Synopsis:
Sorrows are something Matty Brooks knows a thing or two about. Having grown up in the projects of New York City, she’s seen her fair share. But as an adult and successful author, Matty is all too happy to leave that life far behind.
Secrets aren’t something Dr. Dash Kent knows much about. As a small-town vet with deep ties to his community of Windsor, New York, life has always been pretty straightforward. Until Matty Brooks comes to town.
Redemption is what Brad Brooks wants. As Matty’s half brother, he’s ashamed of how his family treated her—how they cast her out. But when the olive branch he extends turns deadly and Matty stumbles into Brad’s biggest secret, she finds herself cast back into a world of violence and deceit. Now redemption is easy; survival is the hard part.
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Excerpt:
Matty was debating the benefits of a bath in the evening as she rounded a corner a few miles away from Brad’s. She slowed for a moment to take in the scene before her—an old, stone farmhouse surrounded by white-fenced fields filled with quietly grazing horses. She half expected a man riding a horse with a pack of hounds to come into view. Windsor, and the surrounding area, really was quite beautiful, she acknowledged to herself.
She was savoring the rare moment of complete contentedness—enjoying the smells of a country summer, the feel of the clean, humid air on her skin, and the wind blowing her hair. A smile formed on her lips, but just as it did, something came crashing down into the bed of Brad’s truck.
“Holy shit!” Matty cried as she slammed on the brakes. The truck came to a screeching halt, and having ducked on instinct, she sat hunched in the driver’s seat. Her heart was racing and she had no idea what could have made that kind of noise or had that kind of impact on the truck—enough of an impact that she had not only heard whatever it was hit the truck bed but had actually felt the weight of it depress the back end of the huge vehicle. Completely at a loss, she stayed hunched down, waiting. She heard nothing but a song about riding a cowboy still playing on her radio. She felt nothing moving in the back.
Her stomach was tied in knots, but after a few moments, she knew she needed to get out and check the truck. She gave a fleeting thought to driving to the shoulder, since she was stopped in the middle of the lane, but decided it was more important to find out what exactly it was that had landed in the truck before she moved anything.
Putting the truck in park and turning the ignition and music off, Matty congratulated herself on at least having the presence of mind to put the emergency flashers on. Tentatively, she craned her neck to see if she could see anything through the back window, but all she saw was the inside of the tailgate. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and peeked around the side. She couldn’t see anything from where she sat, so she slowly exited the truck and inched her way toward the back, keeping as much distance as she’d need to jump out of reach should something leap out at her, while staying close enough to see inside the truck bed.
She had just passed the rear passenger door of the extended cab when something came into view. She paused and stared. She took another bigger step toward the bed of the truck, then frowned. Finally, she approached the side and took it all in. She wasn’t sure what she had expected; really, she’d had no idea. But never in a million years would she have thought to find this. As she stood in the middle of the lane, the sounds of cows lowing in the distance and tractors at work in nearby fields filtering into her brain, Matty stared at what was, undoubtedly, the decomposing body of a man.
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Buy These Sorrows We See:
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About the Author:
Tamsen Schultz is the author of The Puppeteer and “American Kin” (a short story published in Line Zero Magazine) as well as A Tainted Mind, the first in the Windsor Series. She is a three-time finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association annual competition. Tamsen worked in the field of international conflict resolution and co-founded a non-profit prior to attending law school. She currently works in corporate America and spends a disproportionate amount of time thinking about what it might be like to do something else. She lives in Northern California in a house full of males including her husband, two sons, a cat, a dog, and a gender-neutral, but well-stocked, wine rack.
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