Silent Scream

Overview: Maria Rachel Hooley has been featured in numerous publications such as Green Hills Literary Lantern, Westview, and Kimera. She has written over thirty novels in numerous genres. Her first chapbook of poetry, A Different Song, was published by Rose Rock Press in 1999. She is a high school teacher and lives in Oklahoma with husband and three children, one of whom is on the autism spectrum. She is an advocate for education about autism. When Matt McKarey left McKarey's Bluff, Texas, after the woman he loved, Ariel Morgan, refused to marry him, he never planned to return. Yet ten years later, Ariel is dead supposedly by her own hand, and her younger sister, and Matt's close friend, Rachel, is spiraling toward the same fate. He returns back to a small town haunted by more than Ariel's death, and Matt is immediately sucked into the mystery as he begins to hallucinate. Or does he? He has returned to save Rachel, but as the days press on, he's not even sure he can save himself.