ms. Poznansky tells the reader if it’s Ben or Anita in each chapter title. That’s helpful, but with her paintbrush, she paints prose that is distinct for each one.

Alzheimers rears its horrifying head in parts of the story, as does the family’s inability to know how to deal with it. Insanity hovers at the edges of all the characters as well, presenting the reader with that fine line between genius and the alternative.

If that’s not enough, Lenny is a writer who uses the words of others to create his stories. The blurred lines between reality and fiction are explored in this intimate look at how authors sometimes steal identities from others to draw portraits of real life. It’s haunting in its honesty of how an author works. The “record, rewind, record” element of the story reminds me that all reality is really the fiction of our imaginations.

Uvi Poznansky is a talented author who says in her bio, “I paint with my pen, and write with my paintbrush.” The cover of Apart from Love and the content in between are assurances that this is true.

Click cover to preorder – only $.99

After reading this novel, I’m even more honored that Ms. Poznansky asked me to be a part of her latest endeavor, the box set At Odds with Destiny, a collection of ten novels by ten unique authors. The full-length novels are brimming with myth, fantasy, mystery, history, romance, drama, originality, heroism, and suspense. Finding themselves at odds with destiny, the characters in these stories fight to shape their future and define who they are. My offering Native Lands examines how cultural boundaries established centuries ago are erased as love and nature seek the balance lost in the battle for power and control of the last of the Florida frontier.

Book Review Friday – Gone Girl

Posted on July 18, 2014 by P. C. Zick

Click for Amazon page

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn surprised me. I thought it was simply a novel about a disintegrating marriage. There is nothing “simply” about this story. Since my review is the 19,852nd of Gone Girl, others must have some strong feelings about the novel as well.

I really don’t know how I feel about it. Is it well written? Absolutely. Is it suspenseful? Without a doubt. Is it surprising? There’s nothing mundane and ordinary about this plot or its characters. For those reasons, the novel deserves somewhere around ten stars instead of the standard five stars. The score balances out in the creepy department. Gone Girl thoroughly creeped me out and made me thankful that the significant relationships in my life thus far resemble a television series similar to Leave it to Beaver.

The author changes point of view in each chapter. Just when I thought the husband Nick was the bad guy, the wife Amy jumps in with her story, and the pendulum swings. It’s interesting that the person narrating in any particular chapter doesn’t always come off as the good guy. Nick represents himself as shallow, sneaky, and uncaring. Amy can show a side that’s, well, just plain creepy. No other word for it. Then when it’s almost unbearable, Amy becomes the victim once again.

Because every single chapter is its own little mystery verse, I can’t say much else without giving a spoiler. If you can stand folks who are usually unlikable; if you like a unique storytelling technique; if you like to explore the nether regions of the human psyche; and if you “simply” want a read where you are reluctant to put the book down, then read Gone Girl. It’s worth any stain of creepdom left on your brain.

Author Wednesday – Christoph Fischer

Posted on June 18, 2014 by P. C. Zick

Welcome to Author Wednesday. Today I welcome back Christoph Fischer for a guest post about his latest release A Time to Let Go. Christoph’s three other novels are set in Eastern Europe during the years of the Great Wars, and offer glimpses into what it was like for people of all gender, religion (or lack thereof), cultural heritage, and sexual preferences. The Three Nations Trilogy (The Luck of the Weissensteiners, Sebastian, and Black Eagle Inn) provide an excellent overview of life before, during, and after war.

However, his latest book A Time to Let Go takes a different path. Set in contemporary times in England, the book explores the life of one family as they deal with the onset of Alzheimers of Biddy, the mother and wife of the Korhonen family. In this guest post, Christoph writes about how and why this story was written. Please watch for my review of Time to Let Go on Book Review Friday.

Click on cover

How Time to Let Go Came to Be

by Christoph Fischer

The Real Biddy Korhonen

I grew up with only a few friends and with two older siblings who were miles ahead of me in their lives. My mother was a busy woman, and so I spent a lot of time at my aunt’s house. She had always wanted to raise four children but lost one child at birth. Her other three children were much older and didn’t need her much anymore, so my visits to her house filled a gap for her, in the same way, her attention to me filled a need in me. A match made in heaven.

Philomena, or Minna, as we called her, remained a source of happiness and encouragement throughout my life. I was always welcomed and treated like a precious gift. She smoked, but she outlived both of her sisters who were taken in their forties by cancer.

In her late seventies, Minna was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease. At least she was alive, I thought, belittling her misfortune without much awareness.

