Josie's Gift

This is a novel about Josie Blandón, a pregnant sixteen-year-old Jewish Believer who quits school, and runs away from her family, her faith, and her ethnicity to marry a twenty-two-year-old drug dealer. At first the marriage is carefree and fun, but soon turns abusive as Roger gets deeper into using alcohol, and the drugs he is selling. Josie gives birth to a son, Stevie. Two subsequent pregnancies are terminated by abortions.

On the run for seven years, justice finally catches up, and Roger is killed in a courtroom shootout with a police detective, but not before he wounds several people including the judge. Josie is left with having to clear herself of criminal charges associated with Roger’s crime spree, and with the task of making a new life for her six-year-old son.