Annie and the Wolves

Historian Ruth McClintock takes her career seriously and does not want to bend the truth to fit her editor's publishing goals. An accident spins her into time journeys that her boyfriend and counselor dismiss as fantasy. Meanwhile, her obsession with the life of Annie Oakley leads her on a race against time as letters from Annie trace her desire to avenge her abused childhood. Ruth and Reece, a sensitive teen skilled with computers, find additional links between past and future. Bound by similar visions, they fight the stigma of mental illness to seek answers to the mystery they share.

Andromeda Romano-Lax weaves a tale that captures the mind and heart from the first chapter. That chapter ends with the haunting sentence, "It is trauma that sends us away, but there is pain also where we land." Lives are at stake as Ruth and Reece face their inner fears and hurts while delving deep into Annie Oakley's desire for revenge. Will she achieve what she desires and will Ruth and Reece prevent the disaster each knows is approaching?

I won this book during the Spring Cabin Fever Book event hosted by Deep Valley Book Festival of Mankato, MN. I have been promoting it ever since for its style, inventive plot, and a sensitve treatment of child sexual abuse, and a redeeming resolution.