The next time I saw her, her trademark happiness seemed far away. She was crying bitterly because she had lost her hearing aid, a very expensive one, too. Suddenly her life seemed to revolve around retrieving things. She was spared the physical pain of her sisters, but she suffered severe mental torture.

She fortunately reached a happier stage as medication and care helped reduce the misery in her life, but the attention she needed was a huge toll to the family. Despite her memory loss, she seemed to vaguely recognize me; me, the “child” who lived abroad and who rarely came to visit. She had not lost her warmth and happiness, or maybe she had just regained it after the bad patch in the early stages.

Very recently, I saw her again, almost unrecognizable: withdrawn, very unresponsive, and almost reduced to basic functioning. Surprisingly, she could still read, and when I came to see her for a second time her eyes shone as if she did recognize me. I made an emotional goodbye to her, and her hand was shaking as she listened to my speech. She even responded by talking, using words that didn’t fit exactly, but which expressed an emotion similar to what one would expect from a loving aunt in such a situation.

With her loving kindness in mind, I created Biddy, the mother in Time to Let Go, a selfless, giving woman, who even in her illness manages to show her innate kindness. I know it would be wrong to praise her for a gift that many other patients do not have, through no fault of their own. Losing one’s memory and control of one’s life is a terrible thing that you can only understand when it happens to you.

Time to Let Go is a tribute to my brave aunt and to the wonderful people who help make her life dignified and as happy as is possible.

Alzheimers

My book is inspired by personal experiences with sufferers from the disease. Nowadays, almost everyone knows someone who has relatives with Alzheimers and gradually stories and anecdotes about these patients have entered the social dinner party circuit and become common knowledge.

Alzheimers is a dreadful disease that cannot be easily understood in its gravity and the complex, frustrating, and far-reaching consequences for the victims and their families. There are different stages of the disease as it progresses and patients can move through them at different paces and in varying intensity. My book does not attempt to be a complete representation or a manual of how to deal with the disease. The illness affects every patient differently, and there are many stories to tell and many aspects to cover. I hope that I can bring some of those issues to the surface and help make the gravity of the disease more prominent. However, I decided to stay firmly in fiction and family drama territory, and not to write a dramatized documentary on the subject.

I have witnessed several different approaches to handling the disease by both individuals and entire families, and I have learned that the people involved in every case need to work out what is best for them. In my book, a family works out their particular approach, which is right for them. They have different ideas about it and need to battle it out. These clashes fascinated me, and I felt they were worth exploring.

Issues of caring at home, mobile-care assistance, or institutionalizing patients are personal and, depending on where in the world you are, every family has very different options or limitations. The ending in my book must be seen in that context: as an individual “best” solution that uniquely fits the Korhonen family.

As point of first reference and for a more comprehensive and scientific overview of information and help available, I recommend: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/ in the UK, and http://www.alz.org/ in the United States.

There are support groups, help lines, and many other sources available in most countries, which will be able to advise specifically for each individual situation.

I can also recommend Because We Care by Fran Lewis. This fantastic book has a comprehensive appendix with more or less everything you need to know about the disease: Its stages, personal advice on caring, information, tools and help available in the United States.

For consistency, I exclusively used material relating to a medium-advanced stage of the disease. To protect the privacy and dignity of the patients that inspired the story, I have altered all of the events and used both first- and second-hand experiences and anecdotes. Nothing in this book has actually happened in that way. Apart from some outer parallels between my characters and patients I witnessed, any similarities with real people, alive or dead, are coincidental and unintended.

Airlines

The airline plot is not based on any real incident but is inspired by my own imagination. I used to work for an airline, and so naturally, much of Hanna’s life is based on my own experience of fifteen years flying. I lived with the awareness that every time a call bell goes off on a plane this could be a matter of life and death. What happens to Hanna in the book has never happened to me or anyone close to me. My flying life was not that extraordinary. Fortunately.

But every year airline crew are retrained in emergency procedures and aviation medicine, and at least during those intense yearly re-training sessions your mind cannot help considering the possibilities of such events.

The modern trend of the “suing- and compensation-culture” and the extent of it in some cases worries me a little, which is why some of that concern found its way into the book.

The lifestyle of cabin crew and pilots is often falsely glorified as a glamorous string of free holidays and leisure. A recent crew strike in the UK has brought the profession into disrepute in the media, representing them as fat cats and lazy bones. My book aims to shed a bit of light on the realities of flying. I enjoyed the life and would not want to miss the experience, but it is a tough life that demands huge personal sacrifices and flexibility, sleep deprivation on a massive scale, and exposure to aggressive and abusive behaviour by a consumerist clientele. In the global trend of cost cutting, salaries are going down and what used to be a career is at risk of becoming a minimum-wage job handed to people who have no experience and who have no incentive to give it their all.

