The Newest Novel by Deborah Donaldson
A Forest Encounter
A Mystery Romance
Two young women meet because of a murder in a National Park in West Virginia. Despite their different backgrounds, they form an intimate emotional bond as they deal with the wilderness tragedy. While serving justice is a compelling motivator for them, both women must confront their isolation and face difficult tests: how to find the courage to move forward in their lives and overcome the fear of risking love.
Deborah Donaldson’s Debut Novel
Second Chances
A Mystery Romance
Two women meet in college, fall in love, and break up, leaving behind a wake of unresolved feelings of fear, anger, and guilt. Ten years later, when they are both professors, they meet again at an Atlanta university. While trying to solve the riddle of a student’s mysterious suicide, they confront misogyny, contentious academic politics, and their own complicated pasts.
Dealing with many of the challenges facing America in the late 1970s and 80s, Second Chances anticipates today’s social and political struggles while telling a story of forgiveness and second chance love.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards
FINALIST
Deborah Donaldson
Publishing under a pen name, the exciting new author Deborah Donaldson spent her childhood in a small midwestern farm community in Illinois. A licensed psychologist, she has taught at several universities and kept a successful private practice for the last 30 years. Early in her career, working with states attorneys, public defenders, and private attorneys, she performed forensic evaluations of mentally disordered sex offenders and men adjudicated as incompetent to stand trial.
Second Chances, Deborah’s first novel, is in part based on those experiences.
Deborah Donaldson’s debut novel has all the elements of a best seller. This thriller combines murder, betrayal, intimidation, duplicity, rage, and more, but it’s also an intense love story, an intricate dance of characters with plenty of quirks, mental disorders, and emotional baggage. I was impressed with the author’s in-depth knowledge of psychology that allowed her to deftly weave this complex story.
– Michael Sisti, International Award-winning Author