Living In Your Hell
Shattered Lives Series; Book 5
Publish Date: January 30, 2018
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Cover Design by: MadHat Books
Photography: Lindee Robinson Photography
Models: Garrett Pentecost & Daria Rottenburke
I'll give my last breath to keep her safe.
Blurb:
Shelby
Having faith in human beings isn't something I grant easily.
My childhood was filled with yelling, anger, and beatings so bad I feared I would die. My Papa was my savior. He saved me from the beatings and hate, filling my life with love and happiness. He made sure I got the best education possible, and I was able to follow in his footsteps.
Now, being back home - with a past like mine - my nightmares are coming back. The flesh and blood kind.
Charlie
As a Sheriff's deputy, I've seen many things. I've had to handle some stuff that would make a saint roll over in his grave. Yet, I never give up. I wear my badge as a statement. I fight for those who can't fight for themselves. When the woman I love is put in danger, and my world starts falling into disarray, there is only one thing to do. Take a stand and fight for her - with her even.
No one from her past is going to take her from me. She's my forever and I plan to do everything I can to keep her that way.
Having faith in human beings isn't something I grant easily.
My childhood was filled with yelling, anger, and beatings so bad I feared I would die. My Papa was my savior. He saved me from the beatings and hate, filling my life with love and happiness. He made sure I got the best education possible, and I was able to follow in his footsteps.
Now, being back home - with a past like mine - my nightmares are coming back. The flesh and blood kind.
Charlie
As a Sheriff's deputy, I've seen many things. I've had to handle some stuff that would make a saint roll over in his grave. Yet, I never give up. I wear my badge as a statement. I fight for those who can't fight for themselves. When the woman I love is put in danger, and my world starts falling into disarray, there is only one thing to do. Take a stand and fight for her - with her even.
No one from her past is going to take her from me. She's my forever and I plan to do everything I can to keep her that way.
Excerpt:
Prologue
Twenty-seven years ago a life formed, grew and was born into a family where she was supposed to be loved, have a happy life and grow into an adult her parents could be proud of. That life started out well… but things changed, and changed for the worse.
There aren’t many good things that I can remember from my childhood before I came to live with my Papa. The things I do remember, I wish I could bleach from my memory and never have to think of them again. See, the memories I have of my father are full of pain and heartache. My mother wasn't much better.
I grew up in a house that was run by a man who would rather have a bottle at his lips than food on his table. My mother tried in the beginning, from what I can actually remember. I ate a lot of cheese sandwiches that were mostly just a piece of bread, sometimes it was even moldy but it's all I had. I ate even more jelly sandwiches. Grape jelly, always grape jelly. Needless to say, as an adult I can only tolerate cheese in small portions and as for grape jelly… no, I can't even stomach that now.
It was a luxury back then to get a bowl of cereal for breakfast, and to have milk to drink or even a hot meal that did not consist of my mother opening a can of.. something and dumping it into a bowl. Half the time I had to pinch my nose and just eat whatever it was. Most of it tasted gross. If I ever said that though, I got swatted, called ungrateful and sent to my room with no food. This is why I wish it could all be washed from my brain. I have serious issues with canned foods, even today.
The road of life is paved with good intentions and all but, I'm more of the mind to work my ass off and get what I want. I never wanted to be a burden to anyone, nor do I want to be dependent on anyone else. This is a battle I have been fighting since I was brought to live with my Papa. He wanted to give me the world, and God love him for it, but I couldn’t allow that then, and I don't accept it now. It wasn’t in me to break that cycle. If I have anything, it’s because I’ve busted my ass to make it happen.
Life has a way of pushing me in one direction when I want to go another. Dating Charlie McKenna for the last nine or so months has helped me become a little less OCD about some things, but it also scares the crap out of me. My biggest fears revolve around dating a loving, caring man. I mean, what if he finds out about my past and literally drops me like a half cooked tater? I don't feel like that would ever actually happen, not with everything I've seen of the man, but the thought is there nonetheless.