My book is a tribute to my former colleagues in the airline industry personnel, who, in my opinion, are unsung heroes and a bunch of wonderful, hard-working and very caring people.

Memory

What makes Alzheimers’ so terrible? What is it that makes a memory so important to one’s life that people compare its horrors to pain-inflicting diseases such as cancer? You are alive and physically well, you eat and function as a human, but as an Alzheimer patient, you are bound to be suffering, frustrated, depressed and unhappy.

Of course, it is ridiculous to compare the two diseases, but while a cancer patient still has their awareness and choices, the Alzheimer sufferer is losing the core of their being, and everything they ever were.

How can you define yourself if you cannot remember? You have had children, but you won’t recognize them. You won awards, had a successful career, made people happy, but you don’t know any of it. Who are you and what are you doing on the planet? Who are the people around you? As the disease progresses, these things become more intense and you can live in a mental prison of fear and disorientation. Your brain won’t do as you want it to. The fear of losing it altogether, for some is impossible to bear. You are about to lose everything that was ever precious to you.

That thought is frightening to all of us. It can happen to all of us. The worst stage seems to be when patients still notice that something is wrong. We all know how annoying it is when we just put something down and don’t remember where. Imagine that happening to you all the time, every day, and you get an idea of how it might feel. The caretakers see their loved ones slowly drift away into a stranger.

Biddy’s husband Walter in my novel becomes obsessed with preserving memories—his own and others. He begins to write a family chronicle as a constructive outlet for his fears. He is an important character with his musings about preserving knowledge, memories, and facts, and he allowed me to bring in thoughts about the disease on a different and more reflective level.

I hope that I have managed to write about more than just the clinical side of the disease. I stuck to the early stages of Alzheimers in the story because it gave me the best opportunities to work these thoughts into the story. It allows me to look back at Biddy’s past but with still a lot of hope.

About Christoph: Christoph Fischer was born in Germany as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. Not a full local in the eyes and ears of his peers he developed an ambiguous sense of belonging and home in Bavaria. He moved to Hamburg in pursuit of his studies and to lead a life of literary indulgence. After a few years he moved on to the UK where he is still resident today.

Links – United States (click on title for Amazon page):

Time to Let Go

The Luck of the Weissensteiners

Sebastian

The Black Eagle Inn

Links – UK (click on title for Amazon page):

Time to Let Go

The Luck of the Weissensteiners

Sebastian

The Black Eagle Inn

Book Review Friday – Dying to Know

Posted on March 7, 2014 by P. C. Zick

Christina Carson writes important books with huge messages. After I read Suffer the Little Children, I thought about her deft portraits of human despair when a life is lived without connection to others.

Living a life in balance and without judgment recurs once again in Dying to Know. In this novel, Ms. Carson uses health as the vehicle for expressing her themes. She also examines the way we hide our true feelings in check, even from those closest to us. There are times when communication on the very basic and level playing field of childhood friendships doesn’t work unless both sides are willing to come forward with the masks removed.

Dying to Know showcases five friends who’ve been together since ten years of age. They’re now “thirty-somethings” and know very little about one another until the main character, Callie, explores her own mortality, and the way she views herself and the world around her.

Her call to conscious living brings discord to the group. Through their various reactions, Callie is able to assess her relationship with them. Three of them are annoyed and then angry with her decisions and acceptance of her dis-ease with herself. Most of them are narcissistic, but Callie doesn’t see this side of them until she begins questioning her view of the world. One of the members of the group, Sue, is unable to hear and accept Callie and in that closing down, Callie is able to walk away.

I read once that there are certain people who will pass through our lives for a specific reason, but they may not linger with us for life or any set time. They will pass out of our lives when the reasons for their presence disappears. This occurs in Dying to Know. Callie is in turmoil about Sue until she stops and examines her gut. Her gut tells her what is the right thing to do.

The setting of Vancouver, British Columbia, brought back fond memories of a few days spent in this lovely city. But Carson also goes deep into the landscape of Canada drawing pictures of a majestic natural world. Making the main character, a photographer and illustrator of inspirational books made for a perfect vehicle to express the messages in the book.

The group of childhood friends continues and expands as each member finds his and her own way to the truth. I bookmarked so many places in Dying to Know, it’s difficult to choose the most important one. The messages stayed with me after I put it down and remain etched in my brain days after finishing it.

The book reminded me of a way to live that incorporates living in balance with nature and the world swirling around me. We act from fear whenever we go into imagining what could happen or what could go wrong, leaving us immobilized to move forward.

