They say a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.

So too can a single soul defy and define a world.

Across the maze of space and time lies the City of the Seven Holy Stations. Here, the remnants of a people, banished from their homes, have raised a new land - a city of light and purity. Here, castles of ivory and gold soar into a vermillion sky, and women float in painted gardens in gowns of silk and silver. Everyone lives in peace, content with their rules and their duties, happy with their station in life. But there is more to be found in this sparkling land than simple piety. Below the surface of this white-washed utopia lies a cancer; a darkness that is spreading. It is a darkness that will threaten to destroy them all.

It is up to Jahavis Dragutin to stop this darkness.

Orphaned at an early age, Jahavis grew up on the streets of Sixth Holy Station. Learning quickly of the cruelty of man, she raised a rebellion, and begins to lead the fight against the darkness of the Holy Mother Church. But there is more to Jahavis than meets the eye. Somewhere, in the blood and the black of battle of the Seven Stations, she seeks answers to the questions of her past. She will test it all, her love, her life and dreams for the answer. But will it be enough?

Far away, across the Seretti Plains, lies an ancient people. They are untouched and unbroken by the land of the gold men and light - but separated by their own delusions. Tribes, each more different than the last, are battling it out for freedom and dominance. Each seeks to reign supreme but it will take more than a battle to heal their wounds. There is one among them that can save them all. A hero prophesied before the landing of the White Lord. But, can this hero lead their people to freedom and victory, or are they simply a myth, a legend of the ages?

*********************

"Titan Shift" is an epic fantasy thriller set far away in a not-so-foreign world. Here, a gargantuan city lies sprawled beneath a burning sky of vermillion; on a planet covered with sprawling forests, scorching deserts, cold barren mountains and deep, dark seas. You will follow the journey and trials of heroes and villains alike, as they seek to find the one thing that will save or destroy them all- truth.

This fantasy thriller is one that will force you to the edge of your seat, bringing you eye-to-eye with the demons and inner turmoil of man. As you follow your favorite characters on their journey and learn more about their pasts, a truth deeper than any other will be revealed. Come along on a story that is sure to captivate and ensnare even the boldest of readers, leading you along on a quest like no other. Come and fall between the pages of "Titan Shift".

Jessica Wright has wanted nothing more than to be a writer. For years, she worked extremely hard, doing grunt jobs at small tv stations and local newspapers. She'd been working on the same novel for almost four years, sending it out to publisher after publisher. It was only when she began to give up on herself, that someone took a chance on her and her skill.

Three years later and she's one of the best selling authors of her time. Life is good. She works with people she's come to call friends, she's in a stable and loving relationship and she's on the verge of releasing her newest novel. But then, weird things start to happen.

Bodies of women begin turning up all throughout the city of Brentwood. She pays it no mind, though she's been having really weird dreams about her girlfriend being killed in all sorts of ways. Frank Albane, the Chief of Police and current father figure to Jessica, takes his job seriously and vows to put an end to the murders, along with Daniella Santiago, who just happens to be the lead prosecutor and the girlfriend of Jessica Wright.

While working the case, the Chief starts to notice little things, minuscule things that no one else could ever catch on to. He works endlessly alongside Daniella to bring this case to a close and catch their unsub.

When the last victim get away, she immediately calls the Brentwood PD and the message is relayed to Chief Albane. He takes it upon himself to question her and that's when he realizes why things seem so familiar...he's seen this before. Back in the station, he mulls over the evidence, spending countless house piecing things together until a light bulb clicks: he knows this because he's read it. And he read it in Jessica's first draft of her very first novel.

When he brings Jessica and Daniella up to speed, Jessica shuts down. Her entire world begins to fall apart. With Daniella having worked day in and day out on the case, Jessica turns her attention elsewhere and accepts a dinner invite from Christina James, her assistant. As they are enjoying the night, Christina begins to say the right things at the right times and one thing leads to another until they are interrupted and Jessica realizes the mistake she's just made. Now, she has to fight to bring herself back, fight for her relationship and fight for her innocence because how could one person know something that you've only shown to a handful of people? There are murders happening that mimic her very own writing. She's become the number one suspect.

