Novel Showcase – BLIND CONSENT

Periodically we like to showcase one of our special novels by sharing the history and voice of the story. You know, the ones that make us go OMG when we read them. What to read more? Then simply visit this month's author at Davisstories.com

Story behind the story – BLIND CONSENT was my fourth novel and won the 2009 Rose award for Best Romantic Suspense. It's based on my life as a young boy growing up in the improvised south, thus many of the scenes and characters are derived from my memories. I got the idea while driving alone the vistas east of Buena Vista, VA. The scenery took me back to a lost period in my life, and my first love, a young girl named Annie. As often occurs with authors, an event occurred in the news while I was working the script, something that affects all of us because of misplaced loyalty. The parallel between real life and the fictional part of the story cried out for the title Blind Consent. You can watch a video , more excepts, and reviews at Davisstories.com

Blurb: Tanglewood Falls offers breath-taking views, yet the serendipity is misleading. The impoverished people and their forgotten community have been unwittingly exploited. Their act of trust and blind consent altered their existence and the secret has remained buried, until Ryan returns to explore his heritage. His search for truth collides with the folklore of the simple people and the belief that their beautiful Annie is blessed. As the truth is exposed, Ryan must grapple with his own reality; the fact that his past, his nightmares, and Annie’s secret, everything is entangled in the desperate act of one lonely man.

Excerpt:

Ryan stared at the horizon and watched the stars vanish into the ocean. His eyes shifted to the dancing flashes of moonlight glittering across the water. From a bench positioned next to the boardwalk, he listened to the pounding in his head as the waves crashed against the beach. He glanced at the climbing tide and observed the sand castles from past visitors erode away.

He jammed his hands against his ears and pressed hard to drive out her voice, her laugh. Everything was still there: the taste, her scent, and the pleasure. He pushed against his eyes until the pressure caused flashes of light. He wiped his face with his sleeve, scanned the black sky, and tried again to grasp the reason. He rubbed the skin on his knuckles until the flesh turned red.

I was the one that set things straight. Is this your answer? You can’t be that cruel. Is this some form of divine justice?

His quest for the truth was returned by silence, except for the sound of the waves against the shoreline. The rhythmic noise hammered his eardrums. The terrible images of what he had experienced tonight flashed like a beacon inside his brain.

He searched the horizon for an answer, for relief, but there was nothing. In rebellion for his loss, his agony, Ryan replied to the silence in the only way he knew how. He gazed into the speckled night sky and with a harsh crackling tone, he yelled at no one. “If this is your idea of justice, then the hell with you!”

After an eternity, the faint hue of gray at the edge of the stars signaled the approaching sun. He watched the white surf form a backdrop for the spectrum of colors bathing the debris line on the beach. He smelled the brackish odor of foam mixed with seaweed and water soaked driftwood cast onto the shore.

The first rays of morning light announced the arrival of a fresh beginning. The ballet of nature’s constant struggle with itself began as the gulls circled above the shoreline searching for morsels to fill their empty gullets. A fiddler crab raced toward the surging tide and braved the onslaught of diving predators. The crab and two gulls played a harsh game darting back and forth along the waterline. After several missed attempts, one of the gulls swooped down and captured the fleeing prey.

Ryan examined the cruel reality of nature’s riddle played out in the surf. The undeniable truth that some must perish so that others can survive. The commotion somehow pushed back the grief and blocked out the memory long enough to catch motion between the series of tuff covered mounds of sand.