Perhaps this statement from Dying to Know expresses the most important gift I received for reading this novel, “Judgment is the servant of fear; the heart of love has no interest in comparisons.”

See Christina’s guest post on Author Wednesday. She gives more insight into her writing choices.

Author Wednesday – Darlene Jones

Posted on April 3, 2013 by P. C. Zick

Welcome to Author Wednesday on Writing Whims. Today, Darlene Jones stops by to talk about her novels, Embattled, Embraced, and Empowered.

Darlene’s experiences during her time living Mali so touched her life, she decided to give voice to them in her novels. Book Review Friday will feature a review of Embattled, which I’ve just finished reading.

From Darlene Jones:

Many years ago a young girl left the safety of Canada for adventure in Africa. This was in a generation when young girls didn’t go anywhere on their own and certainly not to the “the dark continent.”

I was that young girl and going to Mali demanded I adapt to:

A different climate. I exchanged the snowy cold of Alberta winters for the arid Harmattan winds of the Sahara. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the force of the heat that pressed on me as I stepped off the airplane. Over the days and weeks that followed, I learned how the heat saps your energy until you feel that you can barely drag yourself around. A person who shall remain nameless said that the Africans were lazy. This person lived in an air-conditioned house, drove an air-conditioned car, and worked in an air-conditioned office.
A different culture. I very quickly packed away my mini-skirts and wore a pagne, the rectangle of cloth that women wrapped around themselves to be a skirt. I hired a houseboy – sounds degrading, but the $8 a month I paid him supported a family of seven. My salary was about $140 a month and that was ample to live on. I learned the proper greetings that came before any exchange whether buying a stamp or fruit at the market. I learned to bargain. The list goes on.
A different language. I spoke French, but not fluently, so I had to work at perfecting that. I also tried to learn a little Bambara, the most common local language. My students put me to shame. They could speak four or five local languages, had learned French (the official language of the country), and were studying English (I was their teacher) and German in school.

But above all, I had to adapt to time travel for most Malians lived the way they always had. Modern conveniences consisted of basic items such as kerosene lanterns and little else.

I brought home with me a love for Mali, the Sahara, and Malians that burns as brightly now as it did then.

It was the plight of Malians that inspired my novel series. Since I couldn’t wave a magic wand to make life better in Mali, I chose to do that fictitiously. I wrote my books to entertain, but also with the hope that readers would see the world in a broader perspective. I hope that doesn’t make my books sound preachy, because they’re not intended to be, but I don’t think I could have written them in any other way given my experiences in Mali. The wide warm smiles of Malians stay with me always. I hope that warmth and positive outlook is conveyed in my stories.

Darlene on Darlene: A long time ago, I lived in Mali. Every single day, I wished I could wave a magic wand to relieve the heart-wrenching poverty. The story line of my books reflects my desire to wave that wand and make the world a better place. If only wishes could come true. And of course, every novel needs its love story, so along with the sci-fi magic, I’ve added the requisite romance.

Initially, I intended to write “a” novel. The story and characters took over and the ending of the first demanded another. Two books became three and three became four.

I’ve always believed we can’t be the only beings existing in the vastness of the universe. There must be others “out there somewhere” and I brought some of them along for the ride. The setting stays, for the most part, within the realities of our world, but I’ve found that I love the magic the sci-fi element of other beings can bring to the story.

Book four, Em and Yves, will be released by the end of April or May at the latest.

Briefly: Em and Yves asks the question: What if you could go “up there?” Why does this obsession drive Emily’s life when she doesn’t believe in heaven? Even the wonderful Dr. David can’t help her find the answers she needs.

Learning that she has lived other lives shocks Emily. Then Yves takes her to his world. There she meets gods and Powers and people rescued from doomed planets – living the perfect heavenly life. She knows she belongs “up there” with Yves, but all is not as idyllic as it appears. Emily is the only one who sees the danger. Will she be able to save Yves’ world?

What if you could go “up there?” Why does this obsession drive Emily’s life when she doesn’t believe in heaven? Even the wonderful Dr. David can’t help her find the answers she needs.

Where to buy Darlene’s books:

Embattled

Amazon: http://ow.ly/eAryx

Apple ibook: http://ow.ly/gzn4Z

Smashwords: http://ow.ly/gzn8j

Empowered

Amazon: http://ow.ly/eArB2

Apple ibook: http://ow.ly/gzns7

Smashwords: http://ow.ly/gznit

Embraced

Amazon: http://ow.ly/eArE1

Apple ibook: http://ow.ly/gznyT