Broken Chain Part One: Seduction

A fast-moving small-town family story in the tradition of Mary Higgins Clark.

It's 1964. Sixteen-year-old Brody Rivers is not only an outsider, he's part Native in a bigoted town and his father is in jail for murder. Brody takes over a rural grocery route, driving a battered old grocery truck from one farm to another. The farms on his route have been in the same families for generations, and he senses disapproval and hostility from his customers.

When he first arrives at the Porter farm, he senses something else - a strange empathy toward the young girl who lives there, Tricia Porter. But it is only a vague feeling that he shrugs off. As time passes, it intensifies until he believes that he can sense the emotions of several other people in his life as well. These connections are frightening, causing him physical pain. He worries that he will go crazy, just like his tormented grandmother. In 1953, when Brody was barely five years of age, she told him that he had the "gift", just like she did. But no one will explain it to him. With no insight into the abilities of an empath, Brody feels that his gift is actually a curse.

The friendliest person on his grocery route is Lizzy Baker, a lonely married woman who hates the isolation of the country and barely tolerates the tight-knit farming community. Before long Lizzy invites him into her farmhouse. Her advances add to his burdens.

As Brody struggles to understand his empathic and psychic ability, he's drawn into the abuse and turmoil in Tricia Porter's life. His concern for her safety deepens. At the same time, his relationship with Lizzy Baker threatens to destroy them both.

Broken Chain: Seduction is the first part of the Broken Chain series.