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Before the Storm Kindle Edition
Fifteen-year-old Andy Lockwood is special. Others notice the way he blurts out anything that comes into his mind, how he cannot foresee consequences, that he’s more child than teenager. But his mother sees a boy with a heart as open and wide as the ocean.
Laurel Lockwood lost her son once through neglect. She’s spent the rest of her life determined to make up for her mistakes, and she’s succeeded in becoming a committed, protective parent—maybe even overprotective. Still, she loosens her grip just enough to let Andy attend a local church social—a decision that terrifies her when the church is consumed by fire. But Andy survives . . . and remarkably, saves other children from the flames. Laurel watches as Andy basks in the role of unlikely hero and the world finally sees her Andy, the sweet boy she knows as well as her own heart.
But when the suspicion of arson is cast upon Andy, Laurel must ask herself how well she really knows her son . . . and how far she’ll go to keep her promise to protect him forever.
Praise for The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlin:
“Powerful and thrilling This tautly paced and emotionally driven novel will engross Chamberlain’s many fans as well as those who read Sandra Brown and Carla Buckley.” ?Booklist
“Hard to put down.” ?Better Homes and Gardens
“A compulsively readable melodrama.” ?Kirkus Reviews
“A page-turner to the very end. A must for all mystery lovers and those who like reading about family struggles.” ?Library Journal
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherMIRA
- Publication dateJuly 15, 2019
- File size2503 KB
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Andy
When I walked back into my friend Emily's church,
I saw the pretty girl right away. She'd smiled and said "hey" to me earlier when we were in the youth building, and I'd been looking for her ever since. Somebody'd pushed all the long church seats out of the way so kids could dance, and the girl was in the middle of the floor dancing fast with my friend Keith, who could dance cooler than anybody. I stared at the girl like nobody else was in the church, even when Emily came up to me and said, "Where were you? This is a lock-in. That means you stay right here all night." I saw that her eyebrows were shaped like pale check marks. That meant she was mad.
I pointed to the pretty girl. "Who's that?"
"How should I know?" Emily poked her glasses higher up her nose. "I don't know every single solitary person here."
The girl had on a floaty short skirt and she had long legs that flew over the floor when she danced. Her blond hair was in those cool things America-African people wear that I could never remember the name of. Lots of them all over her head in stripes.
I walked past some kids playing cards on the floor and straight over to the girl. I stopped four shoe lengths away, which Mom always said was close enough. I used to get too close to people and made them squirmy. They need their personal space, Mom said. But even standing that far away, I could see her long eyelashes. They made me think of baby bird feathers. I saw a baby bird close once. It fell out of the nest in our yard and Maggie climbed the ladder to put it back. I wanted to reach over and touch the girl's feather lashes, but knew that was not an appropriate thing.
Keith suddenly stopped dancing with her. He looked right at me. "What d'you want, little rich boy?" he asked.
I looked at the girl. Her eyes were blue beneath the feathers. I felt words come into my mind and then into my throat, and once they got that far, I could never stop them.
"I love you," I said.
Her eyes opened wide and her lips made a pink O. She laughed. I laughed, too. Sometimes people laugh at me and sometimes they laugh with me, and I hoped this was one of the laughing-with-me times.
The girl didn't say anything,but Keith put his hands on his hips. "You go find somebody else to love, little rich boy." I wondered how come he kept calling me little rich boy instead of Andy.
I shook my head. "I love her."
Keith walked between me and the girl. He was so close to me, I felt the squirmies Mom told me about. I had to look up at him which made my neck hurt. "Don't you know about personal space?" I asked.
"Look," he said. "She's sixteen.You're a puny fourteen."
"Fifteen," I said. "I'm just small for my age."
"Why're you acting like you're fourteen then?"He laughed and his teeth reminded me of the big white gum pieces Maggie liked. I hated them because they burned my tongue when I bit them.
"Leave him alone," the pretty girl said."Just ignore him and he'll go away."
"Don't it creep you out?" Keith asked her. "The way he's staring at you?"
