Book Spotlight: Trees Cry for Rain by Dr. Jeri Fink

It’s August in Bryant Park, New York City. A man with fiery eyes hovers on the edge of a grisly mystery.

Five hundred years earlier, Rozas, a Marrano or Secret Jew, is betrayed. She’s anonymously reported to the Spanish Holy Office of The Inquisition. Dragged into an underground dungeon, Rozas is tortured, forced to “confess” crimes against the church, and convicted of heresy.

The Inquisitors demand that she reveal the fate of her three daughters. She refuses. Rozas is burned alive at the stake; the secret dies with her.

The story jumps seamlessly in time, connecting Rozas, the man with fiery eyes, and characters that amble across Bryant Park’s Great Lawn. Suddenly three women find each other.

Time freezes. The man is ready. Something unthinkable is about to happen.

Read an excerpt!

Spain, 1492

Someone bangs on my door.

A deep, paralyzing fear invades me, numbing my hands and feet,  making my heart race, blurring the images in my mind into bloody streaks. We stare at one another – my husband and three daughters.

We know what it means.

We have been betrayed.

Lucas takes a deep breath and stands away from the table. He’s a big man, with long thin legs and the round belly of middle age. The girls huddle around me, their eyes wide with terror. The meat is ash in my stomach, swelling until it feels like stones splitting me from within.

Lucas squares his shoulders.

“Don’t say anything,” he commands in a whisper.

“Don’t answer it,” I hiss. My arms feel like raw meat, cold and bloodless.

Lucas smiles sadly, his beard shimmering in the dim light. “I have to. We have nowhere to go.”

“They’ll kill us,” the words rip through my throat like the knife that sliced the meat in our bowls.

Slowly, Lucas shakes his head; his dark, green-flecked eyes fill with grief.

“You’re my husband,” I beg. “You have to listen.”

There’s a tiny pause; time jolts to a halt. I hold my breath. Zara, my youngest and most insightful – the one that seems in touch with old spirits – senses that something ominous is approaching. Nine years of life still hasn’t taught her how to contain fear. She cries, soft wails renting the air. I pull her close, rubbing her back, whispering soothing words I don’t feel, and pressing her head into my breast to stifle the sound.

“Nooooo,” I plead, matching the cries of my child.

Lucas gently touches my shoulder, runs his thick, stubby fingers up my neck, and kisses my daughter’s head. “There’s no choice,” he whispers, more to himself than any of us. He backs away from the table, his legs heavy, moving as if in a swamp. Suddenly he pauses and in a moment that lasts a lifetime, Lucas memorizes the sight of us together.

It will be the last time.

New York City, Present

Shira smiled. Bryant Park was like a window in time, moving in its own jagged frames. It was the perfect place to write, to follow Emma and Mason’s bizarre romance, and when needed, look into faces to provide description and dialogue. What did the intruder look like? How did Emma’s fear play on her face? Mason’s arrogance?

She scanned the faces in the park. There was a dark-skinned man with a fashionably ragged red t-shirt printed with Nweke’s Art, selling beaded bracelets and earrings on a pegboard, near the steps on 42nd Street. An old couple sat on the Upper Library Terrace, beneath a green and white umbrella stamped with Bryant Park, and next to a concrete pot of purple flowers. They held hands and watched the world before them, their silver hair shimmering in the summer sun, sharing the terrace with concrete garlands, urns, and ram’s heads.

For a moment their eyes met.

The old couple smiled and Shira quickly turned away, embarrassed.

Maybe she could find a Mason Portsmith look-alike at the park – a man dressed in expensive clothes with a lithe body and hazel eyes that broadcasted insight, caring, and power? Shira smiled.

In my dreams.

Literally. In her thirty-two years, she had always known that the people and plots conjured in her writer’s mind were far more fascinating than reality.

That’s what kept her running.



Read the reviews!

"...anyone who loves historical pieces will be sure to enjoy this."

--One Day at a Time
"This novel has all of the components of an epic success - strong characters, engrossing plot, and gripping themes."

--Book Nook Club

"A fantastic story with interesting and believable characters. This is a must read!"

--Bookguru

Dr. Jeri Fink is an author, Family Therapist, and journalist, with over 19 books and hundreds of articles to her name. She writes adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction, and has appeared on television, radio, book events, seminars, workshops, and the internet. Dr. Fink’s work has been praised by community leaders, educators, reviewers, and critics around the country.
To find out more about Dr. Fink http://www.drjerifink.com