From the Chrysalis: a novel [Kindle Edition]

Karen E. Black (Author)

Book Description

Full-length novel! Sequel available autumn 2013! Over 20,000 + downloads! 

Paperback edition available at Amazon.com
 

Liza's bad-boy cousin, the handsome, magnetic D'Arcy "Dace" Devereux is nothing but trouble. Falling in love with him can only make things worse. Especially for a girl who knows more about books and monarch butterflies than she does men.    

Dace's and Liza's infatuation flares into an obsession long before she's even out of her teens. The cousins become two against the world. Even when Dace is arrested for manslaughter and sent to a penitentiary, their feelings don't change.    

When she's old enough, Liza enrolls in a local university to be closer to him, but a prison riot breaks out and Dace is forced to make decisions that will jeopardize both their relationship and his life. He's always been loyal to his old buddies--too loyal some say.    

The cousins spend one wonderful summer together when he's briefly paroled, but Dace is still drawn to trouble like the monarchs down to Mexico.    

In the end, nobody--not the biker gangs, the authorities or Dace's own demons--is going to let him go. The only way they can both break out and fly free is if Liza walks away. But how can she leave him when he has become her whole life?    

Based on a true story (the Kingston Pen Riot), "From the Chrysalis" is a poignant, taut novel of romance and survival against all odds, set in the shifting political and moral background of the early seventies. 

Review Highlights:

"I'd like to congratulate Karen Black on her new page-turner, From the Chrysalis. It tells the twisted and winding tale of Liza and her dashing and dangerous older cousin Dace (D'Arcy Devereux is his full, resplendent name). Set in Canada (Toronto's Christie subway station makes an appearance), it is the tale of a relationship blighted by uncomprehending relatives, social conventions, a harrowing stint in Maitland Penitentiary (complete with riots and semi-totalitarian "people's committees"), the well-intentioned galumph Mel, and a conundrum Liza has to bear calling for an ever more inevitable decision. You'll just have to read it if you want to know what I mean by that. I found the prison scenes, with their occasionally stark violence but underlying ethical probity, especially fascinating, but there's also lots of romantic tension, a kind of yearning whose fulfillment seems always out of reach, even when its physical manifestation is realized. What a potent novel! I spent the rest of the day shooting mysterious dark looks at people." -Julian Fauth, 2009 JUNO Award Winner for Blues Album of the Year

Editorial Reviews

Review

Drugs, bikers, prison breaks and incest provide surprising plot twists in this rough-and-tumble romance novel...set in '60s and '70s Ontario...Black has a flair for historical novels..and she shows remarkable storytelling depth...  - Kirkus Reviews

*****   2012 Readers Favorite Award Winner!  Dace...is about 17 when the book begins and the reader knows from the start that he is drawn to trouble. He sort of reminded me of James Dean, handsome, tempting and sure to cause suffering... Black has written a very descriptive account of the prison. She brings the scenes in her book to life and they march off the pages.  -Anne B. from Readers Favorite

 

From the Author

My work as a reference librarian helped me enrich the setting and heighten the suspense of From the Chrysalis by using historical detail about the deadliest event in Canadian penal history, the Kingston Penitentiary Riot of April 1971.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 599 KB
• Print Length: 318 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Karen E. Black (February 5, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0076BOQGU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,752 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful story of compulsive love May 10, 2012

