Fracture

“Fracture is a powerful, gripping tale of friendship and the sanctity of life. A page-turner, it offers topics for much contemplation—as well as a well-written and suspense-filled plot.”

Seventeen-year-old Delaney Maxwell always hangs out with her best friend, next-door neighbor, Decker Phillips. One day they plan to meet some friends at Falcon Lake, and rather than trudge around the perimeter, they decide to walk across it. This is Maine, and the lake is always frozen in December.

Delaney collides into Decker and tumbles. He helps her up then races on ahead. Stranded in the middle, she slips again and hears a snap, thinking she broke something. The ice gives way and before realizing what is happening, she is sucked into the icy morass below.

Down she plummets, her quilted jacket adding weight to her frame. Intense pain commences, then numbness. All Delaney can contemplate before passing out is that she does not want to die. When she is finally rescued, she has been immersed in the frigid water for 11 minutes.

Delaney awakens in a hospital bed, tethered to tubes and wires. Her pain is intense, and she cannot believe she has been hospitalized and in a coma for six long days. Six days, and her prognosis had shown little chance of survival—and a prediction that she would remain in a vegetative state.

Delaney recovers, surprising everyone. The residual effects are only bruises, abrasions, and cracked ribs. Her brain scan shows some damage, and though she admits she is fine, she wonders how someone could not have adverse reactions after being submersed underwater for eleven minutes.

One night while lying in her hospital bed, Delaney insists a man entered her room with the intent to hurt her. They find her IV tube removed and a long gash on her arm needing stitches. Her mom swears she would not harm herself, though the doctors believe this was her own actions and due to brain damage.

Delaney starts to experience strange feelings before she is released from the hospital. Her brain begins to itch. Her body feels like it is being pulled from the inside out. A strong sensation draws her to the room of another patient—a patient Delaney realizes is about to die. What is wrong with her that causes her to sense someone death?

Nineteen-year-old Troy Varga, a young man who recently emerged from a coma after an automobile accident that took the lives of his parents and his sister, introduces himself to Delaney. When she finds they share the same ability to sense someone’s impending death, she is relieved to be acquainted with someone who understands what she is going through. She no longer sees herself as normal, especially among her friends, and she is sad when her relationship with Decker changes. Hoping she and Troy can share their experiences, she soon learns Troy is not who he seems to be.

Fracture is a powerful, gripping tale of friendship and the sanctity of life. A page-turner, it offers topics for much contemplation—as well as a well-written and suspense-filled plot.