Books in the Sophia Werniczewski Thriller series

An all-consuming passion and an unforgettable past. Time's Hostage is a psychologically suspenseful tale of betrayal and revenge, madness and murder, and secrets and sins. Sophia Werniczewski, unable to drive due to her epilepsy, is a psychotherapist living and working in South Beach, a haven for the eccentric, unacceptable, and unruly. She inhabits a circumscribed world, surrounded by her narcissistic husband, an elusive daughter from a disastrous first marriage, and a few close friends. When betrayal blindsides her, she runs to an electrifying stranger, who is eagerly chasing her. A legacy of silence handed down from her parents, who were Holocaust survivors, has shaped her. She is curious, suspicious, and self-destructive. Her vulnerability draws her into a world of darkness when her husband's erstwhile lover becomes his stalker, her snooping reveals her daughter is not all that she seems, and an inadvertent discovery uncovers her mother's shocking past, driven by primitive urges for survival. A past, Sophia would rather not have unveiled. As she grows closer to her addictive, unscrupulous lover and the passion consumes her, she remains oblivious to red flags. Will Sophia salvage her sundered serenity or sink under the weight of the chaos that has become her life? Discontent, danger, and the tragic past burden her. Time's Hostage is a sexy, complex nail-biter about how precarious and fragile life can become in a heartbeat.

A capricious affair and a poisonous past.When Sophia, a South Beach psychotherapist, decides to give up her lucrative second profession, she upsets her equilibrium. She has been catering to the sexual needs of the Mamma's Boys of Miami Beach since her husband's murder two years ago, when he left her destitute. Now she is rolling in money but depleted in spirit. She meets Maria, a magnetic woman who draws her into an unprecedented affair. An affair characterized by unpredictability, danger, and instability. Sophia is hooked.Sophia's life is further complicated by her parents, Holocaust survivors who keep stumm about their past. Divorced in their sixties, living in the same ramshackle apartment building on the beach, and leaning on Sophia heavily, her parents make Sophia feel she is the parent and their roles are reversed. Ada, her mother, is enthralled with her decades-younger, gay boyfriend, Rudy while Max, her father is infatuated with the flirtatious histrionic Mathilde, a fellow survivor. Sophia is not so sure Rudy and Mathilde aren't malignant forces in her parents' lives.While Maria is becoming more and more enmeshed in Sophia's life, Sophia meets a man who becomes her new love interest. Will Maria give her up without a struggle?Time's Harlot, set in 1999, fifteen years prior to Time's Hostage, elucidates Sophia's paradoxical self-destructive and caregiving nature, two warring forces within her, often causing her to ride a roller coaster of battling emotions. Her caring can deplete her and become a ruinous force. Will she disentangle herself from Maria and her parents' emotional hornet's nests? Can a self-defeating caregiver begin to care for herself? Life is full of surprises.