Arms of Freedom

By Kathleen Neely

Description:

Annie Gentry has been pushed into the limelight from the age of seven when her mother enrolled her in beauty pageants. At sixteen, she began modeling, and by the age of twenty-four, she gained super-model status, using the pseudonym Miriam. Now Annie wants out. But can she have a simple life when the world knows her as a multi-million-dollar super-model?
When Annie’s grandmother gives her the deed to her old home in rural South Carolina, Annie changes her appearance, drops the pseudonym, and becomes Annie Gentry again, blending into the simple life of Hickory Falls.
Annie’s grandmother tells her that the house holds secrets. Journals and artifacts in the attic begin to unfold Charlotte’s story.
Charlotte, a bi-racial child resulting from a rape in the post-Civil War era, is hidden until her mother can pass her off as a war orphan hired as house help. She is loved by her mother, but suffers abuse at the hands of James Pearson. His abuse and ties to the Klan send Charlotte to seek refuge in the Village, a shanty town where she begins to form her own identity and fall in love.
Both Charlotte and Annie were denied a childhood, both suffered from the abuse of parents, and both experienced coming-of-age changes. But each past collides with the present. The journals stop abruptly, leaving Annie to investigate how Charlotte’s story ended. Meanwhile, Annie’s new life is in jeopardy. Will she lose everything when Hickory Falls learns the truth?