Today I have my spotlight on best selling author Susan Clayton-Goldner's new release, Tormented.
Description:
Father's Anthony's devotion to God and His Church begins to
unravel the moment Rita Wittier steps inside St. Catherine’s Cathedral in San
Francisco. He struggles to control his feelings, but two years later, he is a
man obsessed.
In an attempt to rediscover the priest he intended to
become, Anthony flies back to Delaware to visit Father Timothy. If redemption
can be found anywhere, surely it can be found in the church of his childhood
and in the soothing Irish brogue of his old priest.
The months pass, 60 Minutes does a special on Father Anthony
and the Shepherd Academy—a school he started for disadvantaged children. He’s become
a national hero—nick-named the Good Shepherd. But he can’t get Rita out of his
mind. He wants her more than anything—even God—and can no longer deny it. Six hours after he tells her how he
feels, Rita is found dead in her car from an apparent suicide. Or is it murder?
Excerpt – Tormented
San Francisco – April 1971
Tormented by thoughts
no priest should ever have, Father Anthony rose from his nightly Bible reading
and fastened the buttons on his cassock. Behind the dark and rain-streaked
window of his ten-by-ten bedroom at the rectory, night closed in on him. He was
lonelier than he’d ever been. Anthony prided himself on being a man of
principles. But nothing in his world felt principled anymore. It was as if he,
the one who knew from boyhood visions he was destined to be a priest, had
switched lives with an ordinary man or, worse yet, a lovesick teenager.
It was 8:30 p.m. He
didn’t know why he’d agreed to meet her so late. Or, God help him, maybe he did
know. There was still time to cancel. He could tell her to come during the day
on Wednesday after the regular confessional hours. He hurried down the hallway
to his office.
When he flipped on
the overhead light, he found her sitting in front of his desk, her head resting
in her hands. Dozens of frantic moths flapped their wings inside his chest. He
took a step back. He always left the rectory door unlocked when he expected a
parishioner to visit. But how long had she been here, and why hadn’t he sensed
her presence?
She glanced up at
him, her eyes wide, and bluer than any eyes he’d ever seen. “I know I’m early,
but it’s urgent. I can’t go another night without…”
He looked away.
Seeing her sitting in his office was terrifying and marvelous at the same time.
He glanced back again. Her bottom lip was full; the top one thinner, but shaped
like a perfect Cupid’s bow. He wondered, not for the first time, what it would
be like to kiss her. She wore black slacks and a blue silk blouse that gave her
eyes a deep sapphire color like Crater Lake in the sunlight. He wanted to dive
into them and never resurface.
“Mrs. Wittier,” he
said, unable to form any other words. Even as a boy, he’d been afraid of loving
a woman, afraid of the wildness it might release in him.
“Please, call me
Rita.” She stared straight at him and her eyes caught a spark of light from the
ceiling lamp. “I have to confess tonight, before something awful happens to my
daughter.”
The fear in her voice
unsettled him. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “But we hold confessions on
Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. The sacraments are scheduled by the
parish.” He was tempted to add, not by the whims of parishioners, but couldn’t
make himself say those harsh words to Rita. She’d attended Mass at St.
Catherine’s for nearly two years, but this was the first time she had asked for
confession. How could he deny her so sincere a request?
Her face darkened.
“This can’t wait, Father. God is going to punish me by hurting my daughter.
Connie is only a little girl. What I did wasn’t her fault.”
He pulled a chair in
front her and sat, their knees nearly touching. “God doesn’t punish children
for their parents’ shortcomings.”
“Losing Connie would
be my punishment, not my daughter’s,” she said. “Please, you have to help me.
God is already tormenting me with nightmares.”
“Have you considered
talking with a psychiatrist?” He knew psychiatrists could be helpful. His
social worker took him to see one as a teenager when his divine visions first
called him to the priesthood.
She shook her head.
“This is between me and God.”
What was he thinking?
Rita was his parishioner. She was suffering and needed her priest. But he had
to obey the tenth commandment that he not covet his neighbor’s wife. He had to
keep his vow to the church and to God. He would do what Hebrews 12:1 directed.
He heard Father Timothy O’Brien’s voice, the voice of his childhood priest—the
one voice he trusted above all others: “Let us run with perseverance the race
marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.”
He was a priest. The
race marked out for him was clearly defined. And he must finish it. “Follow
me,” he said. “I’m going to make an exception.”
Buy links:
Kindle UK:
Smashwords: https://www.
About the author:
Susan
Clayton-Goldner was born in New Castle, Delaware and grew up with four brothers
along the banks of the Delaware River. She has been writing poems and short
stories since she could hold a pencil and was so in love with writing that she
became a creative writing major in college.
Prior to an early
retirement which enabled her to write full time, Susan worked as the Director
of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. It was
there she met her husband, Andreas, one of the deans in the University of
Arizona's Medical School. About five years after their marriage, they left
Tucson to pursue their dreams in 1991--purchasing a 35-acres horse ranch in the
Williams Valley in Oregon. They spent a decade there. Andy rode, trained and
bred Arabian horses and coached a high school equestrian team, while Susan got
serious about her writing career.
Through the
writing process, Susan has learned that she must be obsessed with the
reinvention of self, of finding a way back to something lost, and the process
of forgiveness and redemption. These are the recurrent themes in her work.
After spending 3
years in Nashville, Susan and Andy now share a quiet life in Grants Pass,
Oregon, with her growing list of fictional characters, and more books than one
person could count. When she isn't writing, Susan enjoys making quilts and
stained-glass windows. She says it is a lot like writing--telling stories with
fabric and glass.
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