Warren Devere Stephens

Every teenager thinks he or she is the only person in the world going through turbulent, rebellious times. There are awkward social graces, peer pressures, parents who don't care to understand, physical growth, anger, bodily experiments, and oh yes, there are resulting consequences from poor choices.Sixteen-year-old Gerri DeMore faces pressures of growing up and concludes she is abandoned by her parents and cast into life's maze to find her own way. Just when she's vulnerable emotionally, she's torpedoed by unimaginable real-life tragedy. Defenseless, Gerri is smothered by depths of despair and anger. She reacts with sixteen-year-old choices leading down dark paths but thank God she's got friends who step forward: Paulette Guthrie, her neighbor, Daniel Penn, a dreamboat teacher, Len Ferguson, a handsome policeman, and Jake Waltrip, a ringer for James Dean. Gerri's survival hangs in the balance between people she trusts and the wisdom of her tender sixteen years. Can she survive when some of those she trusts circle and close in like hungry hyenas?

In daily life it's not uncommon for people to exhibit an occasional episode of greed, self-indulgence, or immorality. It is very rare to see greed, self-indulgence and amorality combined and in full use in one human package. The Pittman family of Boston and members of their immediate social circle each possess and nourish that entire package of unimaginable, sinister character flaws. Unfaithful Lauren conspires to kill her husband, Phillip. Greedy, bitter Phillip conspires to be rid of his family. Their amoral, narcissistic daughter, Jane Ella, conspires with her mom's boyfriend to kill her mother. At stake is the financial golden egg Phillip created in business and the ultimate goal of possessing all the wealth with no strings attached to anyone. Lauren, Phillip and Jane Ella Pittman, Safari Guide Richard Martin, and attorney Murray Edddleman have enough scar tissue of depravity in their gaping wounds of greed that they are insulated from any tidbit of conscience. They each seek to prove deceit, gross infidelity and crime can and does pay.