Synopsis:
Biking home from the Los Arboles Sunday Market, a sunflower yellow teapot snug in her backpack, lonely college student, Carolyn Bauer sees a young teenager huddling under a eucalyptus tree. Carolyn shares her food and water with Antonia as they struggle to communicate in a mix of languages. Realizing Antonia lives on the streets, Carolyn invites her home. They share a summer of friendship until the day the yellow teapot shatters and Antonia mysteriously disappears.
Fifteen years later, only Antonia recognizes her old friend when she and Carolyn meet again in an ESL classroom, but she conceals her secret. Carolyn arranges a class project for Antonia—to job-shadow her friend and housemate, Gemi Kemmal. Gemi learns Antonia’s dangerous circumstances when Antonia arrives for work with bruises barely concealed by thick makeup and offers her sanctuary just as Carolyn had years earlier. Together the three women confront Antonia’s abuser and build a family of enduring friendship.
BIKING UPHILL, the second book in the Alki Trilogy, invites the reader into a world of undocumented immigration, where parents are deported, and a young girl is abandoned to face life on her own.
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About the Author:
Arleen Williams is the author of The Thirty-Ninth Victim, a memoir of her family’s journey before and after her 
sister’s murder. She teaches English as a Second Language at South Seattle Community College and has worked with immigrants and refugees for close to three decades. Arleen lives and writes in West Seattle. Running Secrets is her first work of fiction as well as the first book in The Alki Trilogy. To learn more, please visit www.AlkiTrilogy.com.
Arleen Williams holds a M.Ed. from the University of Washington and an English as a Second Language teaching position at South Seattle Community College where she’s worked with immigrants and refugees for almost three decades. Her published works include:
The Thirty-Ninth Victim (2008)
“The Supermarket,” Crosscurrents 2009
“The Promise,” In Our Prime: Empowering Essays by Women on Love Family, Career, Againg and Just Coping (2010)
“The Painting,” Crosscurrents 2010 (Best Prose Award)
“Letting Go,” “Writing at Louisa’s,” and “Spa Day – An excerpt from Moving Mom, a memoir in progress,” Sunday Ink: Works by the Uptown Writers (2010),
“Remembering Dad – An excerpt from Moving Mom, a memoir in progress,” Crosscurrents 2011
“The Painful Legacy of Gary Ridgway,” The Seattle Times (March 4, 2011)
She has has a collection of over forty personal essays at www.arleenwilliams.com.
