The Sophia Secrets

The Sophia Secrets
A magical realism novel

Writer Anne Demaree escapes an unhappy life in New Mexico when she moves to a bungalow by the sea in Southwest Harbor, Maine. With a sense of urgency, she escalates her elder years quest, a final search for meaning.
Before she settles down in Maine, she and a friend take off on a two-week trip to a Kali Temple in India. Shaken to the core by her experience, Anne is determined to dig into the essence of this controversial Hindu deity. She must align with somebody or something as least as powerful as her uncontrollable anger, so she can heal.

Anne neglects to take into account that you do not ask for Kali's help without accepting the consequences. Kali is, after all, the goddess of transformation. One stormy morning on a trail by the sea, Anne stumbles upon a mysterious old woman who tells Anne she must follow her, because Anne is running out of time.

Is the old woman real? Anne asks around, but no one has heard of her. Nevertheless, the old woman keeps showing up in the most unusual places and times, telling poignant stories, delivering exotic experiences, and sometimes with accompanying visions of goddesses.

Meanwhile, Anne has found a tender love interest in Adam Waterfield, a retired philosophy professor and Cranberry Island native. A crisis with Adam's drug-troubled grandson soon finds Anne at dead center of the turmoil.

Falling in love and helping a teen boy were not part of Anne's plan. Will these two throw her completely off track or be somehow vital to her elder journey?

"I didn't want it to end."
- Rosalie Kell, Graphic Artist