Margie Miklas

Seventeen-year-old Anna, the ninth child of ten, has returned home after three months in a locked psych ward on the fifth floor of Advocate Hospital. Together with her parents and siblings, Anna struggles to improve when she is immersed in her family’s inability to discuss the tragedy that occurred ten years ago. Though Anna continues therapy with her psychiatrist Dr. Ellison, her bad situation worsens when she returns to high school. Ashamed of her failures and the sheer apathy she feels from others, Anna is forced into making rash decisions as she contemplates the worst.

When a jailbreak at Steve’s prison threatens her safety, Kelly is drawn once again to solving the mystery of what made her ex-husband derail in the first place. When Kelly finds out one of her close family members may have been involved in Steve’s fraudulent money schemes, Kelly begins to doubt everyone around her. Did she trust the wrong people? Is Steve coming back to get his revenge on Kelly? Featuring an interesting heroine who is determined to make a new start, Take the Donut is a cozy mystery that centers on temptation, family drama, greed, and sweet revenge.

Seven-year-old Anna was smiling when she was given the news. It’s not that she misunderstood what she heard, but her smile froze as her brain stopped thinking and her breathing slowed. To her older sister Frances, Anna’s smile looked like one of ignorance and foolishness, but both were misconceptions. Anna’s smile was one of horror. She was the reason Liz would not be returning home.

Have you ever felt like you’re never good enough? Do you feel like everything is your fault? Answering yes to these questions displays the awful side effects of narcissistic abuse. It’s these side effects that hold us back in life, keeping us frozen and insecure. As a therapist and a survivor of abuse myself, I know how you feel. I see you. The good news is that you can overcome limiting and toxic beliefs that were instilled by narcissists.

Just like you, I am not immune to Big Business Technologies. There are sophisticated, algorithmic means of why you and I are addicted. The problem is not in the degrading of us into political factions, or how we seem to waste more and more of our time online. They are problems, sure, but they are symptoms from the deeper disease. This book puts the illness out in the limelight, exposes what the Big Business Technologies won’t show you, and helps us arrive at practical solutions to make our lives and nations better.