Innocence End

In a dramatic departure from her trademark tales of fun and horror, Angel Sharum offers within Innocence End two short stories of the real world many children have experienced but most adults would rather ignore:

1) The Beat Goes On portrays the brutality inflicted frequently on a daughter blamed for the death of her mother.

2) Protecting Molly takes the reader into the world of a girl whose father treats her not as a daughter as much as his substitute wife. Caution: Sharum holds nothing back in her depiction of the things one daughter will do to protect the youngest daughter from the brutality and depravity of their alcoholic father.

Though neither short story is for the squeamish, both are a herald of the return of the understated Southern narrative voice of such classic authors as Harper Lee and Truman Capote to American literature. ___Robert L. Arend, editor and contributing author of the Circle 8 Writers Group anthologies.