Publication Date: October 15, 2024
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.
Six years after the trial, Madeline is a haunted young woman trying to build a new life in Boston, but the guilt of her betrayal brings her to the brink of suicide. To let go of the past, Madeline must confront her father, mother, and all those involved with the trial that split her family apart-or continue her descent, finishing what she started to escape it.
For people coping with trauma, sometimes the only way to make it through is to push the pause button.
Author Dianne C. Braley delivers a gut-wrenching tale in The Summer Before. The main character, Maddie, may fall in the category of a secondary victim, but there’s no doubt that her life has been tremendously impacted.
Six years after the trial involving her best friend, Summer, Maddie is teetering on the brink. Fresh off a suicide attempt, she finally faces the past and listens to the tapes from the trial. With the help of her boyfriend and her therapist, Maddie moves toward understanding the truth—and the role her own father played.
Maddie’s character alternates between fragility and strength as she puts the pieces together. Her questions can only be answered by those involved, forcing her to resolve the past in order to move forward.
The Summer Before delves into how trauma shapes relationships as a young woman faces the destruction not only of a strong friendship but also of her family.
A gritty New Englander and city girl at heart, Dianne C. Braley and her family-human, furry, and feathered-are firmly planted in a rural town north of Boston. Dianne is a registered nurse and multi-award-winning author of The Silence in the Sound, her debut novel.
