Ashes in the Rose Garden

Description

John Fletcher was determined to show everyone that he was a better man than the poverty of his youth and, in his mind, monetary success was the only way to prove it. Returning from the trenches of World War I carrying the scars of the horrors of war, the “Dear John” letter from his ex-fiancé, and a hard and bitter attitude toward life, he set out to turn his meager savings into a fortune. 

Emma Williams, who had loved him from afar, captures him and they marry and have a son; however, the marriage is far from the loving relationship of her dreams. 

Although he finds financial success, he stands to lose everything because of Leona Watkins Miller, his former fiancé, and births a family feud that lasts for generations and attempts to destroy all who are caught in its web.

The emotional rollercoaster of the story follows a bitter young man who loves only what he does not have to the graveside of his wife whom he has come to love more than life itself. 

John Fletcher’s story ties several families in a web of deceit where greed and lusts empowers people to control, manipulate, and destroy others to attain their goals. It is the manifestations of what the Bible describes as ‘the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life’, building like the pressure of a volcano until it erupts.

Ashes in the Rose Garden is the story of love overcoming bitterness and the lust of money and its power encountering reality in a collision of strong wills, immorality, faith, and the power of prayer. Along the way, people’s lives are affected; crimes are committed; The Great Depression strangles the world; two world wars are fought, and strong faith becomes the bond that keeps it all together during the severe storms of life.

Ashes in the Rose Garden is the first story in the series Deception by Proxy that follows a host of characters in the fictional small North Georgia town of Carson City, encompassing several generations and the secrets that linger in the shadows, and where skeletons find their way into the already crowded closets.