Dodging Prayers and Bullets

Karen Beatty

A young girl from Appalachia prevails over poverty and religious bigotry to survive childhood abduction, a predatory theologian, family secrets, and the drug culture of the 1960s.

Prompted by a chance meeting of a childhood acquaintance, a grown Skyla Jenkins relives joyful adventures, along with traumatic abduction and domestic violence. Settings include 1950s Eastern Kentucky, 1960s New Jersey, and, during the heyday of Flower Power, Berkeley, California.

Dodging Prayers and Bullets explores three decades of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll from the perspective of an evolving free-spirited woman, and celebrates the ability of a child to thrive and survive, despite those who would do her harm and the failed intentions of those who would protect her.