Fighting for all that she's lost, Jessica has to step out of her very comfortable life and step into the world of a killer; a person who has become hellbent on ruining everything she's built for herself. And soon, those dreams become a reality when she's told that the latest of the unsub's victims is Daniella. Scared out of her mind, she runs to Chief Albane, who tries to reason with her and when that fails, he agrees to let her go through with the plan. With all the bravery she has in her, she steps out of her cookie-cutter life and into the unknown and vows to make it out alive.

In the small fictional town of Canterberry, Aisha lived a double life. In the morning, she was Queen Bee Ai, who roamed the hallways of Canterberry high, tormenting boys and girls alike with her perfectly-chosen clique of beauties and followers. At night, she was "He", a transgender man hiding behind the facade of a popular high school girl. To add to her burdens, she was a secular Muslim, along with her family who were very welcome among the diverse community to which they belong yet shunned from the so-called conservative Muslim community (which is starting to become a ghetto across the foreign, secular country).

Aisha and her mother have kept her secret of being both male and female for as long as they could muster. But lately, with the emergence of a cross-dressing serial killer named by the press and the police "The Dollhouse Killer" -a sadistic murderer who kidnaps teenage boys, leaving a dollhouse in the crime scene and getting rid of the corpses in public places, displaying the boys, naked, in full makeup and hanging by the arms from a rope with shaved pubic hair and a deadly lipstick-smeared duct tape- Aisha has begun to start a mutiny on hiding who she really is. Seeking all she could find about "The Dollhouse Killer", Aisha becomes part of the underground LGBT society, where people become themselves behind locked doors and for the first time Aisha becomes Val, a man with long dark locks and a fake mustache. There she meets a handsome stranger, hiding his eyes behind a purple, glittery mask and calling himself "Yamen". There she also meets a drag queen named Lisa, an all-important transgender lady who goes by the name "She" and turns out to be the town's mayor's brother and second-in-command; Mr. Robert Sutherland.

Apart from her night escapades, Aisha is a regular 16-year-old who refers to herself as she and he. When the class slut Linda discovers her secret and gives her a mindblowing blowjob, Aisha becomes more and more at peace with her own body and her fluid, gender identity. Along with Linda, she works on attracting the attention of Ahmed, the shy Albanian Muslim kid in school, who is bullied and declared a "terrorist" by his peers and whose parents also bully into becoming the traditional Muslim that they believe he should become.

When neurotic Rita has an encounter with the Dollhouse killer and prevents him from snatching her brother, the town's wrath breaks loose. Crimes against transgender teens become more violent and furious. Hate crimes against gays also rise to an alarming rate. Aisha becomes more and more afraid of showing who she really is; despite Ahmed confiding in her that he is actually gay and afraid of coming out to his family. So when Ahmed gets kidnapped by 'The Dollhouse Killer", it's up to Aisha and Linda to break through the siege around Rita and form an investigative trio where secrets get uncovered and truths become lies in a race against time to find Ahmed.

Addison Gregory, Daughter the successful lawyer duo in Seattle; to the world she lives the perfect life but Addison wants nothing to do with money, all she ever wanted was to feel some sort of love, something that never came from her parents.

Her mother cared more about appearances than a daughter who she carried and nurtured until birth. Addison was no used to her after the age of six when she got tired of playing dress-up like a human doll and after that was raised by an array of nannies; some good and some bad.

Some took care of her and others only cared about taking care of her father. Addison was exposed to the ugliness of life, greed, adultery and loneliness at a very early age.

She was an object to them and a dutiful one. She attended the classes they picked, dated the boys pushed at her by her mother, applied for the colleges they wanted and never spoke out of line, especially In public. The whole act made her sick and she craved to be free from them but even as a legal adult at nineteen, she was bound to them in a way worse than blood.

Her parents careful planning lead her down a dark and twisted road which almost ended in her death and now they want nothing to do with it, since she can’t talk anymore she’s no used to them and they don’t want to deal with the questions of what happened that night; so they send her away.

Addison goes to live the summer with her Aunt on a ranch and she thinks that it’s what could finally push her to end things once and for all, little did she realize it was probably the only thing that could save her life; from them and from herself.

Liam Johnston, The boy next door who grew up with her cousins, who would rather hurt himself than harm another human being. When he sees what happened to her at a simple touch he’s the most curious as to what happened to her.

