Today we have a sneak peek from Paula Friedman’s historical/young adult novel, The Rescuer’s Path:
In 1971, Malca Bernovski, a Holocaust survivor’s daughter, goes horseback riding and discovers wounded antiwar leader and terrorist suspect Gavin Hareen. She aids him, and trust builds between them, becoming love. They flee cross-country, but FBI pursuit closes in; shielding Malca, Gavin is fatally shot. Bereft, Malca yields their baby at birth for adoption.
Thirty years later, that daughter finds Malca; in reuniting, each can let go of past loss.
The Rescuer’s Path is available on Amazon.com
And now, from The Rescuer’s Path…
Excerpt—from end of Part 2.
Malca and her beloved Gavin, the half-Arab peace activist suspected in the lethal bombing of an army truck, have taken refuge in the Rocky Mountains from the FBI pursuit. Not long after midnight, Malca wakens.
“We are together?” She said the words too quietly, coming up from the silent happiness, trying to quell the new fear, unforeseen.
He turned in the sleeping bag and pulled her close; they rocked each other. She had really been asking—they both knew it—that other universe. The world of fragile blessings. Like babies, they breathed together.
“Shhsh.” He sat up in the pitch-dark tent. Outside, there had been, perhaps, a sound. Like a little cat possibly, or a coyote, over by the boulders near the firepit. “Cougar?” she whispered—she’d been wanting to see one—and then she also heard it. But on the other side.
Gavin was slipping her shirt onto her, faster than she thought possible, and silently he was pulling on his jeans. Trembling, she began to slide into hers. He leaned over toward their boots.
And stopped. Everything stopped—only his sigh. All around them, tiny snaps and muffled crunches and other, stealthier sounds were approaching from behind the boulders, coming out of the dark pines. There wasn’t anywhere to go.
“We’d best not scare them, then,” he said. She reached for him. His face, shrouded by the darkness, felt haggard, like an old man’s. He squeezed her close, and breathed against her hair and touched her cheek, and for an instant they clung, hearts beating. Then together they opened the flap in the side of the tent.
“Out, fast—don’t move!” The loudspeaker blasted from the forest. Flashlight beams struck their eyes. “You’re under arrest. Throw down your arms.” Malca, knees wobbling, couldn’t stop thinking it sounded silly. “Don’t make a move.”
Her eyes found Gavin’s, black and clear as the predawn stillness, to her right. Their hands were clasped. And to her left, out of the very corner of her vision, something, a heavy glinting thing, was lowering—the muzzle of a rifle, maybe eight feet away. In front and to the right, guns pointed, cocked and senseless, at their heads. The rifle made a clicking sound as its safety was released.
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My goodness, how breathless. This is very well written. Well done, Paula. On my daughter's TBR list.
Rosanne, thank you. I am so delighted that Kat has run this excerpt here, and that you and my other colleagues have this chance to preview it. The book is not, by the way, solely young adult—in fact, primarily it's for adults, though any young person who can endure Prim's story in the Hunger Games can deal with Gavin's. I hope your daughter–and you–will enjoy the book! And so very glad you like this excerpt.
Thank you so very much, K.S.Brooks, for running this and for the fine intro! We should note that The Rescuer's Path is literary as well as historical fiction, and aimed toward adults as much or more than young adults (though "aimed toward" may be the wrong metaphor, given this excerpt). Again, I want to thank you–and also to say how elegant, genuinely elegant and beautiful, the Indies Unlimited site truly is. I love it.