Immortal Link
Mrs Uta Burke, Mrs Joyce M. Gilmour
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, April 27, 2011)
A teenager in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, takes revenge on her rapist and receives more justice than she thought humanly possible. Fifteen-year-old Catholine Kehoe gets raped in her room by one of her brothers’ friends. Fearing the news could send their unstable mother to a mental institution, the siblings swear an oath to never tell. Her two older brothers promise Cathi to help her through the trauma, but the secret and its aftermath is slowly destroying their lives. Cathi hides behind a shield of dark, baggy clothes and plots revenge, but every time she encounters her smug attacker, she panics and runs the other way. During the month of October she works as a tour guide at the Old Jail Museum. Several members of the infamous “Molly Maguires”, a group of coal miners named after one of her ancestors, were hanged in the jail more than a hundred years ago. Cathi has the feeling that the spirits are trying to tell her something. A new neighbor moves in next door. Through Stella, who is kept prisoner by her own secret, Cathi is able to accept her shamed body and she confides the rape to her new friend. Together they come up with the perfect plan for revenge. The spirits in the Old Jail, who have a score to settle with her rapist’s family anyway, are more than willing to help… Catholine has these two cool, gorgeous older brothers, the kind every girl wishes to have. They protect and care about their younger sister. They are hot. They are funny. They are also extremely troubled by what happened to her and each one suffers in his own way. Your heart will break for all of them and I would like to know from you which brother you like best and why: dark, responsible Louis, who tries to keep the family together, or golden, free spirited, athletic wonder Charlie, who would rather die than let his sister's attacker get away with what he did. What I did not foresee was how the setting would change the plot, the characters, and the outcome of the story. Once the story headed into its new direction, I let the spirits of Jim Thorpe take over and every scene became a surprise for me, the author. The reader will laugh where I laughed, cry where I choked up, and rejoice in the phenomenal ending that turned the novel into a paranormal masterpiece.