Okay. Here goes.

I'm trying to be disciplined. I am trying to write more and quite possibly finish my novel. Particularly this one.

I feel very strongly about this book and the characters and the plot but I'm having problems with it. I'm not so good with descriptions but I have always been very strong with dialouge. Anyway, the plot is that, on the night of her high school graduation, the heroine is raped by her boyfriend and his two best friends. She leaves town and later finds out that she is pregnant. For over 15 years, she has been hiding, refusing to return to her home town and run the risk of running into these men again. However, her father's illness forces her to confront her demons.

She goes home, decides to stay and opens up a book store in the town. At the time, her 3 assailants are not in town but they return shortly after. They are very threatened to discover that she has returned and also has a child. She starts receiving death threats.

After a public confrontation with her former boyfriend, he is murdered. It is discovered that he had changed his will to acknowledge True's daughter as his own and left money to both True and Cleo. True becomes a suspect. Proving herself innocent and protecting her daughter from the real killer becomes very dangerous.

Here is the prologue. Let me know what you think.

............................................................Prologue

I had the dream again last night. It’s always the same.

It’s dark and I am running, running as fast as I can through the woods of my childhood. Except this time, it’s not the carefree frolic it once was, where I ran like the wind with my friends. This time I am running for my life.

Although my heart is pounding loud enough to drown out all other sounds, I can still hear them, calling my name, threatening and cajoling both. My heartbeat is rapid, beating out a rhythm of fear and pain.

I hear someone weeping, someone praying to God, and then realize that the gasping pleas are being torn out of my chest and into the air. I stop myself, afraid the devils chasing me may hear. If God is listening, there is no sign.

I am terrified, bleeding and broken and ready to collapse. But I keep pushing on. I don’t know how far I run. How far I go that night, every night in my dreams. I stumble on, looking away from the lights bouncing through the trees. I know that if the flashlight beams fall on me, it will be the end. The end of everything I’ve ever loved or hated, everything I’ve ever believed or doubted.

A rock rises out of the ground, out of nowhere, and I trip over it. I fall, tumbling down a small hill, skidding across the ground. I want to give up, to just lie there and await my fate. For a moment, an hour it seems, I simply lie there, staring up at the full moon, looking for an answer as to why this is happening to me. The man in the moon simply smiles down at me.

And then I no longer see the laughing face my father once pointed out to me. The moon is blacked out suddenly, replaced by a dark figure that leans over me. I do not know if it is friend or foe until the figure takes its flashlight and shines it under his face, highlighting him from underneath, becoming a nightmare. I recognize him as one of my attackers, as one who, until 2 hours ago, I considered a friend. Now I am terrified as he reaches a hand down, as if he was going to pull me to my feet, as if he was still my friend and not the monster that chased me through the woods, laughing when I screamed for help.

He leans over me and smiles. “Boo,” he says softly.

I cannot help it. I know this time he won’t let me go, this time he’ll follow through with his threats and kill me. I open my mouth and scream as loudly as possible, hoping that someone, anyone will hear me.