Awestruck!
"When The Heart Cries" by Cindy Woodsmall
Book 1: Sisters of the Quit
I did not expect such a dark, gripping first chapter!
The shock value was worth it - and I enjoyed reading how Hannah Lapp perseveres over the tragedy that threatens to swallow her.
There is no victimless crime - and Cindy Woodsmall follows her main character after she experiences the unthinkable.
Wrecked with loss, confusion, and despair, Hannah confides in her parents, needing their love, support, and help. They don't respond in the way Hannah desperately needs, trying to ignore the terrible truth, brushing aside the trauma, hiding the evidence.
Instead of dealing with the issue, cleaning out the wounds while they are still fresh, the family (and, in extension), the community, leave the emotional injury to heal on its own. It does not heal right, will not simply disappear as if nothing happened, given enough time. The emotional aspect makes it impossible to 'go back to the way things were', and nothing will ever be the same again.
Hannah Lapp is subjected to a very ugly cycle: Because there is no evidence, (and because she is a minor), her concerns, her fears, are simply brushed aside when she does finally speak to an adult that is willing to listen, and wants to help - he means well, but is an outsider, and cannot do anything more than offer advice and emotional support.
That moment of emotional support, a simply touch, is seen (by uninformed members of the community always looking for deeper connections), as a precursor to (or afterglow of) an unmentioned act. Her family's neighbors are much more willing to believe the gossip, slander, and bad report spread by a jealous sister. Even Hannah's brothers are looking for someone to blame - and the only visible person is Hannah.
Meanwhile, the young Lapp discovers a family secret: she has a living aunt, Zabeth, that neither parent talks about. While helping her closest friend, Mary, recover from a life-alterting car-acident, Hannah decides to visit this unknown twin, hoping the time away will mean the community will decide she is not the scapegoat for whatever social ills they wish to claim she is guilty of.
What happens to young, innocent love, when the unthinkable happens?
When the unmentionable shame brings forth fruit?
Will the relationship between them grown stronger, or wither because the past cannot be spoken - the pain is too great to share.
Where do life changing events happen? Everywhere.
When might everything you know - or through you knew - be overturned and shaken? Any time, any place, under any circumstances.
How does this happen? By refusing to admit the truth, and hiding -emotionally - or running - physically - or denying - mentally - the source of the pain and trauma.
Scar tissue (and poison, both) twists, spreads, infects, and eventually consumes everything -