Silent Signals — Alice A. Moerk

New Found Souls are novels of survival and renewal. They mark turning points in the lives of individuals forced to come to grips with unseemly realities, who must redefine themselves. No one understands the Silent Signals Ross Bellman is sending. His sister, Amanda, responds, but too late. She is suddenly thrust from the focus of her hectic life in New York City into the abuse and theatrics of small college academia and the politics and insularity of rural Appalachia. Amanda Bellman copes with tragedy every day as director of a shelter for battered wives and their families. She missed her brother, Ross' phone call minutes before his suicide. Heartsick, she flies from New York to the small West Virginia college town to contend with the forces that ultimately led to the young boy's despair. Silent Signals, part 2 of the quintet New Found Souls, deals with Amanda's own survival as she fights the politics and biases of a small school, a small town, and the small people who inhabit it-including her own family.