About Drawn from Life:
A life-changing tragedy. Conflicting memories. Is she a killer or a victim?
Emma Gillen is haunted by guilt. Almost a decade after surviving a deadly car crash on a remote Appalachian mountain, she’s held hostage by long-term damage to her body and no recollection of that tragic event. Then her volatile cousin Lucy—a possible witness to the crash—returns, needing money and bringing chaos. Emma must decide if she should bargain with the beautiful, untrustworthy Lucy to uncover their shared past.
All bargains carry risk. As Lucy grows more desperate and greedy, Emma suspects there’s more at stake than just money. Struggling with shame, night terrors, and her own unreliable memory, Emma accepts help from a compassionate detective. But the choice remains hers alone. Can Emma find the strength to free herself from her cousin’s destructive power, or will Lucy bring everything crashing down?
With vivid characters, dark themes, and a high-stakes mystery, Drawn from Life is a riveting psychological thriller and a compelling tale of a young woman’s resilience, redemption, and courage.
Buy the book:
Author Bio:
In her fiction, Sarah P. Blanchard writes about conflicted people making difficult decisions in impossible situations, sometimes with good outcomes. She’s especially drawn to flawed, compassionate characters who believe they must battle their demons alone, and complex antagonists who feel they have nothing to lose.
New England-born and raised, Sarah earned her B.A. in English literature from the University of Connecticut and an M.B.A. from Nichols College in Massachusetts. After moving to Hawaii in 2003, she taught English, writing, and business at the University of Hawaii-Hilo and Hawaii Community College. A move back to the mainland in 2010 brought her to Raleigh, NC, and then the western North Carolina mountains where she taught two semesters of fiction writing in UNC-Asheville’s OLLI Program (College for Seniors).
Her poems and short stories have appeared in several publications, and she was a finalist for the 2021 Doris Betts Fiction Prize. Her short story collection PLAYING CHESS WITH BULLS was published in December 2023 and her debut novel DRAWN FROM LIFE was released in Spring 2024. She is also the author/co-author of three books on horse training.
She and her husband Rich split their time between North Carolina and Connecticut, where she enjoys gardening and riding the trails with her horse, Cody.