The House on Sunset
By- Lindsay Fischer
Genre- Memoir/Women’s Fiction
Lindsay Fischer was once a high school English teacher with dreams stretching far outside the classroom. When her boyfriend of a year-and-a-half cheated on her, Lindsay found herself alone, looking online for a replacement. His name was Mike.
That’s where the nightmare started.
The House on Sunset is a memoir, a collection of reminiscences, scattering the ashes of two broken homes and putting them to rest. Each chapter offers a different glimpse inside the cycle of intimate partner violence, where honeymoon phases and traumas coexist.
Everyone could fall victim to abusers. This book bravely displays the reasons a quirky, twenty-something teacher would, and did.
Mel's Review-
I can't say I enjoyed this book so much as I feel I survived it. It was beautifully written but this is someone's real life horror story. And that's not something you can forget while you read about how this amazing woman was broken down into tiny pieces and forced to live under a tyrant who tore her down under the guise of loving her. Honest and gritty, this is a harrowing tale of abuse and survival and one woman's journey to regaining her freedom. I highly recommend it.
My Rating-
And an Excerpt from The House on Sunset-
Escape
My head was leaning against the cold cement floor where I landed. My ankle snapped when he threw me down the basement steps. The pain hadn’t registered yet, but thick blood filled my mouth.
“You’re weak. Try to get up again, ‘Fina,” he said.
I let drips of warm blood spill out of my mouth and down my chin. I wasn’t going to give him a reason to continue beating me. I knew any sound would piss him off more, so I kept quiet and took each blow.
And then something changed. He didn’t need any provocation to kick me again. I coughed up and gagged out more blood, trying to breathe through the pain of being slammed against the wall over and over. The tears fell slow and quiet and I laid paralyzed, breathing in the stink of mold-covered walls. A red pool formed just in front of my chin.
This was the day I was going to die. He was finally going to kill me. I was ready for it to be over, for him to rip away the aching so I could rest, buried in the earth. Maybe the undertaker would dress me in the black riding boots I bought for our second date.
“Do it, little girl. Move. I want to see you crawl.”
I lay there, silent and limp, trying not to tighten muscles.
He kicked me again with his loafer, the winged tip lodging itself under my ribs. “This is why you don’t refuse what I want.”
Even the walls radiated silence, mute witnesses to the attack, unforgiving as I crashed into them. His anger and tone continued to rise; I curled my knees up toward my head and reached out a hand, a sign of surrender.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Don’t worry about talking, okay? I’ll fucking make you squeal.”
He wore his usual jeans and polo, and his athletic frame loomed over my wilted body.
I thought I could stop my own breathing before he beat me unconscious. Then I’d have some power over what was about to happen. But I couldn’t hold my breath long enough to pass out. I couldn’t force myself to erase the last minutes of my life, and that’s when I knew everything he said was true.
I was weak.
I was immature and worthless.
I deserved the pain and suffering.
“You disgust me, bitch. You think you’re so special. Thinking about the time I wasted with you – with a fucking whore – makes me want to kill you. You’ve ruined my life, so I think it’s only fair you repay the debt.”
Those were the only words I heard, but I knew he said more. He didn’t know how to stop. “I’ll make you squeal,” he said again, clutching my throat with his calloused right hand.
I didn’t need to force myself to sleep now. He was going to choke the life right out of me. In a two-bedroom ranch on Sunset, eighty miles north of where we met a year and a half before.”
About the Author-
Lindsay Fischer graduated from Missouri State University with a Bachelor of Science in secondary education, English. An avid reader and learner, Lindsay took her passion for words into a classroom before starting a writing career. Life pulled her from the classroom, providing an opportunity to use her voice against domestic violence, blogging under the pseudonym, Sarafina Bianco, since 2009. You can find her words at survivorswillbeheard.com and speak directly to her when she hosts #domesticviolencechat on Twitter. Lindsay hopes to be an advocate for women, men and children who still live inside the nightmare of their abuse. She currently lives with her husband and three dogs, including Watson, in St. Louis, Missouri.
Links-
Facebook: www.facebook.com/survivorswillbeheard
Twitter: @LinsFischer
Author Site: survivorswillbeheard.com
Instagram: @lindsaycapo
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