A Jacketed SoftCoverTM
Book You Can Sink Your Mind Into
Click on cover to find out about free Study Guides
web
site special $15.96 plus free book rate shipping in the U.S. Use
your credit card or PayPal account when you checkout. Bookstores, please phone
or email for large order discount.
PLIGHT OF THE CHILDREN
by Sharolett Koenig
A Tim MacCulfsky Mystery ISBN 0-9700458-0-8 (288 pages) $19.95
Jacket Blurb:
Eighteen-year-old Tim MacCulfsky's parents are killed in a
car accident. When he discovers that he was adopted at the age of almost
four, he decides to search for his birth parents. But the plot thickens as
he learns that his was a black market adoption, and the lawyer who handled
the case fifteen years ago was recently murdered. Tracking a people trail,
instead of a paper trail, the only person who knows anything about his past
leads Tim on a wild-goose chase halfway across the country to avoid the
murderer. The mystery takes a twist from the start, when Tim picks up a
hitchhiker named Rhonda Ghent--an uncooperative, obnoxious, fun-loving
fifteen-year-old runaway he can't get rid of.
Excerpt from Chapter 23:
In the middle of the night, Tim awoke to the
slamming of a car door. Seconds later, he heard the zipper of the tent door,
and Rhonda frantically scrambled inside. He raised up on one elbow.
"What's the matter now?"
Rhonda leaped on top of him and knocked him back to
the ground. "Someone's out there," she whispered in terror.
Tim tried to push her off, but she held tightly
with her arms and legs around him. "If you heard something, it's just
an animal." He endeavored to think of an animal small enough to
minimize her fear. "Probably a squirrel."
"No," she said squeezing him tighter.
"I didn't hear anything. He was just suddenly there. I turned on the
flashlight and saw him. A man. He was looking right at me. I was too scared
to scream."
The combination of his own fear and Rhonda's weight
on top of him constricted his chest, and Tim could barely breathe. The
sounds of the nocturnal creatures seemed to grow louder outside the tent. He
heard crickets chirping, an owl hooted in the distance, a frog croaked, and
mosquitoes buzzed. It all sounded normal. "I guess I better go check it
out," he said working up his nerve. He groped in the dark for his
flashlight.
Suddenly, a piercing scream cut through the black
stillness, sending chills rushing up his spine. It was the death cry of a
rodent in the grip of predatory talons. Tim's arms shot around Rhonda, and
he felt her heart pounding in unison with his, so intensely the tent quaked.
He could hear his watch ticking in the silent homage to the fallen sentry.
Gradually, the nocturnal chorus resumed, and the
peace of night closed in again, as if nothing had happened in the interim.
"I don't suppose you locked the car doors when you got out," Tim
asked when his breathing returned to normal.
Rhonda slid off and lay beside him without letting
go. "I didn't think of that," she whispered. "I was too
scared."
Read a collection of Shar's Short Stories
Click on photo to read newsletter
Author Biography:
SHAROLETT KOENIG, a graduate of The Institute of Children's
Literature, is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Instructor
Magazine, and Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot
Magazine, and the poetry anthology Visions and Beyond. She
is a member of the American Christian Writers
Association, Mystery Writers
of America, Romance Writers of
America, and she is serving as secretary of the Mid-Michigan
chapter of Romance Writers of America. She has begun a series of young
adult mystery novels, the first of which is PLIGHT OF THE CHILDREN.
Sharolett bases her writing on experiences gained
while homeschooling her five children; and she enjoys her two grandchildren,
caring for a private collection of over 200 bonsai trees, speaking at
writing classes and seminars, and backpacking at Isle Royale.
$1.00 from the sale of each copy of Plight of
the Children will be donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. One child in six featured in the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children photo-distribution program is recovered as a
direct result of someone in the general public recognizing the child in the
picture and notifying authorities. To help law enforcement in
the search for missing children, NCMEC offers a 24-hour, toll-free
Hotline:
1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
Purchase Plight of the Children by Sharolett Koenig for $15.96 and
get free book rate shipping in the U.S. Use your credit card or PayPal account when
you checkout. Bookstores, please phone or email for large order discount.
Try a recipe from Is This Really Good, Or Am I Just Starved?
Rhonda Ghent's Camp
Recipes by Sharolett Koenig
Right Up Your
Alley
by Sharolett Koenig
One On Nothing by Sharolett
Koenig
A Writer's Concordance: Every Thing the Bible Says About Writing by Sharolett Koenig