Twilight Comes by Lin Holmes

It's a typical day in Mick's life. A successful stockbroker, he battles the morning traffic, the zip of numbers across the exchange banner while making fortunes grow for his clients, and the pounding after-images continue to haunt his brain as he drives home. This is his well ordered work life.

His home life? Secrets percolate behind closed doors...dangerous secrets...secrets that are about to tip over.

Will Mick survive the explosion about to blow the lid off his private, seemingly perfect world? Will any of them outlast the approaching turmoil and the world finally looking in and seeing the truth behind their closed doors? Or will death and destruction be the ultimate penalty for their secrets revealed?

Excerpt:

 

And lastly is the oops member of the family. Diana is only six. She was not supposed to be. Mother had religiously taken her birth control, but Diana happened.—Mother only marginally adheres to the preaching of the Church.—A first grader, she is truly the apple of all of our eyes. In some ways, Diana represented my Mother’s greatest accomplishment. None of her friends had managed to conceive a child that close to menopause, and while taking The Pill. Diana raised Mother to the status of one upon whom a miracle was created. That’s heady stuff, dontcha know?

This is a serious story, not for the faint of heart.  As Mick says, “This family puts the ‘dis’ in dysfunction.”  Only nineteen pages long, it is a blessedly short read.  If you’re looking for a happy, feel-good story, this is not for you.  If you’re looking for a powerful story that will leave you stunned and gasping for air, then by all means, here you are.  If you’re a fan of programs that profile criminals and explain how they got that way, you will enjoy this read.