Authorpreneur Dashboard – Kat Edwards
When the Smoke Clears
Literature & Fiction
Talia Brighton, the young widow of a Los Angeles firefighter is drowning in grief, plagued with nightmares and a terrifying sleepwalking habit as she struggles to overcome the horrific death of her husband. As Talia—who prides herself as “not a hugger, not a crier”—battles regret for the role she may have played in Russ’s death, she starts seeing things she can’t explain and begins to question if she is fit to raise their daughter Riley.
To make matters worse, a puzzling phone call from a dying old man in Australia thrusts Talia and her deeply cynical sister, Naomi into confronting the mysterious tragedies of their past and their family’s generational traumas. Together they endeavor to solve the 1964 murder of their mother, and unravel a diabolical, decades-long plot to rob them of their family fortune and true identities. Talia must navigate the emotional destruction of both past and present if she is to triumph, and this means having the courage to cast aside the Teflon exterior that has shielded her for so many years.
Book Bubbles from When the Smoke Clears
Horror in the Hideout
In this scene Talia takes a break from sitting at Aunt Miriam's hospital bed, where she was expected by the family doctor to give the orders to discontinue life support. She flees to the fire escape hoping to find a few minutes of reprieve. There she has a flashback to a time she took refuge under the porch from the abuse she suffered at Uncle Gus's hands.
Terror on the Train
In this excerpt Talia has a flashback to her first childhood trauma. She and her older sister Naomi are being abducted by their aunt after their mother's murder. As they travel on a train across Australia, they have a terrifying encounter with a heard of wild horses. This scene foreshadows a narrative that comes into play thirty years later, when Talia's husband Russ dies in a raging brushfire while trying to rescue a herd of horses.
Chasing shadows
When even her trusted routine of trail running fails to keep her ghosts at bay, Talia realizes that she is in over her head. Her doubts about her own sanity are only growing. There is little choice, she will have to take the risk of seeking outside help. But the question is, how will she manage this without disclosing the threat she poses to both herself and her five-year-old daughter, Riley?
