Heart Wounds

About the Book

Three people, caught in the confusion of the past, struggle to find themselves in the present within the convoluted circumstances of crime, business, and family ties. Meanwhile, a life ends in violence and their separate worlds begin to intersect, resulting in irreversible choices and compromise. This  love triangle is set in today’s Southwest – Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Tahoe – flashing back to their revealing pasts. Heart Wounds and Other Crimes explores the possibility of Late-in-Life Love, and climaxes over and over again. Just when you think it's over, the mystery continues.  

Henry Leonard Gold, a passionate if confused businessman, stumbles across love in his later years. He lives in parallel worlds. One where business comes before the pleasure of a personal life. And one he never expected – a warm, caring relationship outside his cold marriage. His struggle becomes an interior one fraught with guilt for wanting more and the realization that his lifelong quest for success in dangerous places has turned against him – and those he loves.

Lily Lewis Gold, Henry’s wife of forty years, is a beautiful woman who has overcome an abusive childhood. An affluent life strings the beads of loyalty to her marriage that break, shattering the world she worked so hard to design. Her deepest heartache is not the failed marriage, but an addicted daughter who cannot resist the pull of cocaine even at the risk of her teenage son falling into the same abyss. As she loses her daughter, Lily’s long hidden rage surfaces, twisting toward Henry and his life in other places.

Eleanor Clark is a fifty-something  transplant to the Southwest. Divorced and long time single, the end of a former life allows the beginning of a joyful new career –  painting the bolder view of Arizona's landscape. A warm believer in life, she remains involved with the lives of her grown children, Caroline and Jake. Another confused man is not in her plan, but when she meets and falls in love with Henry Gold, her traditional prospective changes. Over several years, their secret relationship becomes one of deep friendship, joy, comfort – and possibility.

Other characters include:

Caroline and Jake, Eleanor’s children; Kate, the abused little girl who inspires Caroline to face life's dragons; Judy, the Gold’s grown daughter who is drug addicted; Joseph, Judy’s teenage son who is showing signs of following in his mother’s footsteps – until his life hangs by a thread; Sam Palmer, Lily's old friend and lover; Detective Bob Stritch, who has his own demons to deal with; Bess Bradford, Lily Gold's friend who's keeping a secret.

About the Author

Ann Isobel is an author of contemporary short stories and memoirs. She was awarded a 1999 prize for memoir from The Society of Southwestern Authors and has been published in The Storyteller and The Arizona Star. Ann lives in Tucson, Arizona where she revels in retirement from a long advertising career as a television art director, copywriter, keyline artist, business manager, and sales rep. An avid swimmer and reader, Ann has a son who is an officer in the Marines. Heart Wounds and Other Crimes is her first novel. She is at work on the sequel to Heart Wounds and a collection of short stories.