Shattered Marigold

Shattered Marigold is the working title for a domestic suspense/women’s fiction novel-length manuscript.

Excerpt:

“I promised myself I would stop talking to my dead husband. But as I sat on the carpeted deck of the stopped elevator, rubbing my sweating palms to the point of raw rug burn with eyes clenched shut, I let one fly. “You asshole.”

Abstract:

Zoe never asks why her new boyfriend is so eager to fill her dead husband’s shoes, but should she? When she meets Ben, the self-described “angry widow” is overworked, in debt, and doing everything she can to provide for her five-year-old son. Fierce competition at the hotel where she works as an event planner, and the occasional panic attack on the bridge where her husband died, don’t help her efforts to get ahead.

Retired police chief and fellow widower, Ben, makes it his mission to “fix” Zoe, and promises to take care of her and her son. She’s doubtful a relationship with a popular public figure who’s twenty-five years her senior will ever work. But when he offers to share the confidential case file on her husband’s death, Zoe hands over the keys to most aspects of her life, because the promise of information is more seductive than Ben’s chiseled body and romantic charm.

As Zoe overcomes her oft-times crippling anxiety and learns to balance work, love, and family, her eyes open to the truth behind her husband’s death that has been hidden in plain sight.