"Grief and mourning aren't exclusively tied to the death of a person..." -Naomi Alexander
Reserved yet crafty therapist Dr. Naomi Alexander turns social worker, or is she a ghost-whisperer?
On a sunny backyard deck, a tense family meeting of three feels like a meeting of four, and only grief counseling with Naomi will shed light on things.
Julia Winthrop has died, leaving her husband, Jeff, and their two children, Mallory and Todd, to carry on without her. When Jeff remarries, the Winthrops start a new life with Ruth, but it isn't easy. There are sides to Ruth not apparent to those involved-except maybe Naomi, who senses a touch of darkness about her in session one.
Mallory and her brother have a hard time accepting Ruth into the family, for good reason. Ruth isn't interested in being a mother to her stepchildren and, with just a touch of malice, shows the Winthrop children exactly where she stands.
Through grief counseling with Dr. Alexander, the Winthrops fight to move beyond the sadness, working through many issues affecting their family. From her place in her yellow counsel chair, Naomi observes, knowing something is off between Ruth and the Winthrop children.
She needs to get Jeff well and release him from such a romance-free marriage; the sooner, the better.
But Naomi's efforts must address a confounding dilemma: Jeff believes Julia is still with them-and not just "in spirit."
Naomi carefully navigates the boundaries between doctor and patient while getting to the "ghostly" bottom of things-boundaries growing more and more obscure.
When problems with Ruth escalate, heightening the family drama and domestic suspense, Naomi realizes time may be running out...
Featuring doses of light and dark feminine energy and a Black female lead, enter Naomi's world of counseling and see if she'll be a flicker in the darkness of the Winthrop family's grief; time enough for an "evil" stepmother.
S.F. Powell, a native of Washington, DC, discovered and fostered her love for the written word in her teens with poetry and commentary essays. Her degree in accounting supports her fulltime gig, but it's all relative: she's a writer at heart and at all times of the day. She enjoys membership in several writers guilds and associations around Maryland and continues work on several projects. Her novels, featuring fictional psychiatrist, Dr. Naomi Alexander, focus on elements of suspense and humor and romance and suffering and well, just a bit of the ordinary -- stories exploring the dark and light in the everyday. A wife and mother of three, when she isn't writing, reading, or spending time with family, S.F. Powell likes watching documentaries, working puzzles, or enjoying something in the horror genre, be it books or screen. For more on her stories and the characters, she invites readers to visit www.sfpowellbooks.com.
