This title is # 12 on the Best Indie Books of 2019. All votes and nominations were counted. I am pleased to introduce new stories to readers, so please check out this book.
The End of Echoes by Dawn Homser
Synopsis:
Two families, forever linked by tragedy.
Ruby Dunkin is in an abusive marriage. Her best efforts aren't enough to shield her two children from an abusive father whose cruelty knows no bounds. Their volatile situation ends in tragedy when Ruby's eldest son, Billy is torn away from everything he loves. Consumed by hatred and self-loathing Billy becomes the thing he hates the most—his father.
Chelsea Wyatt, a senior in high school, goes missing after work one night, never to return. Her parents are devastated, only knowing this kind of tragedy from the news. Crimes like this are unheard of in their quiet, midwestern town. Consumed by the tragic fate of their friend, family member and neighbor, their lives and futures are forever altered.
For over eighteen years, no one knows the connection between Ruby Dunkin and Chelsea Wyatt. A journey through time reveals the common thread stitching their heartbreak together. Yesterday echoes throughout each character's life as they decide how, and if, they will break the chains of the past.
Will they continue to leave a legacy of pain and loss for future generations? Will they break the cycles of abuse that have destroyed so many lives?
Excerpt:
Tom
18 years, 6 months, 27 days AFTER
September 4, 2007/10:07 a.m.
When the knock on the door comes, it has been exactly six thousand, eighty-one days, eight hours, and six minutes since I made the phone call that turned my nightmare into a reality. It was that long ago I lost half of my heart. Now that someone is offering to help heal my wounds, ones that have been with me for five hundred eighty-five million, nine hundred seven thousand and five hundred sixty seconds, the exact moment the offer is made is also burned into memory. I’ve mastered the art of losing myself in numbers throughout the years to protect me from a reality with no guarantees. Only numbers offer me the comfort of certainty, an answer— they are the only black and white in my world full of gray.
I answer the door to find Detective Bradley standing there. The two of us have only met a couple of times when he was first hired at the Fairmont County Police Department. He’d come to talk about the case and how he’d be proceeding now that he was in charge after Detective Sanders’ retirement. He had assured me, using the same tired clichés, that he would personally see to it that every stone would again be overturned, and every possible witness questioned once more. At the time of those assurances, I couldn’t help but shrug them off as they were promises made before—ones never resulting in any answers. Promises that left my wounded half a heart freshly bleeding each time I dared to get my hopes up. Instead of expecting to ever see the assurances fulfilled, I put all my hopes in a neat little box and stored it away on a shelf in my mind, telling myself I could move on. I could forgive without ever knowing the truth or having a person with a face and a name to which I would offer this forgiveness.
Until now, for exactly nine million, seven hundred sixty-five and one hundred twenty-six minutes, I truly believed I would be the first person to continue to live with only half a heart. I had desperately tried to convince myself, and everyone around me, I could carry on with only the memory of her—never knowing who or how or why. I fully believe my own lies until the second Detective Scott Bradley speaks the words I thought I’d never hear.
“We made an arrest today—we’ve got him,” he says, beaming with a smile and eyes glistening with tears. My heart races and sweat breaks out across my brow as I struggle to comprehend his words. He embraces me so tightly it takes my breath away.
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