Stone House Shadows

About the Book

Synopsis of Stone House Shadows! Stone House Shadows! 131,000 words, by Kevin Sloan, is a literary drama featuring the lives of John Lucas and Anita Adams, in love with each other since high school, but from entirely different social backgrounds. John goes to Harvard and graduates with a prestigious law degree, and Anita goes to the University of Kentucky, graduating with a teaching degree. Each returns to their native home town. John joins his father’s law firm, an important statewide proponent of the Republican Party, and overhears a conversation incriminating his father in a jury rigging scheme with two questionable characters. Suddenly, all of the values he has taken for granted fall around him like a house of cards and he changes his focus from elitism to empathy for the downtrodden in life. Anita returns to become a high school teacher. She becomes involved with John, who meets her parents, lower middle class members of society, whose decency is impressive. The two thugs involved with John’s father, Stanford Lucas, learn of John’s awareness of their scheme and decide to intimidate John by assaulting Anita’s parents. Anita’s father is stabbed by one of the assailants and Anita blames John for keeping quiet about his father’s dishonesty. John is torn by his shattered vision of his father’s activities and his love for Anita. Meanwhile, the two perpetrators who have assaulted Anita’s parents escape capture. They are pursued by authorities, both locally and statewide. The leader of the pursuit locally is a corrupt Lieutenant, who, after Anita’s parents are killed, becomes obsessed with prosecuting Stanford Lucas for his alleged role in their murder. Stanford Lucas’ suicide, combined with the death of John’s law partner, sends him into a swirling spin of despair, leading him to be submerged in alcoholism. Although John is not true to her, Anita remains committed to him, despite the emergence of romantic rivals in his life. John’s temporary weakness of character threatens not only his involvement with Anita, but his personal future. After a dramatic encounter with his enemies, John cowers in the shadows of the stone house where he was raised. The house looms as a symbol of his life and serves as a background for the dramatic conclusion of the novel. Despite their difficulties, John and Anita reconcile and proceed with their lives, trying to assist those less fortunate in society.

About the Author

Kevin Sloan was born in Bristol, Virginia and spent most of his young life in Ashland, Kentucky. He graduated from Boyd County High School in 1961, the University of Kentucky in 1965 with a Bachelor’s Degree, and Morehead State University in 1968, with a Master’s Degree. He taught in the Boyd County school system for five years. He was hired as a UniServ Director by the Kentucky Education Association and began his UniServ career on September 15, 1970. He was located in eastern Kentucky for sixteen years and in western Kentucky for thirteen years. When he retired from K.E.A. on September 30, 1999, he accepted employment as a UniServ Director by the North Carolina Association of Educators and began on October 15, 1999. He stayed in N.C.A.E.’s employment until he retired on October 1, 2005. Over his thirty-five year career, he defended and advanced the cause of educators. He currently divides his time between his homes in North Carolina and Kentucky, living with his wife, Connie, and son, Michael and writes both fiction and non-fiction books. He has two daughters, Heather and Tiffany, who currently reside in Kentucky. In addition to his children, he has two grandchildren, Eli and Ethan.