From the Chrysalis (Devereux Cousins Series)

Part love story, part prison break, "From the Chrysalis" is a fictionalized account of the deadliest event in Canadian penal history, the Kingston Penitentiary Riot of April 1971. It is also a love story between cousins.

Liza's bad-boy cousin, the handsome, magnetic D’Arcy “Dace” Devereux is nothing but trouble. Falling in love with him can only make things worse. Especially for a girl who knows more about books and monarch butterflies than she does men.

The cousins’ mutual infatuation flares into an obsession long before Liza is out of her teens. Even when Dace is arrested and sent to jail, their feelings don't change.

When she’s old enough, Liza enrolls in a local university to be closer to him, but a prison riot breaks out and Dace is forced to make decisions that will jeopardize both their relationship and his life. He's always been loyal to his old buddies—too loyal some say.

The cousins spend one wonderful summer together when he's briefly paroled, but Dace is still drawn to trouble like the monarchs down to Mexico.

In the end, nobody—not the biker gangs, the authorities or Dace's own demons—is going to let him go. The only way they can both break out and fly free is if Liza walks away. But how can she leave him when he has become her whole life?

"From the Chrysalis" is a taut novel of romance and survival against all odds,set in the shifting political and moral background of the early seventies.

Review Highlights:

"...courtroom scenes are so well written, I thought I was reading a John Grisham novel but without half the tediousness of his long drawn out court battles. The sexual scenes are also beautifully done, a real part of the plot, not woven in to titillate the reader." Book lover "Elsee" (Malvern, UK)

"..this is an eloquently crafted tale about love, guilt, and human resilience." Ben Avery

"Both Liza and Dace are haunted by the decisions that they made in their youth- his a charge resulting in a jail term, and hers a relationship with an older man which results in a heartbreaking decision." Nadia

"I fell in love with the character of Dace (during the prison riot). His perseverance and resilience, whether making good or bad decisions, can't be matched." Francine1898

"The author is a woman but she really nailed it in portraying a desperate man, driven both by his violent circumstances and his desperate need for his girl, Liza. But as much as I liked him, it was Liza I really cared about..." Goalie

"I would have loved to have more about the two characters and their relationship....how they rationalized the fact that they were first cousins..."
K. Kendall (California)

"...a meditation on obsessive love,free choice and fitful fate. "From the Chrysalis" asks us to consider how much of life is the result of choices we've made,and how much is determined by circumstances beyond our control." Joseph A.