The girl put out an arm and used it like a stick to move Keith away. Then she talked right to me.
"You better go away, honey," she said. "You don't want to get hurt."
How could I get hurt? I wasn't in a dangerous place or doing a dangerous thing, like rock climbing, which I wanted to do but Mom said no.
"What's your name?" I asked her.
"Go home to your fancy-ass house on the water," Keith said.
"If I tell you my name, will you go away?" the girl asked.
"Okay," I said, because I liked that we were making a deal.
"My name's Layla," she said.
Layla. That was a new name. I liked it. "It's pretty," I said.
"My name's Andy."
"Nice to meet you, Andy," she said. "So, now you know my name and you can go."
I nodded, because I had to hold up my end of the deal. "Goodbye," I said as I started to turn around.
"Retard." Keith almost whispered it, but I had very good hearing and that word pushed my start button.
I turned back to him, my fists already flying. I punched his stomach and I punched his chin, and he must have punched me too because of all the bruises I found later, but I didn't feel a thing. I kept at him, my head bent low like a bull, forgetting I'm only five feet tall and he was way taller. When I was mad, I got strong like nobody's business. People yelled and clapped and things, but the noise was a buzz in my head. I couldn't tell you the words they said. Just bzzzzzzzzz, getting louder the more I punched.
I punched until somebody grabbed my arms from behind, and a man with glasses grabbed Keith and pulled us apart. I kicked my feet trying to get at him. I wasn't finished.
"What an asshole!" Keith twisted his body away from the man with the glasses, but he didn't come any closer. His face was red like he had sunburn.
"He doesn't know any better," said the man holding me."You should. Now you get out of here."
"Why me?" Keith jerked his chin toward me."He started it! Everybody always cuts him slack."
The man spoke quietly in my ear."If I let go of you, are you going to behave?"
I nodded and then realized I was crying and everybody was watching me except for Keith and Layla and the man with glasses, who were walking toward the back of the church. The man let go of my arms and handed me a white piece of cloth from his pocket. I wiped my eyes. I hoped Layla hadn't seen me crying. The man was in front of me now and I saw that he was old with gray hair in a ponytail. He held my shoulders and looked me over like I was something to buy in a store. "You okay, Andy?"
I didn't know how he knew my name, but I nodded. "You go back over there with Emily and let the adults handle Keith." He turned me in Emily's direction and made me walk a few steps with his arm around me. "We'll deal with him, okay?" He let go of my shoulders.
I said "okay" and kept walking toward Emily, who was standing by the baptism pool thing.
"I thought you was gonna kill him!" she said.
Me and Emily were in the same special reading and math classes two days a week. I'd known her almost my whole life, and she was my best friend. People said she was funny looking because she had white hair and one of her eyes didn't look at you and she had a scar on her lip from an operation when she was a baby, but I thought she was pretty. Mom said I saw the whole world through the eyes of love.Next to Mom and Maggie, I loved Emily best.But she wasn't my girlfriend.Definitely not.
"What did the girl say?" Emily asked me.
I wiped my eyes again. I didn't care if Emily knew I was crying. She'd seen me cry plenty of times. When I put the cloth in my pocket, I noticed her red T-shirt was on inside out. She used to always wear her clothes inside out because she couldn't stand the way the seam part felt on her skin, but she'd gotten better. She also couldn't stand when people touched her. Our teacher never touched her but once we had a substitute and she put a hand on Emily's shoulder and Emily went ballistic. She cried so much she barfed on her desk. "Your shirt's inside out," I said.
"I know. What did the girl say?"
"That her name's Layla." I looked over at where Layla was still talking to the man with the glasses. Keith was gone, and I stared at Layla. Just looking at her made my body feel funny. It was like the time I had to take medicine for a cold and couldn't sleep all night long. I felt like bugs were crawling inside my muscles. Mom promised me that was impossible, but it still felt that way.
"Did she say anything else?" Emily asked.
