Two Weeks Since My Last Confession

When Molly O’Brien comes into the world in 1951, she never imagines that her life will turn out the way it does. Born into a wealthy family in which her father is a senator and her mother a devout Catholic, Molly receives a good upbringing and has all the reason in the world to be happy. Yet somehow, at the age of thirty, she is addicted to heroin and hasn’t been employed for years. Her father believes that the corrupting influences of society are at fault, while her mother is convinced it’s Molly’s own depravity that has caused her ruin and her failure to stay in the Catholic church. Her older brother Sean, however, knows who is really to blame: he holds the family secrets that have caused all of his sister’s problems and are leading her down the harrowing road to drug addiction. And ultimately he knows that he and his parents are the only ones who can lead her out.

A dramatically written family saga, Two Weeks Since my Last Confession is the story of one woman’s survival in the face of serious childhood abuse and addiction. More than this, it is a tale which chronicles the triumph of the human spirit over its enemies — not only external enemies but also the ones we find within ourselves.

Thirty Years In September: A Nurse’s Memoir

When sixteen year old Kate Genovese went to visit her sister Denise in the hospital in 1968, she claims "something clicked that very moment, I wanted to make Denise better again, heal her shattered body and make her laugh… I couldn’t put words to my feelings, but I knew I wanted to do more then just visit" That day Kate discovered her calling in life, nursing, and spent the next thirty years on an adventure that has been at once rewarding and devastating, tumultuous and spiritual. Her memoir poignantly describes the adventures of her nursing career, beginning with her trialsome days as an LPN, where she lost her nursing license because of a drug addiction, her recovery, and going back to school once again to obtain her RN. The memoir meanders through the eighties and nineties, where she writes about her experiences with insurance companies and federal medicare systems, which have proven to be somewhat flawed in the method in which they fund patients. Interspersed within the memoir are hilarious anecdotes about nursing "mishaps" magical accounts of patients having near death experiences, and tales of strength, hope, and courage in a world of sickness and death.

Loving Joe Gallucci: Love and Life with Hepatitis

Love between a man and a woman is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and spiritual exchanges between two human beings. It is also one of the most tragic, particularly when alcohol, drugs, dysfunctional families, and a life-threatening liver disease are thrown into the mix. LOVING JOE GALLUCCI is one such love affair. It is the poignant romantic tale of Meg Flaherty, daughter of an eminent Massachusetts senator, and Jimmy Romano, a blue-collar boy always trying to prove himself to the imperious Flaherty clan. Taking place over a period of thirty years, the novel chronicles the tumultuous courtship and marriage of the couple as they progress from heavy drinkers and IV drug users to sober and respectable members of their community who must nonetheless pay the price for the reckless acts of their younger years. When Jimmy reaches middle age, he goes to the doctors one day and discovers that he has Hepatitis C, a deadly inflammation of the liver caused by an HCV virus that drug users often get through needle use. Now, with a family and a wife whose fidelity to and love for him are extraordinary, Jimmy is forced to fight the last and biggest battle of his life, or else die a death caused by the destructive demons of a past he thought he’d conquered many years before.

More than anything, LOVING JOE GALLUCCI is a story of redemption and resurrection of the Romano family through the triumph over adversity, and through faith, hope, and unconditional love. In its final analysis, this book is a call to arms against a liver disease so subtle and yet so damaging that it could perhaps be called the AIDS epidemic of the twenty-first century.