By Book lover

Format:Kindle Edition

It isn't often that I put down a novel that is so moving and powerfully written that I can't pick up another for a while. This story will dwell in my mind for a very long time. Liza falls in love at fourteen with her handsome, wild cousin Dace who is due to go into prison for manslaughter which was not his fault. There is an immediate bonding between them. Liza, like so many girls, is attracted to the Dark Lover, the inner male that is dangerous, difficult and even destructive - but who ultimately helps her to grow in wisdom and understanding through the emotional pain he gives her.
This is a beautifully told love story, the characters of Dace and Liza are so well drawn they are almost a Heathcliffe and Cathy. Their natures are very different and yet they share the same inner depth, passion and loyalty as well as a streak of wildness, more prevalent in Dace but there in Liza also.
A large part of the story centres around a real life event, the prison riot in Canada's Kingston Penitentiary in April 1971 in which Dace plays an important role. Scenes of prison life are told from Dace's viewpoint and are violent, realistic and disturbing;courtroom scenes are so well written, I thought I was reading a John Grisham novel but without half the tediousness of his long drawn out court battles. The sexual scenes are also beautifully done, a real part of the plot, not woven in to titillate the reader.
All in all, this is one of the best books I have read in a long time.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not a dull moment! May 10, 2012

By Rachel Aderholdt

Format:Kindle Edition

"From the Chrysalis," a romantic novel written by Karen E. Black, piqued my curiosity from the very first chapter. The theme of butterflies and forbidden love intertwine in a well-written, intricate story. Liza, a naďve girl, comes to grips with her emerging feelings for her charismatic, dangerous first cousin, Dace, despite the fact that he is imprisoned for manslaughter and later branded as an ex-convict. Though very different in some ways--Liza loves books and butterflies and is inevitably drawn to men who assure her demise, and Dace is a hard, haunted man who thrives on trouble and danger--the two characters feel misunderstood from their legalistic, dysfunctional families and are essentially outcasts from a 1970's society. The scintillating prose and the complex, authentic characters tantalizes the reader as much as the swiftly moving plot filled with prison scenes, court cases, sexual encounters, and butterfly gardens. This book will make you reflect on how choices we make result in consequences we later have to deal with, and your heart will ache with the tragic decisions that Liza and Dace have to make. This book also makes you question if love is really a choice or if it is predetermined. Though not all of us go to prison, we often trap ourselves in prisons of our own making...can Liza and Dace make the ultimate choice to free themselves from their own cages? Will they be able to surface out of societal guilt and familial expectations to remain true to themselves? "From the Chrysalis" is well worth your time and I highly recommend reading this book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Obsessive love or soul mates? May 30, 2012

By JudyK

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I keep seeing the expression "obsessive love" in reference to the main characters of this book. I felt as though they had a deep connection beyond their physical attraction and blood ties. To me, she truly, deeply and unconditionally loved Dace, and he loved her intensely as well. I didn't get an obsessive feeling about it. After all, she endured many, many long days and hours without him and still kept him in her heart. Each time they were able to be together their mutual love was intense. I guess obsessive could be used here, as their attraction to each other was beyond their control.

My only complaint about the book was the ending, and I'm hoping this just means there is more to come. Very engrossing story with building tension and empathy for the two lovers.

More About the Author

Karen Black lives in Toronto, Ontario with her family, the same city where she was born. Her novel "From the Chrysalis" begged for a sequel, so she is currently writing about Dace's escape from a corrupt penitentiary system and his dual mission to clear his name and find out where the monarch butterflies really made their winter home.

She's made a couple of pennies from writing, but it's her work as a reference librarian which helped pay for her children's "artsy" educations, the renovations and repairs to their 99-year-old house and the travels she and her husband indulge in every year or two. They just got back from Turkey, a Mecca for anybody interested in ancient history.

She did her Master's in Library Science at the University of Toronto (because she loved books), but she majored in Sociology (with a minor in English) at a university in a small city like Maitland. Though her husband brags they met in a bar, they met while working in the campus pub at the University of Western Ontario. She was a waitress and he was a doorman. (By the way, he claims all credit for any sex scenes in his wife's novel "From the Chrysalis.")

Karen Black has always written and done family research, which is how she found out that most of us are the descendants of cousin marriages. (And unless you're a Hapzburg descendant, it doesn't worry her too much!) Much to her children's relief, she is not in the slightest related to their father, probably because Scots-Anglo-Irish gentry and peasants rarely mixed in the old days.