Before I could answer, a really loud, deep, rumbling noise, like thunder, filled my ears. Everyone stopped and looked around like someone had said Freeze! I thought maybe it was a tsunami because we were so close to the beach. I was really afraid of tsunamis. I saw one on TV. They swallowed up people. Sometimes I'd stare out my bedroom window and watch the water in the sound, looking for the big wave that would swallow me up. I wanted to get out of the church and run, but nobody moved.
Like magic, the stained-glass windows lit up. I saw Mary and baby Jesus and angels and a half-bald man in a long dress holding a bird on his hand. The window colors were on every-body's face and Emily's hair looked like a rainbow.
"Fire!" someone yelled from the other end of the church, and then a bunch of people started yelling, "Fire! Fire!" Everyone screamed, running past me and Emily, pushing us all over the place.
I didn't see any fire, so me and Emily just stood there getting pushed around, waiting for an adult to tell us what to do. I was pretty sure then that there wasn't a tsunami. That made me feel better, even though somebody's elbow knocked into my side and somebody else stepped on my toes. Emily backed up against the wall so nobody could touch her as they rushed past. I looked where Layla had been talking with the man, but she was gone.
"The doors are blocked by fire!" someone shouted.
I looked at Emily."Where's your mom?" I had to yell because it was so noisy. Emily's mother was one of the adults at the lock-in, which was the only reason Mom let me go.
"I don't know." Emily bit the side of her finger the way she did when she was nervous.
"Don't bite yourself." I pulled her hand away from her face and she glared at me with her good eye.
All of a sudden I smelled the fire. It crackled like a bonfire on the beach. Emily pointed to the ceiling where curlicues of smoke swirled around the beams.
"We got to hide!" she said.
I shook my head. Mom told me you can't hide from a fire. You had to escape. I had a special ladder under my bed I could put out the window to climb down, but there were no special ladders in the church that I could see.
Everything was moving very fast. Some boys lifted up one of the long church seats. They counted one two three and ran toward the big window that had the half-bald man on it. The long seat hit the man, breaking the window into a zillion pieces, and then I saw the fire outside. It was a bigger fire than I'd ever seen in my life. Like a monster, it rushed through the window and swallowed the boys and the long seat in one big gulp. The boys screamed, and they ran around with fire coming off them.
I shouted as loud as I could, "Stop! Drop! Roll!"
Emily looked amazed to hear me tell the boys what to do. I didn't think the boys heard me, but then some of them did stop, drop and roll, so maybe they did. They were still burning, and the air in the church had filled up with so much smoke, I couldn't see the altar anymore.
Emily started coughing. "Mama!" she croaked.
I was coughing, too, and I knew me and Emily were in trouble. I couldn't see her mother anywhere, and the other adults were screaming their heads off just like the kids. I was thinking, thinking, thinking. Mom always told me, in an emergency, use your head. This was my first real emergency ever.
Emily suddenly grabbed my arm."We got to hide!" she said again. She had to be really scared because she'd never touched me before on purpose.
I knew she was wrong about hiding, but now the floor was on fire, the flames coming toward us.
"Think!" I said out loud, though I was only talking to myself. I hit the side of my head with my hand. "Brain, you gotta kick in!"
Emily pressed her face against my shoulder, whimpering like a puppy, and the fire rose around us like a forest of golden trees.
Maggie
MY FATHER WAS KILLED BY A WHALE.
I hardly ever told people how he died because they'd think I was making it up. Then I'd have to go into the whole story and watch their eyes pop and their skin break out in goose bumps. They'd talk about Ahab and Jonah,and I would know that Daddy's death had morphed into their entertainment. When I was a little girl,he was my whole worldmy best friend and protector.He was awesome. He was a minister who built a chapel for his tiny congregation with his own hands. When people turned him into a character in a story,one they'd tell their friends and family over pizza or ice cream, I had to walk away. So, it was easier not to talk about it in the first place.If someone asked me how my father died, I'd just say "heart." That was the truth, anyway.
The night Andy went to the lock-in, I knew I had to visit my fatheror at least try to visit him. It didn't always work. Out of my thirty or forty tries, I only made contact with him three times. That made the visits even more meaningful to me. I'd never stop trying.
