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Patience #2
WestSide Books
November 2010
On Sale: October 27, 2010
Featuring: Ashley Asher
312 pages
ISBN: 1934713414
EAN: 9781934713416
Hardcover
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Young Adult Contemporary
Ashley Nicole Asher, 15, is a mess. She's starting a new school in the tiny East Texas town of Patience, Texas, but that's not her biggest problem. It's her mother, Cheryl, who can't see that the sexual abuse perpetrated on Ashley for six years wasn't Ashley's choice. A woman who, even after her husband, Charlie, breaks Ashley's arm in an attempt to take her back to their home in the suburbs of Dallas, still testifies on his behalf at his trial for injury to a child. Ashley's stuck in a cycle of self- injury and self-hatred as a result, and the people who love her are struggling to pull her out of it. David, Ashley's long-absent father, hadn't seen his daughter since infancy, until he showed up in the offices of Child Protective Services to bring her back to his home in the woods of East Texas, and the life he's built with his wife of ten years, Beverly, and their son, Ben. No longer a heavy drinking rage-a-holic, he's sworn he'll spend the rest of his life making up lost time with Ashley, and hopefully earning her trust and love. Beverly is balancing her life as stepmom to Ashley with her job as a high school English teacher, and her reputation in the community as a magnet for controversy. Scott "Dr. Matt" Matthews, a slightly unconventional, drop- kick-the-teddy-bear and kick-the-desk therapist, is determined to pull Ashley out of the darkness she crawls into when her self-destructive tendencies overtake her better judgement, and the "squirrel on speed" that gets going in her mind is making laps and chugging Red Bull. More than anything else, Ashley craves normalcy. She envies girls who can experience relationships with guys without fear of being touched, and she wishes that being a consistent back-of-the-pack finisher in cross-country was her biggest problem. But.. do other people have it that easy? Krystle "K.C." Williamson has an electric guitar named Kurt and a mother who believes that the best cure for K.C.'s homosexuality would be a trip to J.C. Penney's to pick up some cute skirts instead of the t-shirts and jeans that K.C. wears every day. Pam Littlejohn is driven by jealousy and insecurity to push herself hard for a cross-country medal in State, and to spread the rumor that Ashley moved to Patience because she had an affair with her stepfather Charlie. Marcus Merriweather is so afraid of not having all the answers, he hides behind THE Holy Bible (the only "version" that's right), and a stiflingly narrow world-view. T.W. Griffin quit his position as running back for his father's Patience Panthers football team, and now his dad's hell-bent on making Bev Asher pay for taking his son from him. Zaquoiah "Z.Z." Freeman, self-described as "bountiful, bodacious, and beautiful", is fighting the urge to knock Pam's smirk right off her face and beat Marcus to death with his holier-than-thou attitude. She's still reeling from her cousin, Jasper, being nearly beaten to death earlier in the year, and depends on dancing to help her deal with the fear that comes with being a racial minority in small Southern town. In a shocking turn of events, Ashley is forced to choose between living her life or longing for a relationship that was never what she had convinced herself it had to be. Will her new family be enough to keep her from treating her skin like a scratching post, sliding back into suicidal fantasies and hiding in small dark spaces?
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