Black Frost

About the Book

Nurse Shannon Grady, is working with a distinguished research doctor to develop a procedure allowing the transplant of an early human embryo directly from a woman not wanting the child, to another unable to conceive. Her painful challenge is to accept the first transplant. However, she learns the baby’s father is black, and relives memories of the rape she endured at seventeen, resulting in the birth of a biracial infant placed for adoption.

Another nurse who is black receives the second transplant. Both women must hold this in strict confidence even from their fiances and family for three months in case of the embryos’ rejection. Tempers erupt when they do tell.

Although not an abortion center, anti-abortionists—infiltrated by white supremacists, appear with threats. Threats and vandalism terrorize the center, a young black student is beaten and threatened with death to both him and his white girlfriend, the doctor’s daughter. A snipers bullet kills an infant. Fear encircles all but the focus remains with Shannon who must decide if such terror should prohibit publication of the procedure’s success which was to provide a third choice to women.

About the Author

My earlier short stories appeared in the New York Daily News and in Ingenue as well as in three college quarterlies. Two one act plays won first place from Berkeley Writers and Pomona Valley play contests. My several articles of indepth artist profiles appeared in The Mendocino Beacon. College writing courses and conferences helped.