With a deaf grandfather he has no problem speaking her language, content to befriend her and spend countless hours in silence if that was what it took. He didn’t have a plan exactly, he just knew that listening to her screams at night and seeing her paralyzing fear of being touched wasn’t something he could ignore.

His heart terrified Addison from the beginning, the loving nature of all of them did because she’s never known what love is. All her life she’s been pushed around, manipulated; beaten even. Always controlled, never loved. She didn’t know how to react to the overwhelming amount that she was now surrounded by.

Addison doesn’t know how to connect with people so Liam vows to himself to show her, to teach her what it’s like to let people in, to let people help her and love her, not to be afraid and believe in the good in people again.

They were the complete opposite so as Addison comes to terms with the ideas that maybe Liam and her family is right; Liam’s illusion of life will then be shattered. She learns about love from him while he learns about pain from her. As he teaches her about the good in the world she educates him on the bad. You can’t have light without darkness. Addison’s life has been black while Liam’s was white and Addison doesn’t want to taint that.

She’s afraid that being near her will cause him pain, that being who she is will cause them all to be pulled into the darkness that has been her soul since she was fifteen.

Neither of them understands that life is to be lived in grey, that you have to have balance and not everyone is bad but not everyone is good.

Addison is suffocating in her life. Will she let him in, see that she’s not toxic or the darkness in the world like she fears but rather living in a life where the lights were shattered? Will she see that all she needs is to fix those lights and then she’ll be able to shine like she craves to, As Liam does. Will she ever understand that she has a whole family of people willing to help her fix them, a real family?

Will Liam finally get to her, will he finally help her see that her life is worth living and be able to find her in the darkness, to unknowingly save her life or will he finally understand the term that the path to hell was paved with good intentions.

No one understands just how many secrets there are to her silence but by the end of the summer the truth may just come out and who knows if anyone is actually prepared to hear them.

In the digital world of a modern age, it got increasingly difficult to hide the supernatural reality intermingling with civilized society; a task as important to KAYJ as his mission to rid the world of such paranormal terrors. He wasn’t alone. Three eccentric specialists, equally devoted to hunting creatures of fable and myth, joined him. When his right-hand-man, AM’EK, received a call from an old friend, it sent the team to stop the most powerful Poltergeist anyone had ever crossed.

Within the winter worn sister city to Cincinnati, (Covington, KY,) there was no sign of Am’Ek’s friend, local residents, or any electricity for that matter-- and it wasn’t because of the snow. LALU, the team’s only female and self proclaimed “Tech Goddess” was rendered all but useless. Still, she struggled to find the “power-drain-cause.”

ILSON, the team’s recovering psychopath, went missing.

The team’s tracker, Am’Ek, found evidence of a fight with only one set of footprints, which lead to a distinct drag-trail of an Ilson-sized-body through town. Kayj and Am’Ek followed the tracks to the IRS building in downtown, where Am’ek picked up a set of (smaller) footprints and evidence they had located their Poltergeist Agent; the human for which the ghostly-energy and chaos seemed to be focused around.

By the time they realized DEJNA, the albino woman who’d left the smaller footprints, wasn’t the Poltergeist Agent they where looking for-- but a creature they’d never even heard of, they also realized she’d kidnapped Ilson ... for bait. They mistakenly thought they where hunting a Poltergeist and Ilson was the perfect bait for what the team was actually hunting. She would use his psychopathic nature, and strong bond between body and soul as a beacon.

When Lalu caught up with them and confirmed the energy-drain spanned ten miles, Dejna explained they where hunting a Phantom of the highest caliber; one that would be drawn to Ilson. He was kept hidden from the team, right under their noses.To prove she wasn’t lying, Dejna had to reveal what she was (a Nekrosmantian) and what she could do. Ilson being dragged across town to her, by his soul, was just a taste.

With a grip on their souls, Dejna brought them to their knees and gave the team a choice: follow her lead or sleep until she was done. Reluctant as they where to be collaborating with a Paranormal, the team wouldn’t leave Ilson’s fate solely in the hands of a stranger. With mutual caution, Dejna lead them to the Marriott hotel around the corner. It was occupied by the missing Townfolk, including some demons which had been possessing them, all under the control of the Phantom.

