Sunday, January 27, 2013

At What Price? by P.A. Estelle



Katherine Gardner is awakened at 6:30 in the morning by a call from a strange woman who claims to have her granddaughter, Rio. This woman is calling the police if Katherine doesn’t make arrangements for somebody to pick up this little girl.

Katherine is a fifty-six year old woman and all alone since her husband died over three years ago. Her life takes a dramatic turn when six-year old Rio comes to stay with her. Rio is a scared little girl whose life is filled with uncertainty and fear.

In her grandmother, Rio finds a safe haven and an unconditional love that she has never known in her six short years, and Katherine has found a love to fill the void that has been absent for way too long.


I bought this book because of a mediocre review the author received.  I wanted to see for myself why the reviewer so hated Katherine’s daughter.  The reviewer obviously has never dealt with an addict.  The disease of addiction runs in my family.  My mother was an alcoholic, my sister is a recovering alcoholic, I’m a recovering food addict, and my daughter was addicted to meth.  The Coles County, Illinois Sherriff’s Department saved her life when they busted her.  She lost custody of her children to her ex-husband who, frankly, got her hooked on drugs and has only gotten clean and sober within the last couple of years.  I’m happy to report that my daughter has been clean for over a decade and is a wonderful mother.  It hurt me to leave her sitting in jail when they busted her, but even if I had the money to help her, I would not have done so.  By that time, I’d spent enough years in Twelve Step Programs to know she had to stay there for her own good.

At What Price? is the story of a mother who did not have the kind of support group or experience with addiction I had when she had to deal with her daughter, Lacey’s disease.  Nor did Lacey go straight when she finally got busted.  Lacey had reached the point in her disease where the drugs meant more to her than even her child.  And Rio knew that.  Rio also knew how much her grandmother, Katherine loved her.  This is a very short, powerful story of love, addiction, how it can ravage part of a family, and forge another part.

I suggest you read At What Price?  And keep in mind that Lacey is a very sick girl who could get well.  My mother died of the disease of alcoholism.  My sister has thirty years of sobriety, I’m coming up on three years of abstinence, and my daughter has over a decade clean.  I’m lucky.  It’s heartbreaking to watch your child struggle with this disease.  But it’s wonderful to watch her recover.

Length:  37 Pages
Price:  $0.99


You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their royalties from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

2 comments:

  1. So sad when young people hand over their lives to any kind of addiction.

    Nice review.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks so much for this wonderful review, Rochelle. I appreciate it very much!

    Penny Estelle

    ReplyDelete