Nine Bucks and Change

Description - Nine Bucks and Change Navigating life without a seeming wrinkle is ideal but impossible, for change will come, ready or not. Sheila Jenkins discovers that truth, as does her mother, Sara, in Nine Bucks and Change, a contemporary novel that casts the two into a tangled web of events that throws them into unexpected and uncharted territories. They are not alone, however. A plethora of folks - friends, family, and strangers, alike - enter into and exit their lives just when they least expect it, and the ramifications of those interactions leave all of them pondering the very essence of change and its fickle impact. Integral to the story are two unsavory characters who, although opposites in looks, upbringing, and status, are ironically very much the same, for theirs is a mission for power and control at any cost. Gregory Blackstone, an esteemed doctor and secret psychopath, and Bull Walston, a street-wise thug, wreak havoc on the lives of people who are simply attempting to get by in and around Nashville, Tennessee. The two men victimize Sheila, her family, her friends, and complete strangers; some succumb to their domination while others rise above. Nine Bucks and Change offers the reader an insight into the mindset of individuals who slip, almost unwittingly, into a warped need for power and control but paradoxically fall prey to their own misguided intentions. It also reminds the reader that one's ability to choose, to respond, or even to reject life's contradictions, is indeed, a gift.

About the Author Judith DeChesere-Boyle was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky and with the exception of living for three years both in England and Texas, was raised there. She first attended the University of Kentucky, and then moved to California, graduating from College of Marin with an AA degree in English with a Creative Writing emphasis and San Francisco State University with a BA degree in English. She attended Sonoma State University, earning two teaching credentials and an MA in Education. She taught English at the secondary level, retiring early enough to pursue her love of writing more seriously. She has raised two wonderful sons, and now lives in Sonoma County, California with her husband, Rick. Besides writing, she reads avidly, gardens, adores her three grandchildren, and walks her two German shepherds three miles a day. She dotes on her one-eyed cat and enjoys tending the family’s pond full of koi.