It was only there, with Dejna’s help, the team could see for themselves what they where up against, and the Nekrosmantian revealed her plan for Ilson. Shocking Kayj, Am’Ek and Lalu, Dejna put her body and life in their hands. She split her consciousness/soul, to ride Ilson-body when the Phantom took hold of him, entering the hotel from another direction.

The fifteen Phantom/People who met Dejna/Phantom/Ilson-body in the hotel lobby, spoke to Ilson-body all at once, and they started with HER name. This snapped Dejna to her body and began the battle between the murderous-Phantom-controlled-locals and the heroic team; with Dejna’s soul-ripping charge challenged by Phantom/Ilson-body. During a brutal brawl with Phantom/Ilson-body, Dejna unlocked her own genetic memories: she knew who the Phantom was, how to save the people, and it was going to require a massive amount of power.

The battle surged into the streets, Dejna ate the demon-souls and became illuminated with their energy. She rode that demonic-battery-pack through the horde to sever the Phantom’s link to the people. Ilson was the first. Dejna tore his soul from his body, metaphysically cut the tether between him and the Phantom, and shoved it back into him. The demon-eating, soul-snatching, Phantom-pruning onslaught went up nine floors and through the hundreds of Townfolk that had been packed in like pickles.

When Kayj and his team caught up to her on the roof, they could see electricity returning to Covington, and Dejna out of breath near the edge. They saved the town, but the Nekrosmantian revealed that the Phantom escaped, and more gut wrenching then that, the Phantom they where hunting was one of her Ancestors. She was going to need the help of Kayj’s team to take him down ... in another town, just over the river.

Time to go to Cincinnati.

|| another_proser ||

[[ AUTHORS NOTE: 745 words... This was a first for me, writing a synopsis. It was hard. Anyroad, to confirm any suspicions, yes this is the first of what I imagined as a series. Hence the ending which is also a beginning. I welcome any and all feedback! I tried to sum all the major events and characters, without compromising too much “writing style” if you will. I would love to know if I accomplished that, or left too many unanswered questions for a synopsis. Lastly, thank you for reading!

P.S. Other titles I played with ... 1) WHITE DARKNESS, 2) WHITE UMBRA]]

“Child,” Gil’s mother told him when he was four years old, “don’t you never say, ‘It won’t happen to me.’” Then, as if she could see the question forming in his young mind, she said, “Because the moment you say it ain’t a-gonna happen, sure as God’s glory, the devil gonna take out his bag of tricks and it gonna happen to you.”

So went the warning Gil McGillicuddy received from his mother just before she died, leaving him an orphan. Gil kept this lesson in mind. It was all he had of his immediate family.

Over eighty years later, the flirtatious WWII veteran who loves to sing to the ladies, tries to keep it together as the menace of dementia takes its toll. He is troubled by nighttime visitors: his wife, dead five years, who talks to him and a mysterious dark man whose wordless visits make Gil wonder about his sanity.

"He appeared to be a dark man, but not comparable to a black man- not dark as in having dark skin. He remained obscured as if he was a shadow. The features of his face were concealed by the shadow that he was. His darkness made Gil’s skin crawl with the realization that through this man ran a cold, black streak that extended forever into the void of time and space."

Mostly Gil worries. He worries about his son, Robert, who writes radical blogs that Robert is sure will not get him in trouble as he never advocates violence and is a law abiding citizen. Gil is convinced otherwise.

"If we stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and we tell those who would be our masters, 'There will be no cars, no trains, no airplanes move today. There will be no commerce take place. No money will change hands, nothing will be bought or sold until we have justice and those who have taken our freedoms and perverted our justice have been pulled from their thrones and led out into the street.'"

Robert McGillicuddy

Robert would have done well to have heeded his grandmother’s last lesson to his father. Instead, he plods ahead keeping up his blogging while helping care for his dad. Robert’s wife passed away near the same time as his mother and he has retired early from his career to help his dad. The situation is complicated when his oldest daughter, Ruby, her preteen daughter, Sapphire, and Ruby’s unborn fetus take refuge in his home from her boyfriend who has turned to meth and violence.

