Safekeeping

Radley was in Haiti volunteering in an orphanage when things broke down in America.  It didn't take long the American People's Party took over that the riots began.  Now the president has been assassinated, and Radley can't contact her parents.

She leaves Haiti believing they will get her message and meet her at the airport, but they don't.  She has no money; no one will take her credit card, and no one is answering the phone at home.  So she starts walking.

This is the beginning of a journey that will take Radley across miles and into her own memories.  In her quest to be reunited with her family, she will make new friends and discover new levels of deceit and violence.

Through it all, she will learn what it means to shelter and protect in a world gone mad.

Karen Hesse's new novel is supplemented by over ninety of her own photographs.  This is a fascinating but difficult novel to read in that the author presents a world that has lost all sense of law and order with just a political push.  But it is also a beautiful novel that reveals the power of friendship and compassion in spite of the chaos.