What in Your Life Holds you Down? Do you Feel Better Knowing Your Not Alone?

Later today I will be sharing my review about the book Hold Her Down!  However, in the meantime I thought it would be fun to give you a little taste bit of a taste of the book!

The marriage seemed to work out well for Peter, but not so much for Elizabeth. Peter got up every morning, showered and went to work. Every so often, he would pop a frozen waffle in the toaster, or pour a cup of juice for one of the kids at breakfast. Sometimes he would put the food away from the dinner Elizabeth cooked at night. Sometimes not. He would stack the dishes up next to the sink, rather than in it, which drove Elizabeth mad. About once a month he would load the dishwasher, although he seemed incapable of actually running it. As his business travel was increasing, Elizabeth was left alone more and more. When he was home, Peter played the doting father role perfectly. He attended school and sporting events. He hung out with the children in the evening. He was a fun daddy. Things were generally amicable between Peter and Elizabeth with the kids there, as long as she was not yelling. 

But there were occasional biting comments that criticized the way Elizabeth handled things. Small, but pointed, remarks that one really had to pay attention to hear. But she always heard them and took them to heart. And of course there were the fights about money. Always about money. When the kids were not around, Elizabeth and Peter were either bickering about how the household was run or ignoring each other. When she really thought about it, it was almost worse when Peter was home. He loved the kids as best he could, and was great with them, but paid little attention to Elizabeth. It was one thing to sleep alone every night when your husband was away. It was quite another to sleep next to someone who refused to touch you. On the nights he even bothered to come upstairs to share her bed. She could not remember the last time they had had sex.

But Elizabeth didn't know how to define herself outside of the context of wife and mother. She knew she was not happy but could not see herself ever really making a move to leave Peter. She knew she didn't have the guts to do it. After all, in her experience, she was the one who was left, not the one who did the leaving. And her mother had assured her over and over that no one would want a divorced, middle-aged mother of two. She asked Peter to go for counseling in the past. His response was to laugh at her, telling her that she could go if she wanted, but he was perfectly fine the way he was. Agnes' advice on the situation was that Elizabeth should try harder to meet Peter's needs better. That was the job of a wife.

Elizabeth was failing as a wife and probably failing as a mother. She knew she had failed as a daughter, never able to live up to Agnes' high standards. No matter how hard Elizabeth tried, it seemed that she was doing nothing but failing. She tried to hold back the tears that accompanied this realization. The sky was quickly growing dark and sleet had started to fall. Elizabeth was thankful for her GPS, a voice in the darkness, telling her where to go. If only she had a GPS for her life.

It looked as though she had about forty-five minutes left before she would reach her destination. She was in a rather remote area with narrow, winding roads, and the houses were farther and farther apart. Often the houses were not even visible from the road, just dots of light peeking through the trees. The smell of wood burning stoves was permeating through the vents of the mini-van. Elizabeth was praying that a deer would not run out across the road. She had hit a deer when she was first married. Actually, the deer had hit her, but Peter never thought that way. She was so focused on watching out for a deer that she didn't see the very large pothole ahead and struck it square on the front-passenger-side tire.

Within an instant, with the tell-tale thumping from the front wheel well, she could tell that she had a flat tire. She cursed as she guided the van to the side of the road. The road was very narrow with very little discernible shoulder. The embankment sloped steeply down. Brush speckled the hill. Elizabeth couldn't see the bottom of the hill or how far down it was. She put the van in park and turned the key so that power was left to the vehicle, but the engine was no longer running. She screamed, banging the steering wheel with her fists. Dammit. She had known it was going to be one of those days.



Have you loved what you read so far and want to just go and buy your own copy???
Well, here you go!!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&search-alias=digital-text

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/kathryn-r.-biel

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&fcsearchfield=Author

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/kathryn-r.-biel/id805022384?mt=11

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KRBiel

I was in no way compensated for this post, but was supplied a book for review purposes.  All views are 100% my own and not influenced in anyway.