The McGillicuddy family is dealing with many of the same challenges most of the other 99% are dealing with in the year 2012: the financial crisis, housing bubble, lack of employment, cutbacks in social services, high prices, low incomes... We see a girl turn to a teen, a baby being born and the family pulling together to face tough circumstances. But there is a hidden danger, a danger from someone with a grudge who is in a position to do harm to a family member. Fedder is a man from Robert’s past with revenge on his mind: “Ah, yes, revenge is a dish best served cold, very cold.” He is a floor manager for a security firm contracted out to the NSA. Information is at his finger tips and can be recalled, manipulated and presented any way he wishes. The many eyes and ears of the surveillance society are at his beck and call. The McGillicuddys can’t see it coming.

As Fedder’s thirst for revenge nears its conclusion, the McGillicuddys are suddenly aware of the plot. Sapphire emerges with some quick thinking and heroic actions, mirroring her Grandpa Great’s heroism in WWII. Will it be enough?

"That same sweat and fear gave him an energetic burst, which catapulted the sailor to the upper deck to man the anti-aircraft gun when he saw the gunner who had been assigned there jump into the ocean, dealing with his horror in a different way. It was that apprehension added to a rush of adrenaline which caused Gil to overcome the taboo against killing members of his own species, to draw a bead on one of the planes strafing and preparing to bomb their ship again, pull the trigger in short bursts while leading the aircraft like he did back home when he hunted doves flying out of the grain fields and then watch it fall, flaming into the sea, knowing that he had killed another human being."

She fell in love with her rapist. Not quite Stockholm Syndrome, no, she over-spiritualized her Christian faith and tried forgiving – and loving – the man who raped her. While participating in a prison ministry during graduate school 10 years after the rape occurred, Jael Townsend unknowingly runs into the man who raped her. Neither person recognizes the other until, during a rare moment of self-disclosure, Jael reveals to the prisoner – whom she is subconsciously (and inappropriately) attracted to – the details of her rape 10 years ago. Once the rapist and Jael realize who they are in relation to the other, all Hell breaks loose.

When Jael was in college, she was raped in the dark of her dorm room. Her rapist wore a mask and she was never able to get a look at his face. Years went by where Jael was in and out of psychiatric institutions and counseling offices trying to recover from the trauma and lead a normal life. When a prison ministry opportunity was available for her graduate level internship at a local seminary in town, where her degree concentration was to become a missionary, she volunteered to attend because of a sense of hyper-religiosity (where she was convinced she needed to expose herself to the very kind of criminal that she herself had been attacked by in order to properly forgive) but what seemed like sheer masochism to her boyfriend, who at first encouraged her to go in order to “heal from her rape” but then soon after retracted his statement by considering what Jael was doing as “moral suicide.”

Morgan Lucas, the rapist, is in a weird transitional phase in his life where he feels he has changed and is working towards accepting the forgiveness of God, which is what initially attracts Jael to him in the first place. However, her attraction quickly becomes inappropriate as she is sexually drawn to him, which is not altogether unattributed to Freudian concepts like suppression and sublimation. In other words, she is attracted to him because he raped her, but has no knowledge of this in the moment, as she does not know his identity.

Aaron, Jael’s boyfriend, is largely oblivious to what Jael is going through, and struggles with anger management issues himself. He has a mood disorder and is in his own personal Hell throughout the story. He wrestles with rescuing Jael but also pushing her to succeed and overcome her unfortunate past by doing difficult things and exposing herself to unlikely situations. He does not know that Morgan is Jael’s rapist until much later, and that is his tipping point to utter psychosis.

The novel is ultimately a story of redemption, with overarching themes of grace and forgiveness. However, it is also psychologically disturbing and controversial. There is no happily ever after, only a coming of age process for Jael as she wrestles with what love is, what the character of God is actually like, what forgiveness means and doesn’t mean, how to establish proper boundaries, and how to learn that the God she says she serves is not one who is a bargainer, keeping record of her wrongs and sitting on His almighty throne waiting to strike.

Morgan Lucas is a villain who desperately wants to be the hero. His story is heartbreaking. His remorse is palpable, and yet he is manipulative as well. Aaron is a type of hero who transforms into a villain. And Jael is both a helpless victim who eventually becomes the empowered heroine to her own story.

Write for what you need to hear. Fuck everyone else.

