This
week I’m welcoming my friend, Jean Henry, for a visit. I’m in the process of
reading her latest book. I’ll let her tell you about it since I haven’t
finished it yet. I know you’ve had a rough time thanks to a huge storm, and I’m
amazed to see a new book already. Thank you for joining us this week.
Thanks, Marja, for this opportunity to talk about my latest
release, Girl on the Precipice.
While I was writing the novel, Hurricane Harvey flooded
my home as well as my computer, and thanks to Marja saving a rough draft of the
book for me via the Internet (ahead of the storm), I was able to reconstruct
and complete the novel since returning to my native California.
When I began writing Precipice,
the Me Too Movement had yet to begin, and although my book only hints at sexual
abuse, it does feature physical and emotional abuse first enacted by my
protagonist’s husband, Todd. It also focuses on a lack of respect for women, an
age old problem.
Lauren Mason Bleaker is a young southern California woman
who is transplanted on a Wyoming mountaintop ranch when she marries a sailor in
Long Beach, after her adopted parents are killed. So far, the story is more or
less autobiographical.
The ranch is referred to as the concentration camp
because Todd strings eight closely-woven barbed wire stands around the ranch
when Lauren tells him she’s lonely, bored and wants to leave. Todd becomes her
jailer and is increasingly abusive. Then, unbeknown to Lauren, he’s stockpiling
contraband in the barn where she’s forbidden to go.
Lauren manages to adjust to the foreign way of life until
Todd’s mother dies and Todd’s demeanor changes dramatically. She’s then so
miserable and depressed living in a decrepit old ranch house without
television, phone, Internet or modern appliances, she stands on a precipice at
the ranch and contemplates suicide. But Lauren decides at the last moment to
attempt an escape instead. What she encounters afterward is a story of suspense
when Todd’s criminal partners get involved.
A bit of humor and new friends’ loving relationships
weave their way through the plot, so I assume the novel could be considered
romantic suspense.
I wrote the book as Jean Henry due to a
recent divorce and the fact that it’s easier than trying to fit the name on a
book cover than Jean Henry Mead. I hope my readers will stay with me despite
the name change and the ever-increasing stockpile of books on the Internet. : )
Thanks for stopping by.
Excerpt:
Lauren watched an eagle glide across
the rock-studded canyon, wishing she had that freedom to escape her miserable
life. Tenting her fingers, she closed her eyes to beg forgiveness for what she
was about to do. The sound of a rattle stopped her mid-prayer, prompting an
instinctive jump aside. The coiled snake threatened from a few feet to her
right. If she were going to leap, now was the time. A snake bite was a painful
way to die. It was better to get it over quickly. Removing her headband, she
flung it at the rattlesnake to distract it. Realizing too late that the snake
would interpret that as an act of aggression, she immediately dropped to slide
over the precipice.
The rocky canyon wall sloped outward
far enough to prevent her from jumping straight down, so she slid on her
backside a few yards from the edge, She then grabbed a stump of juniper to stop
her forward motion when she noticed jagged rocks littering the canyon floor. No
more than sixty feet deep, the chasm represented what her husband Todd referred
to as the snake pit. Why hadn’t she remembered that until now? There had to be
a better way to end her life.
Todd would arrive home soon.
Cringing, Lauren imagined him stomping into the old ranch house from the south
pasture, covered in tractor grease and mud, expecting dinner. A feeling of
revulsion overcame her, causing Lauren to reconsider her leap.
Life on the isolated ranch had
become a nightmare in progress, steadily growing more unbearable as time
crawled by. The eight strands of barbed wire had been so closely strung that
she was unable to climb through the fence; the gates padlocked and topped with
even more wire. Wire cutters and other tools were locked in the barn and Todd
wore the key on a chain around his neck. The only unfenced area of the ranch
was along this canyon where he obviously thought she wouldn’t attempt an
escape. She was a prisoner without a phone, TV, or Internet in her husband’s
desolate concentration camp.
Bio:
Jean Henry, aka Jean Henry Mead, began her
writing career as a news reporter and photographer in California, later serving
as a staff writer and magazine editor in Wyoming, while a correspondent for the
Denver Post’s Empire Magazine. As a
photojournalist, her magazine articles have been published domestically as well
as abroad and she worked as editor of two small presses. Girl on the Precipice is her 23rd book. Her publications
include mysteries, suspense, children’s mysteries, historicals and nonfiction.
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