"My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a dead man&;s child, she accepted."Thus begins this riveting story of a woman's quest to understand her recently deceased mother, a glamorous, cruel narcissist who left her only child, Elsie, an inheritance of debts and mysteries. While coping with threats that she suspects are coming from the cult-like spiritual program her mother belonged to, Elsie works to unravel the message her dying mother left for her, a quest that ultimately takes her to the South African family homestead she never knew existed.Gina Sorell is a writer, actor, and creative director who was born in South Africa and now lives in Toronto with her family. After two decades as a working actor, including ten years in L.A., she returned to her first love, writing, graduating with distinction from the UCLA Extension Writers&; Program. Gina pairs her novel writing with her work as the creative director of Eat My Words, a San Francisco–based branding firm. This is her first novel. Read Less