Dusty Angels and Old Diaries

Book excerpt: Dusty Angels and Old Diaries is a second edition with an Epilogue to Linda's first book by the same title published in 2006. Everyone has a story to tell. This one finds Linda sobbing quietly in a cold, dark attic as she clutches a little red diary and tries to comfort her baby sister who is bruised and bleeding. Below them, a woman's voice yells in anger for the two little girls to come down in an instant. But no! Fresh from a whipping for some small infraction and hidden safely for the moment, Linda and Sandra cling to the hope that their mother will return from the strange place she disappeared to, or their dad will come knocking on the door to rescue them from their fiery grandmother who angrily took them from the orphanage in New York City and hid them in this bleak outpost far from civilization! Linda's first diary in 1964 breathes life into the year she was fourteen years old. A plethora of diaries follow for the next thirty years as Linda and Sandra rise from the ashes of abandonment and loss, the years of searching for love and purpose, and finally, finding that which was lostaEUR"and losing it again! Gently turn the pages of the fragile little red diary and its siblings, the faded pages now over fifty years old. Linda shares a legend written for those who have a story to tell and want to find the power and strength to tell it. It is a book for women who want to be strong. Put on your soft slippers and walk back in time into tomorrow!