Complete at 67,000 words, I am pleased to submit THE ONE THAT CAME AFTER, an upmarket women’s fiction novel written with respect to a mother’s tenuous ability to prevail in the wake of losing a child. In terms of style and substance, the novel mirrors one of your best selling author’s, Lisa Unger, (Fragile) and will, additionally, appeal to readers of Roxana Robinson and Anita Shreve.
Life as a free-spirited wife and fourth-grade teacher changes when Serena Davis gives birth to her only child. Her umbilical cord, a noose around baby Joshua’s neck, threatens his life. Despite the emergency surgery and his miraculous survival, a scarred Serena remains tangled in worry, worry that sparks an uncanny self-fulfilling prophecy throughout the angelic boy’s life. When he’s murdered, her worst fear becomes hauntingly real and, worse, she’s to blame.
Joshua is nine when he’s kidnapped from the slopes of Cannon Mountain. A car accident ensues and the boy survives, unscathed. Meanwhile, the perpetrator lies in his hospital room with handcuffs and multiple personalities.
This time, it’s her husband’s fault. A high-school English teacher with a fancy for poetry, scotch, and pretty women, Doug Davis shouldn’t have left Josh alone with the spurious ski instructor, and he definitely shouldn’t be spending so much time with the lady detective assigned the case..
While Serena sinks knee-deep into the murky waters of vindication and marital conflict, the felon recovers. When he escapes the law and demands cooperation on a strangely promising solution—that Serena and hubby help him assume his latest identity and flee the country—Serena swallows her pride to team up with Doug’s tenacious lover. The two women devise an unorthodox plan to outwit Roth’s ‘alter’ and secure an arrest. In the process; Serena discovers something new about herself, something that saves her boy, but not her marriage.
After nine years, a single and enlightened Serena chooses love again. The Lebanese waiter is everything Doug isn’t, and he has a teenage daughter Joshua’s age—a daughter who tells her Daddy dangerous lies.
THE ONE THAT CAME AFTER was inspired by my deep appreciation for a parent's tireless love.
