If someone you love was assaulted, abused, or was a victim of a crime, you are a secondary victim. If the perpetrator is also someone you love, there are no words.

Madeline and Summer are more than best friends. They might as well be sisters; they’ve claimed the title anyway — and sisters tell each other everything. But Summer has a secret she’s been hiding for years. Someone’s been hurting her, someone close, and when it comes out, it destroys everything around her with the force of dying stars.

Dianne C. Braley is a multi-award-winning author and nurse who grew up in the inner city, where survival was its own education. She was a former nurse to literary icon William Styron, from whom she drew inspiration for her debut, The Silence in the Sound. Her follow-up, The Summer Before, earned acclaim for its emotional depth. She lives north of Boston with her spirited crew of humans and animals and spends summers on Martha’s Vineyard, where the island’s beauty continues to inspire her work.

Dianne C. Braley