Lily DeVries has survived abhorrent cruelty at the hands of her parents, those who should have showered her with love instead of the sexual abuse that left her with multiple- personality disorder. Upon the news of her grandparents' death, Lily recedes into the dark corners of her mind allowing another personality to take over. Dr. Irene Cogan loves Lily. She's treated her, all these years, for her disorder and was once a hostage of Ulysses Maxwell. Events lead Lily on a path that eventually places her in a mental institution in Oregon where she meets another who was abused as a child, Ulysses Maxwell, whose alter personality has killed many people.
Dr. Al treats Ulysses with shock treatment, an unconventional and unapproved form of therapy, to eradicate the alter personalities. Lyssy, the original personality of Ulysses Maxwell, is a living example to Dr. Al that his process has been successful. Now he wants to help Lily by shocking her when one of her dangerous personalities is active.
Inside Lyssy, other dormant personalities lay waiting, patient to the extreme. Max has silently waited for two years to make his escape from the institution to take over Lyssy's body and get revenge for a previous capture by E. L. Pender, a retired FBI agent turned investigator.
Lily's dangerous alter personality comes to the forefront and assists Lyssy to escape. The two lovers hide, leaving death behind them at each stop. Lyssy and Lily do fall in love with each other. In the end, both Dr. Cogan and Pender find the couple in the mountains hiding in Lily's family cabin. The questions arise as to which personality is in the forefront for Lily and Ulysses. Events spiral to a frightening closure.
WHEN SHE WAS BAD explores the intricate workings of the brain and relationships. How much pain can we take before our brain seeks to protect us by splitting into other personalities? Jonathan Nasaw writes a thriller that accelerates to an electrifying conclusion sure to entertain and make you think about man's psyche.
"Multiples in love:
imagine the possibilities," said one of the twisted
couple's earlier victims. Lily DeVries and Ulysses Maxwell
have quite a few things in common. Both were horrifically
abused as children, then diagnosed with multiple
personality disorder, and eventually incarcerated in the
same Oregon mental institution. There, they fell into the
hands of the well-meaning, genially sinister director, Dr.
Al.
When the ingenious lovers engineer a bloody
escape, the only people who have a chance of stopping them
are the rumpled, endearingly flawed E. L. Pender and Dr.
Irene Cogan, a brilliant psychiatrist who loves Lily
almost as much as she fears Maxwell. With the aid of a
private investigator, Pender and Cogan take on a pair of
killers who win hearts as easily as they slit
throats.
A sexually charged thriller of undeniable
originality and page-turning suspense, When She Was
Bad moves at a rapid clip from the inner recesses of
two twisted psyches to a terrifying climax and brilliantly
realized finale.
Emotionally taut and difficult to
put down, this tale of sex, romance, madness, and murder
will not disappoint.
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