“The RoseBouquet”

(a friend in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses)

She was orphaned as a child in Australia. At thirteen she had grown not only withdrawn, but bitter against God and the world when she was raped in a deserted stretch of woods through which she usually walked from school to her foster home.

Afraid to trust anyone, especially men, she had locked herself into a world of books, a safe and private realm where she could have adventure without involvement. Diligent and thorough, she earned degrees in literature and history while still in her twenties.

Then she had to set new goals. She wrote a textbook for elementary schools, and travelled to the States. There she went to another university and got degrees in arts, music, and philosophy. Education, journalism and even political science followed. She drove herself on, only stopping to write another textbook or history tome when she ran low on tuition fees and living expense money. She set higher goals and got doctorates. No matter how long or difficult the courses, as long as she did not have to think of relationships, or her lack of them.

A time had come when there were no more courses that interested her. Realizing she had some responsibility to pass her knowledge on she decided to

teach in Canada. She chose high school, rather than a professorship, so she could feel superior to her students. They would not notice her short-comings, or so she thought.

Instead she ended up antagonizing the whole student body! Some called her the Fire-Spitting Dragon, and they had no respect for her at all.

Though Phyllis had written complicated theses to prove it was impossible for God to exist, her main argument was that in all her travels and studies she had never met anyone who was the kind of transformed person prescribed in the New Testament.

In Ruthe’s Secret Roses, when Phyllis hears about this promiscuous sixteen year old who has dropped out of school to start a dress designing shop, she marches over there to tell this girl off. Yes, this fifty-ish woman, who looked like a model skeleton escaped from the labs, wearing a charcoal crepe dress from the 30s, with her greying red hair severely knotted into a neck bun, clicked and clattered in her high heeled black oxfords off on her crusade. She would teach that drop-out the value of an education!

Now, if your imagination is not up to featuring in your mind what a totally transformed Phyllis would be like, then you NEED to read Ruthe’s Secret Roses and find out how I pictured it. Oh what fun! What great fun that was to turn an ugly, bitter woman into one of stunning beauty! People did not recognize her afterward. Phyllis got to start life afresh.

To read sample chapters of my book online, start at
Sampler

To order the e-book to download and read on your computer; order e-book
(or if you email me, we can make a deal and I’ll send it to you on CD).

To order the softcover paperback from Booklocker use; softcover at Booklocker