Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

--

Joss sighed as he worked on the commission painting. Knowing it needed to be delivered within two weeks, he wanted it done that day so the oils had time to dry. Smiling as he shook his head, he continued to add details to the dog's ears. Four years and a double degree and I'm using it to paint a rich woman's dead Airedale! he chuckled to himself.

Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

--

To give him a room of his own, Hank and Joyce Edwards worked every spare minute to convert their den into another bedroom. Previous foster children had shared a room either with Tracy if they were a girl or David if a boy, but the family quickly realized that Joss didn't really fit either and did their best to adapt.

Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

CAUTION - Referenced Attempted Suicide

--

The following day Dr. Benson talked with Joss for another two hours after his IV and catheter were removed. Sure that he understood his patient, he needed to see how he handled other people. On the afternoon of the fourth day of his observation, the first guest he allowed to see Joss was his father.

Link: The Road to Hell Title Page and Description

CAUTION - Attempted Suicide
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content
CAUTION - Intense scenes involving a minor

--

A month to the day after the accident, Josh went back to school. He walked into the building dressed in a black skirt, top, tights, and flats. He also carried the black backpack that Grace had used for the last three years, the same one he'd had before her. Judy let him keep it as a memento of their love, along with a few other things. He'd asked about the carving he'd given her for her sixteenth birthday, but Judy told him she'd been buried holding it, unwilling to make her daughter ever part with the gift she'd loved nearly as much as Josh himself.

Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

--

Sitting in Erica's office reading the printed copy of the finished manuscript, Brooke flipped through the final pages as she read the words, tears filling her eyes at the remembered heartbreak of losing her best friends. Wiping them away, she finally put down the papers.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Typing furiously at her keyboard, tears poured down Erica's cheeks. The words she wrote were bittersweet, speaking of the love they could have had and the future denied by a single choice. The choice of one of them to give up on their love. They had overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Torn apart so young, just as their love had begun to blossom, that they then found their way back to one another after so many years of pain apart was nothing short of a miracle.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Opening the door the same as he'd done thousands of times before, this time Fredrick cracked a smile at the person greeting him. "Welcome home, Miss Erica!" he said almost joyfully.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Sitting at her vanity, Erica brushed out her hair. She loved that the braids she'd taken out had given her hair a cute wavy look. She'd braided her hair before her shower, blown it dry, then taken the braids down and brushed it out, just like the night of the Halloween party. "April? What do you think?" she asked, turning to look toward the bathroom.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Faith heard a faint knock on the door. "Come in, April." she said dismissively, thinking that she had decided to keep an eye on her through the night after all. Walking back into her bathroom, she called back over her shoulder. "I'll be out in a few, alright?"

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Reaching the stairs and ascending, Erica recalled the first time she'd done so, scared and alone. Now as she went up them, she felt only the fear, this time that Faith was beyond reach. That of all the people she'd helped over the years, the one who needed it the most would be the one who she could help the least. Slowly walking down the all too familiar hallway, she reached the door to their once shared room. Knocking gently, she waited.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

--

Waiting for her name to be called, Erica was nervous. Even though it was a simple outpatient procedure, she knew there was no going back. The money her aunt Heather had sent her every month had been squirreled away, invested, and turned into a tidy sum that was paying for her new life.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

--

Sitting in the library, Erica stared out the window as the snow fell all around the house. She knew she needed to get back to her studies, but her mind just wouldn't settle. Her thoughts drifted as freely as the snowflakes that fell past the large window, taking her from one memory of the last few months to the next. Finally shaking her head to make herself focus, she re-read her essay on early New Hampshire history. Reviewing her notes, she finished the closing and set the papers aside, glad that her work was done before Christmas break.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

--

Lost in the sorrow of her memories, Erica didn't even notice the boy who stood in front of her.

Link: Curse of the Werewoman Title Page and Description

--

Chapter 3 - I'm A What?

John awoke slowly at first, disturbed by his wife's movement in bed next to him. Not quite remembering the night before, he only knew that he felt something he'd never felt before as she snuggled up next to him and wrapped her arm around him once more.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Sitting in the back of her aunt's limousine, Heather across from her and Faith next to her, Erica's nerves were on edge knowing she was going to meet someone who knew her father... and her from her old life before she was reborn in the body of her son. The butterflies were gone, replaced with raging wildcats clamoring around inside her stomach.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

Clarification: The entire first part of this chapter is a traumatic flashback.

--

Erica bounded into the living room, gay as a lark. It was just before six o'clock and she knew April would be home from school by now. "Aunt Heather? It's almost six. I know it will be time for dinner soon, but before dinner, can I call my friend April and let her know I'm OK?"

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

--

Stepping through the door to the right of the old grandfather clock in the living room, Erica walked into the library. Its dark interior illuminated only by the little light that managed to seep its way past the heavy curtains that covered the room's single massive window, she followed her aunt to the right; rows of bookshelves jutting out from the wall opposite the door.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

--

Awaking slowly in a dark room, his mind was groggy and dull. The satin pillow and distinctive sweet smell that screamed 'girl' told him he wasn't in his room at the Stone's house. That room still stank of teenage boy from its occupant before he'd taken it. Unable to remember where he was, he had a vague notion of going to sleep in someone else's bed and there being a storm. He reasoned that he must have sneaked into April's bedroom last night like he'd done a few times after his mother's hospitalization when he'd been especially scared. April would soothe away his fears and he would sleep on her floor, returning to his own room in the early morning. That's when he remembered he was in a bed and noticed he wasn't sleeping alone.

Link: Lost Faith Title Page and Description

CAUTION - emotional pain/open emotional wounds

--

Gasping as the room was plunged into darkness, a crack of thunder rolling over the house several seconds later, Eric thought he heard someone squeal in fear. After it passed, he found himself wrapped in his aunt Heather's arms and he could finally hear the sobs of fright escaping his own lips.

Josh Ryan was not normal. He talked different, walked different, laughed different... and everyone knew it. He had two very close friends who always wanted to help him; in fact, throughout his young life, he always had people around who wanted to help him... usually to fend off his parents who seemed like they would do anything for him. Their desire to help however, often made his own life take a back seat to their ideas of why he was so different and who he should become as a result... "for his own good." Determined to raise Josh 'their way' and according to their own ideas of who he is, it would take extreme circumstances and more pain than Josh ever thought a person could endure for anyone to even begin to see the damage his parents were doing to his childhood, his future, and in the end, his very life... all "with the best of intentions."