Charlie and the others, his friends who have slowly become my friends, and his family only know me as I am today. The emergency room doctor, the OBGYN, the smiling face who can stay calm in a crisis. That's not the real me, not really. They don't know the neurotic mess I really am.
Though, I'm not managing to hold myself together too well lately. When I moved back to Texas I wondered if I would have this issue. I would have nightmares in Colorado after a bad day, but not like it's been since I've been back here. Back home. Back to the place where it all started.
At first, I wasn't sure if I could handle it, but then life changed courses again and I met some people that truly needed my help. I enjoyed my life in the emergency room, and especially loved my job as an OBGYN. Nothing beats helping to bring a precious child into the world. That's how I met the people around me now.
I first met Kristol a little over a year ago when she wound up in my operating room. She'd been hurt, and I knew what I was seeing was more than something she could have done to herself. That night wasn't the first, but one of many times that I received a warning from the hospital about my boundaries when it came to a patient. We’d all slowly learned the truth of her situation, but that wasn't until I'd helped her and her kids after their sperm donor beat her son’s back raw in spots.
It was then I started to revert back to the “crazy bubble”. The past taunted me nightly. I would wake with my breath heaving, covered in sweat and tears filling my eyes. My nightmares haunted me. Even now, helping out between Papa’s office and Dani Lynn’s crisis center, my world has turned upside down as the life I want to forget keeps jumping out at me.
It's hard to keep it together when all I want to do is run away and hide. Or attack some dumbass man for slapping his girlfriend, wife or child around. Don't get me wrong, there are a few women around here that need a good ass whoopin’ too, for the same shit.
Life is never easy, I know that, but right now it's beginning to be too much. My nightmares are back in full force and…I'm seeing my father in places that he shouldn’t be. I'm afraid that I’m slowly losing my ever loving mind.
If things end up how I suspect they will… I'm about to be up shit creek without either a paddle, or the will to keep fighting to the top.
I don't want to give up. I want to fight, but I'm not sure I have it in me to do it…. I just don't.
Shattered Lives Series
Genre: Dark Suspense/Thriller ~ Romantic Suspense
~ My Own Nightmare ~
~ Somewhere I Belong ~
~ Shatter Me Whole ~
~ Sparks of Deception ~
*
The Cowboy Way Series
Genre: Cowboy Contemporary Romance
~ Wrangled By Love ~
*
A Rescue Series Novella
Genre: Romantic Suspense
~ A Marshall’s Courage ~
*
~ Primal Darkness ~
Genre: Dark Paranormal Romantic Thriller
**
Each book in these series’s can be read as a stand alone
All of the above books are available in KU
*
~ Dirty Fairy Tales Anthology ~
Genre: Erotic - PNR - Fantasy
*All ebook sales go to help the Autism Society of SW Florida.
~Meet Barb Shuler~
I’m a Carolina Girl by right and a Texan by birth. Best of both worlds. I have the brass sass to keep up with my Texas sized temper. Living and working in both states i’ve learned a lot about hard work, adapting to your surroundings and making the best of the path that you have been led down. My grandma Dollie once told me I would know what I was meant to do when it happened. She was right, as always.
As with most book lovers, I am an avid reader. Reading has always been a hobby - a passion, really and a way to get lost in other people’s lives, their drama and other worlds. It’s a private movie in your imagination that you get to cast and navigate through, at your own pace. Reading helps to expand the perimeters of one's mind. That is what got me into writing. Writing has been something that I have done since I was a kid. If I had paper, I was writing. Nine out of ten times it made no sense but what are words if they are not to be used to your advantage? Words are a part of us all. Why not use them, right?
During the day I work as a ‘desk jockey’ and help the residents of my county navigate themselves around our little, but not too little country town. By night I am either blogging with my best friends, doing PA work for some of my favorite authors or fighting with the voices in my head. They can be stubborn at times. It’s a blessing and I am cherishing every moment. Tomorrow is never guaranteed so I want to make sure I live the day as fully as possible. For what is my creation, can become someone else's treasure.
~ Connect with Barb here ~
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