Böcker av Patricia Watts

Everyone knew that Roanne never got angry-until the night she killed her ex-husband and herself. Roanne, a nice, suburban lady in her sixties who works at a Hallmark shop and volunteers at the Food Bank in Round Rock, Texas, calls her lifelong friend, Connie, confesses to murder, then puts the gun to her own head. Connie, spurred by Roanne's last words about a lifetime of unspoken rage, sets aside her work as a cozy mystery writer and cupcake shop owner to confront the men who have stolen her dignity while she remained silent, including a bully brother, a rapist, and an ex-spouse. On a journey to reclaim her inner power and to make peace with the loss of her treasured friend, Connie's mission is to avoid the same tragic path as Roanne, but she takes along a gun, just in case.Paper Targets, by Patricia Watts, calls us to speak our own narratives, even when it is uncomfortable or risky, and shows us the magnificence of a friendship that transcends time.

In 1991, Julia Wilkes, a zealous young reporter, covered the murder of a teenage girl in Fairbanks, Alaska. Julia's stories relentlessly linked the girl's boyfriend, Josh Harrison, to the crime-up to the day that the basketball star shot himself in the head. Twenty years later, Julia, now a Seattle journalism professor and syndicated columnist, comes back to Fairbanks on a sabbatical just in time to hear about a serial killer's confession to the long-ago slaying. With Josh exonerated, Julia is haunted by whether her stories pushed him to end his life-and when a stalker begins to make attempts on her life, the stakes grow even higher. Suspects and motives abound: Julia's enraged a pro-life group with a recent column; she's drawn a jealous woman's wrath; she's unintentionally drawn the attention of a demented homeless person; and there's always the possibility that someone from her past has come to collect vengeance for Josh's death. While Julia dodges danger, she pursues love and red-hot passion with R.L., a local business owner who carries his own guilt for Josh's death. The longer she stays in Fairbanks, the more things escalate-until they come to a head in a final, fiery showdown.