Excerpt from "The Beat Goes On," a short story in 'Innocence End' by Angel Sharum

Angel Sharum and I have been friends on Facebook for several years now, thanks to our many writing adventures. I am very excited about her latest collection of short stories, Innocence End. Check out the book and read an excerpt from "The Beat Goes On."

Book Blurb:

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.

Read an excerpt:

I’d never heard the sawmill as quiet as it was that day. It seemed like every man in the place stopped what he was doing to look at me while I walked down the line to Daddy. By the time I reached him, Daddy’s face was so red I thought his head was going to pop off.

“You just had to do it didn’t you?” Daddy hissed as he grabbed my arm and dragged me out a side door. “Come prancing in here, half naked, your hair pulled back, proud as a peacock. Like I don’t take enough grief at this place.”

I could have argued that it wasn’t my dress, which was a respectable sundress that Mrs. Jenkins had made me, or the fact that my hair was pulled back, but the shiner on my eye and the fact that my lip was twice its normal size that caught everybody’s attention. Well, I could have argued if I could have talked, which I couldn’t because of my lip. It sounded like I was speaking a foreign language when I tried. 

Buy link: http://amzn.to/OQ2dpA (A bargain at 99 cents!)

Biography

Angel Sharum is a Georgia Peach who sometimes writes stories that are rotten to the core. Never one to shy away from voicing her opinion, Angel found the perfect venue to share her thoughts when she started writing non-fiction articles for online publications.

The success of her articles convinced her to try her hand at other forms of writing. Putting what friends and family called a vivid and sometimes twisted imagination to use, she began writing poetry and short fiction. It didn't take long for her to realize this was where her true passion lay.

Writing short stories allows her to take readers on journeys of imagination that linger beyond "The End" and poetry offers a way for her to shake up people's emotions and make them think. According to Angel, when she accomplishes her goals a truly special connection exists between her and her readers.