I called Mom to let her know the lock-in had been moved from Drury Memorial's youth building to the church itself, so she'd know where to pick Andy up in the morning. Then I said I was going over to Amber Donnelly's, which was a total crock. I hadn't hung out with Amber in months, though we sometimes still studied together. Hanging out with Amber required listening to her talk nonstop about her boyfriend, Travis Hardy. "Me and Travis this," and "me and Travis that," until I wanted to scream. Amber was in AP classes like me, but you wouldn't know it from her grammar. Plus, she was such a poser, totally caught up in her looks and who she hung out with. I never realized it until this year.
Product details
- ASIN : B07RBB2Y8R
- Publisher : MIRA; Reissue edition (July 15, 2019)
- Publication date : July 15, 2019
- Language : English
- File size : 2503 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 442 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #131,600 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #894 in Women's Literary Fiction
- #1,419 in Mothers & Children Fiction
- #3,493 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Diane Chamberlain is the New York Times, USA Today and (London) Sunday Times best-selling author of 27 novels. The daughter of a school principal who supplied her with a new book almost daily, Diane quickly learned the emotional power of story. Although she wrote many small “books” as a child, she didn’t seriously turn to writing fiction until her early thirties when she was waiting for a delayed doctor’s appointment with nothing more than a pad, a pen, and an idea. She was instantly hooked.
Diane was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey and lived for many years in both San Diego and northern Virginia. She received her master’s degree in clinical social work from San Diego State University. Prior to her writing career, she was a hospital social worker in both San Diego and Washington, D.C, and a psychotherapist in private practice in Alexandria, Virginia, working primarily with adolescents.
More than two decades ago, Diane was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which changed the way she works: She wrote two novels using voice recognition software before new medication allowed her to get back to typing. She feels fortunate that her arthritis is not more severe and that she’s able to enjoy everyday activities as well as keep up with a busy travel schedule.
Diane lives in North Carolina with her significant other, photographer John Pagliuca, and their odd but lovable Shetland Sheepdog, Cole.
Please visit Diane's website at www.dianechamberlain.com for her event schedule and for more information on her newest novel, Big Lies in a Small Town, as well as a complete list of her books.
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The characters in this story are very human---they make mistakes that change their worlds. A woman becomes a single mom of a much rejected daughter and a fetal alcohol syndrome son. Her life is complicated as is the lives of the children and everyone around her.
There's a fire at a church, her son becomes a hero when he saves others but then the story does a few twists and turns before you have a chance to discover who is to blame.
This story keeps you riveted to the pages and makes you want more. And we'll get more----I hope sooner than later.
I'm so proud of you , Diane, and all your success. Every book you write becomes my "favorite". Keep it going------I love reading your books. And it appears others have also "found" you and enjoy your stories as much as I do. I'm so thrilled to have "known" you and can proudly say you're the greatest-because I always knew you were.
When Laurel got pregnant, they got married, and everything was perfect. Until after their daughter Maggie was born. Laurel's depression and how she felt nothing for the baby might have started when she and the baby were separated shortly after the birth due to her hemorrhaging...but what continued afterwards could only have been an undiagnosed case of Postpartum Depression. Soon Laurel and Jamie were living separate lives, with Jamie and Maggie staying with their friends Steve and Sara.
Meanwhile, Laurel slept and drank a lot, and turned for comfort from Jamie's brother Marcus, who lived next door. What was set in motion soon escalated, and then an unexpected pregnancy catapulted them all into a storm of emotions, secrets, and lies.
Before the Storm was set on Topsail Island in North Carolina, and the Lockwood family, to which Jamie and Marcus belonged, was wealthy and privileged, but their family dynamics left much to be desired. Jamie was the "perfect" son and Marcus, the bad boy.
What subsequent events would forever change the landscape of their lives? How did Laurel's drinking during her pregnancy result in her son Andy's disabilities? And how would those very problems turn into tragedy during one summer when he was just fifteen years old? A church fire, pointed fingers, and a series of misunderstandings would lead to more complications. Would the truth ever come out?
