Psychological Assault

Seventeen years ago, Terri Ann Stone began serving a life sentence, charged with the double homicide of her mother and stepfather. Up to now, Terri’s anger, hate, and relentless commitment to hiding the truth have kept her alive behind bars. However, the bitterness that once fueled Terri's center begins to wane. Her pledge to secrecy dissolves. With no prospect of ever being set free, she reveals the entire ugly truth, to the single person left in the world who still matters to her.

Mark is the accused rapist. Miss P. is the victim, his former teacher. Moira M. is an apathetic juror. As the trial unfolds in this intense short story, three personal histories emerge, along with three alarmingly different points of view: Obsessed and angry. Menaced and disillusioned. Disaffected and searching through an unexamined life for moral conviction.

My name is Rose, and I work for one of the country’s biggest newspapers. I was the Day Editor. Will Frost was the Night Editor. When I got to the office, Will had already left. When I left, Will arrived. We were two sides of the same coin. Last week, Will disappeared from floor 34 without a trace. Now I am the Night Editor. And I have a feeling I’m next.

The novel begins when the man who assaulted Andrew Harrison’s sister is released from prison. Benjamin Williams was barely more than a kid when he was sentenced to 11 years, but it is impossible to know what he has become since. Andrew, nicknamed H, is compelled to learn for himself when his uncle Billy hands him a gun and says to go find the man. As H’s interest in Williams grows, he struggles to keep his world in balance.

From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: Her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows. Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful - and then one drunken night everything changes.

When Becky accidently sees her boss with a woman who isn’t his wife, she’s horrified but keeps her counsel - she owes Matthew so much for all he’s done for her career. But when the same woman accuses him of rape and asks for the witness to come forward, Becky doesn’t know what to do. Was what she saw rape? Or is this a young actress looking to get ahead? And can Becky separate her own traumatic past from the present? As Becky attempts to untangle these blurred lines, she must risk everything to find the truth....

Barrette Blake has virtually no memory of the night her world changed forever. With the unwavering support of her best friend, she tries to piece together her life and her foggy memories of that night. She’s focused and resilient, but on the inside, she’s losing hope she’ll ever be whole again. Asa Lawson has it all together - on the field that is. He dominates the college football scene, but his life is messy. He’s in love with the girl who can’t love herself after everything that’s happened to her.

Jules and Holly have been best friends since university. They tell each other everything, trading revelations and confessions and sharing both the big moments and the small details of their lives: Holly is the only person who knows about Jules’ affair; Jules was there for Holly when her husband died. And their two children - just three years apart - have grown up together. So when Jules’ daughter, Saffie, makes a rape allegation against Holly’s son, Saul, neither woman is prepared for the devastating impact this will have on their friendship or their families.

When an old flame accuses him of sexual assault in her memoir, expat English journalist Marco Rosedale is brought rapidly and inexorably to the brink of ruin. His reputation and livelihood at stake, Marco confides in a close friend, who finds himself caught between the obligations of friendship and an increasingly urgent desire to uncover the truth. This unnamed friend is drawn, magnetized, into the orbit of the woman at the center of the accusation - and finds his position as the safely detached narrator turning into something more dangerous....