You’ve met the other families who live near The Ravine. Today, I’ll introduce you to the rest of them, the Werlings.

Randy and Lynn Werling and their three children seem to be the typical family with thirty-something parents. Randy, a history professor at a branch campus of a state university, and Lynn, most recently a stay-at-home mom who’s been raising their three children, seem like normal parents, and their three children, Katy (10), Ty (8) and Will (5) seem typical, too.

All is not as it seems.

Katy is an intuitive 10 year-old girl. She senses undercurrents at home: her mother’s impatience, concern and frustration; and her father’s vacant expressions and frequent absences. And then, there are the reoccurring nightmares.

She is lost, hurt and helpless in a damp, dark foreboding place. Her rescue depends on a black dog. Katy knows the dream is going to happen. She watches for the dog, and when it finally appears on the last day of school she does all she can to be sure it becomes a member of her family. Without the animal to save her, she is certain she will die.

Katy’s mother, Lynn, would be wondering about her husband’s behavior if she wasn’t already consumed with worry about the pain in her abdomen. It pierces her at the most unexpected times. With her youngest son, Will, ready to start Kindergarten the coming fall, she’s feeling unneeded, as if she’s lost her identity. She pushed her own dreams aside to support Randy and raise her kids. Lynn knows it has been worthwhile, the years have not been wasted – but there has to be more to life again. She hopes she can find it, if only this awful pain is NOT cancer.

Randy Werling is jeopardizing his future. Jennifer, a young woman in his Civil War history class, looks and smells like a dream. Could it be that she is interested in him, too? Will Randy break all the rules, and at the same time, break Lynn’s heart while his oldest child lies injured in the bottom of The Ravine?

(Watch for interviews with each of the RAVINE viewpoint characters in the coming weeks. And, by the way, THE RAVINE has been released! It’s available now through The Wild Rose Press, as well as all online retailers in paperback and as an e-book.)