This belief has recently settled into my stomach like a warm ball of light after years of starting, stalling and stopping the process of writing A manuscript. Five years ago when I felt the manic passion of an artist destined to be discovered through my brilliant prose, I believed my unique path of becoming a conscious, awake human in a world of over 8 billion people would be jaw dropping and mind boggling. For who, better than me, could to tell the story about crawling out of the edges of hell by following the seductive light of recovery? And not only that, but who, but me, could cause you to reflect on your own journey while laughing into the dark abyss? I can almost hear the echoing maniacal laughter of my head-committee, the invisible “they”.

In these dystopian times of good vs. evil, I envision the “they” that we refer to when we need to slough off the responsibility of standing on our own two feet onto someone who is much more experienced than ourselves would look like the character of Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games. For how could a “they”, like a Ms. Trinket, possibly have more substance than us?

I’ve written this book for an audience of one. Me. And then as walls of protection gradually melted from the dawning light, slowly and steadily the audience grew to those of you who can read this to enjoy and feel inspired that you’re merely alive much less interested in opening and growing your awareness about self and the world around you. I have nothing to share with you that will teach you anything that you don’t already know or have probably heard before that your thrifty higher self rolled up and stuffed various scraps of heart-information into a waiting neuron for future popping. This book is to remind you that you’re not alone and that all of us are really much more alike than some of us would ever care to agree upon. Consider this book the velvet hammer to hit upon your spiritual funny bone.

As far as how best to follow the book’s circuitous path, even though the sections are laid out sequentially with the first 1/3--embryonic---referring to stories from my childhood, the next 1/3---boots on the ground---referring to the military influence in my life and the last 1/3---catching the thermals---this last and current part of my life, you know the only freaking direction for you to best take is the one that you WANT to take. Chapter at a time? Front to back or back to front, you’re not on the toilet so it doesn’t matter (or maybe you are while reading this, but you get my drift.) Just enjoy the journey. If some fruitful information inspires you how to live a more full life than all the better!

I wrote this for me and now you get to benefit. You are reading this for you and then I get to benefit. How more win-win could we get, us two doing our own thing for ourselves and thereby helping each other in the process? I just got a brain cramp from thinking about that. Enjoy! And remember, we’re all in this together whether we want to be or not. Might as well share and learn from each other while we’re figuring out this thing we call life.

“I don’t belong here. I am not like the others. We don’t look the same. How did I get here? I don’t deserve to suffer in a place where I should not be. I can’t understand it! Help me, help me, help me! I can’t go on any longer. I would rather be dead than in these circumstances! Half of me is missing!”

The perplexing and intriguing story of Jasmine is told as seen through the eyes of her psychiatrist, Dr. Engels. Delving into her story, he attempts to determine the reason and the cause for her aberrational thoughts and feelings. Although he desperately wants to help his pleading patient, he begins to realize the overwhelming extent of her multiple psychiatric disorders. Slowly, he concludes that he is being drawn into her darkness as he is deluded that she can be helped.

As Dr. Engels fights the provocative and seductive manner of Jasmine, he finds it overwhelming. He finds himself wanting desperately to bask in her light as he is tempted to succumb to her charms. Recognizing that he must avoid her temptations, he begins to pursue the truth as he unravels her paralyzing anguish.

Soon, Jasmine is immersed in a profession where she can act on her frustrations in a most unseemly way. Portraying a semblance of innocence, she soon leaves a path of bodies littering her trail. No one in her periphery is wise to her murderous machinations because she is cunning enough to leave no traces. She smiles sweetly as she continues doing what she must as she searches without pause for her true identity.

Soon Dr. Engels comes to the horrifying conclusion that Jasmine may have psychopathic tendencies, as well as her other psychiatric problems, finding her to be narcissistic and without feeling and compassion. But he has no idea what he might encounter along the way as he travels the hazardous and tortuous result of his journey to find the truth. As he becomes more and more captivated and enamored by her deep issues, he begins to wonder whether he should pursue the challenge. Becoming enveloped in her bizarre delusions, he ignores the cold chill of fear and trepidation coursing down his body.

Slowly Jasmine begins to confide in Dr. Engels that she wants to pursue a career which will afford her access to many victims. He has no doubt that she can achieve her projected goal but becomes frantic to change her course as he discovers the depth of darkness hidden in her soul which will eventually destroy them both. Jasmine begins to hint at the fact that she may assist those in desperate straits to meet their maker a little bit sooner than they would otherwise.

