WHERE ARE THE WOMEN

by Remick, Mary Kay

Desperate for a job, Marcie Parker, a divorced mother of two with a stack of unpaid bills, is thrilled when hired as the director of a halfway house for recovering alcoholic women. Then she meets the housemother. Deborah is a perfectly formed, beautiful dwarf who dislikes Marcie on the spot and sets out to make her life miserable. Nevertheless, Marcie goes about her business and soon the house is peopled with a mixed bag of women: Pearl, the uneducated country woman with a world of common sense; Veronica, a flamboyant actress always ready with a wisecrack; Missy, whose evangelical father disowned her because she left her promised husband -- neither man know she's gay; Phyllis, a homemaker who drowned her empty nest in whiskey; Cassie, the homeless dropout who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder; Clara, a one-armed woman who started seeing the bootlegger when she lost her job due to her work-related injury; and Georgia Lu, a coarse giant of a woman who has been in one too many drunken car wrecks.
Never, not for one moment, does Marcie fear for her life, but a psychotic killer lurks among them. It finally takes getting on Deborah's good side to find out who.

353 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

Reviews

[Mary Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel took many years to take cohesive form. Twenty years ago, when I first started writing it, my critique group said the characters were one-dimensional, the main character was weak, and the ending was too dramatic to be believed. They were right. I set it on a shelf and wrote three other novels. But this one kept nagging at me and I knew I had to try it again. And I believe I got it right this time.

Desperate for a job, Marcie Parker, a divorced mother of two with a stack of unpaid bills, is thrilled when hired as the director of a halfway house for recovering alcoholic women. Then she meets the housemother. Deborah is a beautiful, perfectly formed dwarf who dislikes Marcie on the spot and set out to make her life miserable.
But Marcie goes about her business and soon the house is filled with a mixed bag of women: Pearl, the uneducated country woman with a world of common sense; Veronica, a flamboyant actress always ready with a wisecrack; Missy, whose evangelical father disowned her because she left her husband -- neither man knows she's gay; Phyllis, a homemaker who drowns her empty nest in whiskey; Cassie, a homeless dropout who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder; Clara, a one-armed woman who started seeing the bootlegger when she was let go from the mill due to her work-related injury; and Georgia Lu, a coarse giant of a woman who has been in one too many drunken car wrecks.

Religion in one form or another has affected most of the women's lives, including Marcie's. Enter Pastor Jacob Horner who, much to Marcie's dismay, plans to hold a spiritual enrichment group one day a
week. As a welcome distraction, an unexpected romance blooms between Marcie and her boss's assistant, Roger McCandliss.

Never, not for one moment, does Marcie fear for her life. But a psychotic killer lurks among them. It takes finally getting on the housemother's good side to find out who.

[R.W. Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

When divorcee Marcie Parker took the director's job at Port Victor, a woman's halfway house, she didn't realize all she would be up against. She knew she would have to establish a new rehabilitation program, fill the house with clients, and earn the trust of her employer, Sarah Fleming-Thornton. What Marcie didn't know was, she would uncover a psychotic killer and four murdered women, and fall in love again. Remick does a marvelous job developing each character into a tale, spun with intrigue, mystery, and suspense.