De Novo

Ruby Benson doesn't like you. But don't take it personally. She doesn't really like anybody besides Tiny and Hulk, the two homeless men who live outside the liquor store where she works. And while she knows the situation is unorthodox, Ruby is perfectly content with the fact that her two closest friends are a pair of middle-aged vagrants who roam the streets of Portland, Maine begging for food and money. Conventional friendships, with all their expectations and demands, are simply too much for Ruby to handle. It's hard to fault Ruby for her self-proclaimed cynical personality, pessimistic tendencies, and generalized distrust of humankind. After all, three years ago Ruby was a normal twenty-four-year-old with an intact nuclear family, sizeable group of friends, and a rewarding career as a pediatric social worker. These days, however, following a slew of family tragedies, she has nothing more than her lousy job at Back Alley Liquors where she barely makes enough money to pay her bills. Until one day Ruby attends an exercise class at Definition Fitness where she meets a handsome older man named Paul. When he follows Ruby into the coffee shop next door, she tries to maintain her steely resolve but ultimately succumbs to his kindness and allows him to accompany her home. After they engage in a steamy sexual tryst, Paul invites Ruby to dinner in the sprawling estate he shares with his wine loving ex-wife Sheila, who once worked as Oprah Winfrey's personal vegan chef, and their adult children Cat and Matty, with their respective tendencies towards shoplifting and bad behavior. And while Ruby finds the arrangement entirely unsettling, she accepts Paul's invitation out of mere curiosity and the simple fact that she has nothing better to do. Through unanticipated plot turns and strange twists of fate, the coming together of this eclectic group of individuals allows them to accept that they have all become prisoners of their painful pasts. And though Ruby wants nothing more than to move on from the losses which have defined the last three years of her life, does she have what it takes to rebuild her life after tragedy?

• | Author: Allyson Leigh Crasnick
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Nov 16, 2021
• | Number of Pages: 224 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-13: 9798759834656