Multiple narrators told the story: Laurel, Marcus, Maggie, and Andy, and each character's voice was distinctive. The story flashed back to the past and then forward to the present; the mystery of what happened during that summer night would keep this reader guessing until almost the end...and then the reveal would be stunning. 4.5 stars.
I don't want to describe anything about the story - you must read it for yourself and experience the above comments. Enjoy!!!
Top reviews from other countries
In my opinion, Diane Chamberlain is brilliantly skilled with written words and characters....the way Andy describes his feelings and perspectives is so authentic....bugs crawling in his muscles...; the way Andy relates to others; what is most important to Andy (how he wants to celebrate that he was a hero and how he learns from his mother about bragging, how he skims over the deaths because he was a hero); the way Andy processes a situation, always remembering specific lessons to apply to a situation instead of using flexible thinking....these are just a few components of Andy.... The literal interpretations, like the lighter that could not carried on the plane....I know this is exactly how my oldest girl would interpret that sign....one difference though is the reaction...I don't think my daughter would try to hide it...I think she would panic and cry and stop and not know what to do.
And it's not just Andy....his mother, his sister, his Uncle - wow, together, they are me....I love this description from Andy's sister's point of view: "As a mother, Mom was borderline okay. She was smart and she could be cool sometimes, but she loved Andy so much that she suffocated him, and she didn't have a clue. My brother was my biggest worry. Probably ninety-five percent of my time, I thought about him. Even when I thought about other things, he was still in a little corner of my mind, the same way I knew that it was spring or that we lived in North Carolina or that I was female." So true....when you have a special needs child/sibling, EVERYTHING you do and think about revolves around him/her no matter how subtle.
The first Diane Chamberlain book I read was The Secret Life Of CeeCee Wilkes - I was enthralled with her writing and excited to read more....I gave that book a very easy 5 stars....and I still believe that book fully deserves that rating. But Before The Storm just raised the bar! To me, this book is off the charts...5 stars does not cut it ! Diane's writing is such a pleasure to read....you just read...you never have to stop to figure things out, to go back to read something twice; you never stumble over grammar or complexities.... it's just smooth!....and yet the characters and the plot are never simplistic....and are so full of emotion....a treasure to find a book like this.
When I read, I typically skim through the flashbacks searching for the information I need to know to understand what is happening in the current story...they are usually boring, dragging portions of a story, revealing one piece of information that might have better been woven into the story in another way - but Ms. Chamberlain writes in a way that make me want to read every word of the flashbacks and want for more....the flashbacks don't just give you more information about the character and why they behave or act the way they do...they are more than that...they have a little bit of suspense to them to, a story of their own. In The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes, the flashback was the main story....In this book, what begins as a flashback, ends up as the second story weaving and catching up and finally meshing with the present. Nothing in the book can ever be said to be 'filler' - everything moves the story forward !
At this point this is only the second book of Diane Chamberlain's that I have read....and yet I can confidently say that she is my new favourite author....
As with The Courage Tree, the cover has a sappy picture which doesn't relate well to the story. It's not affecting my rating, just a heads up as most readers, myself included, are inclined to judge books in part by their cover!
I struggled a bit with Laurel's character. At times I really didn't like her. This isn't a reflection on the way she is portrayed, but a reflection on my personal lack of patience with her destructive behaviour. I can't say much more without giving away parts of the story, but it does drop my rating down to four and a half stars rather than five.
"Before the Storm" is focused on a 15 year old boy with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome which causes his mind to work in different ways to your average Joe. An interesting and unique subject matter. This poor boy is accused of arson which resulted in three dead. All evidence is pointing at him but the argument is that he doesn't have the mental capability to harm another human being. Did he do it?
A predictable and somewhat anticlimatic ending but I certainly enjoyed getting there. I love books that touch on real-life matters and I rarely hear of the condition featured. I would like to have been given more information about it - but this wasn't written to educate. Another little gem from Diane!