Playing with Fire: A BitterSweet Tale of Reinvention & Revenge
Fire!
In the winter of 1952, the Madsen family home burned to the ground. Matilda and Jessie Sr. died in the blaze. Floyd Madsen told the authorities that his sister Bonnie, just fifteen-years-old, was in the basement and also perished. Because the gallons of moonshine and Sterno stored in the basement kept shooting flames up through the rubble, they let her remains stay buried. That is what they thought, at least.
Playing with Fire: A Story of Reinvention
Bonnie Madsen didn’t die, but she did bury herself that night, using a ticket south and a new name. For years Bonnie hid beneath layers of reinvention, deep within a crypt created by the woman she became. Buried with her in that dark, embryonic place were memories of family secrets too horrific to bring to the light. Thirty-four years later, Jess Madsen Jr. and his niece Dawn, discover that Bonnie did not die on that frigid, fiery night.
They hire retired Homicide Detective Joe Minelli, now a Private Investigator to find her. Joe remembers the family from one of his last cases on the Baltimore County Police Force and jumps at the chance to help. He flies to Florida where he zigzags his way across the state. What he finds is more than he imagined, about Bonnie and about himself.
Rising From the Ashes
Within the pages of Playing with Fire, the reader is thrown into the lives of these flawed characters, with their joys, heartbreaks, and raw emotions of the human spirit. With each chapter, layers are peeled back, bonds are forged, mysteries revealed. Can Bonnie break the family ties that keep her captive? Will she rise with the flames to seek revenge? Take this journey to discover what happened…
Before the Broken Window.
About Joy Strouse
Joy Strouse is writer, artist, teacher, actor, mother and grandmother. She channels decades of reflection and creative spirit into her writing, conjuring stories and characters that captivate and inspire. When the world slowed during the pandemic, she finally found the stillness to bring her debut novel to life. As an author, Strouse paints with words, vivid and authentic, driven by her own experiences and a deep knowledge about the human condition.
Joy Strouse’s journey as a master storyteller continues with Playing with Fire, a prequel to Beyond the Broken Window. Her characters spring from the pages to reveal secrets of what went before the broken window, with simmering tension and a twisted, bittersweet end. - Amazon
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