Despite the psychiatrist’s attempt to change her trajectory from her deadly pursuits, she insists that she will not be deterred from this course, reasoning that she wants to be in power and control in order to obtain wealth and prominence “so that I can pursue my quest to find my missing half. Exploring all aspects of the human condition may help me to find the answers to my dilemma.”

An appalled Dr. Engels realizes that due to confidentiality, he will be unable to warn others of her tendencies unless she confides a definite plan to kill someone. He knows that if she tells him she killed someone after the fact, he cannot communicate this to anyone.

The suspense mounts to a conclusion that is not only shocking but unexpected. Use your imagination to follow the twists and turns down Jasmine’s hazardous path of scattered carcasses as she finally finds out why “half of me is missing!”

Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown

Synopsis

Watts Freeman, an African-American man from Los Angeles, flees Jonestown on the day of the massacre, Nov. 18, 1978. Thirty years later, he is interviewed for an Oakland radio program on the rise and fall of the Peoples Temple. This interview intersects the novel as Watts reveals more and more about life under the influence of the Rev. Jim Jones and his “white chick” inner circle.

Marceline Baldwin, daughter of a Midwestern minister, an altruistic and inexperienced young woman who plans to use her nursing skills to heal the world, meets the charismatic Jones in Indiana, 1949, and spends the next three decades as his wife and primary workhorse of the organization. When the church moves to California from Indiana in 1965 after attacks on the integrated congregation, she is instrumental in the smooth exodus of dozens of families, black and white, including infants and the elderly. While the couple adopts many children and has one natural child, Jim begins his lifelong sexual promiscuity, sweeping both men and women into his magnetic orbit, all the while preaching sexual restraint. Taking amphetamines to accomplish more and more good works, he becomes dependent on drugs. During this transformation of her husband, Mother Marceline turns the other cheek, works diligently, is faithful to her husband, and makes a profitable business setting up eldercare facilities. Even when her husband impregnates one of the flock, the chief “white chick,” Marceline continues to look at the larger picture: improving lives for the poor, the elderly, and the children of the church who need practical help. She is by her husband’s side up to the lethal last day.

In the mid-1970s, Virgil Nascimento, Guyana’s ambassador to the United States, finds himself drawn to a white American Peoples Temple officer, Nancy, who makes herself available to him in the capital of Georgetown, a 24-hour boat trip from the Peoples Temple jungle home of Jonestown. The group has fled the United States and in 1974 re-established itself in this English-speaking South American nation. Unbeknownst to Virgil, Nancy’s interest in him is purely political; she is one of the many women the paranoid Jones persuades to work as spies, to glean information and influence policy in the nascent and corrupt Marxist government of the former British colony. In Washington D.C., three years after the massacre, destroyed by the ruination of his country caused by the death of nearly a thousand Americans in Jonestown, Virgil will kill Nancy and their child before taking his own life, leaving behind a journal indicting Jones and all who collaborated in the nightmare of Jonestown, including himself.

Decades after the massacre, Truth Miller, who was in the group’s San Francisco office when it happened, will travel to Guyana for the first time and find herself a Guyanese man to impregnate her, all the while pining for what she perceives as a vanished paradise of an interracial utopia in the jungle, which might have thrived had not the U.S. government persecuted Jones and his followers to their tortured end. Despite all evidence, Truth will go on believing in Jones as savior, spiritual father of her son, though life’s difficulties will find her back in New Jersey, a single mother leading an ordinary life trying to pay the bills, remembering the glory days when Jones and people like her could sway an election, helping George Moscone become mayor of San Francisco.

The novel ends with the airing of the interview with Watts, a broadcast which illuminates the story of the Peoples Temple and its spectacular demise while continuing the media exploitation which followed Jim Jones and his followers all his life and well into the aftermath, still powerful today, 37 years later.

Paradise Undone draws on extensive research and interviews, creating a fiction that uses historical fact to tell a cohesive and credible story of the United States’ greatest single loss of civilian lives in the 20th century – 919 American citizens died that day in the jungle. Four protagonists -- two dead and two living, two men and two women, two Blacks and two Whites – tell their stories here, illuminating the formerly shadowed places populated by those who believed in Jim Jones.