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Karen Spears Zacharias

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What Ann Rule said

What Ann Rule said

Last updated on: January 31, 2012 at 7:50 am by Karen Spears Zacharias

What Ann Rule said 2012-01-31T07:50:27+00:00 Karen Spears Zacharias

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In case you missed it, true crime writer Ann Rule has endorsed the upcoming book.

Here’s what she said:

“A Silence of Mockingbirds is beautifully written by a very talented investigative journalist. But, even more, this is Karen Zacharias’s own story too, one of trust betrayed. A tragic book that we should all take to heart. We cannot change the past but we can save children who are in peril now. Karen has given us Karly’s legacy, that of a small, bright spirit who loved and was loved. And yet destroyed by heedless caretakers. A must read. Compelling and heartbreaking.”

– Ann Rule, author of Don’t Look Behind You and In the Still of the Night

Here’s what I did when my publisher forwarded on her blurb to me:

Oh, yes, it was the ugly cry. The kind I saw my daughter Ashley do after she completed the Spokane marathon. She caught her breath, tried to walk out the cramping, and then the tears came, a mixture of satisfaction and pain and sheer relief at having done the thing she set out to do.

The Karly story has been my marathon. Five years in the making. If you knew the hurdles I faced — and overcame — you’d be crying, too.

As it was, I cried alone.

Nobody here but me and God.

Nobody but God understands this race I’ve run anyway.

Thankfully, I’ve had faithful people running alongside me, offering encouragement as I needed it. People like you. Don’t think for one minute I didn’t see you, didn’t hear you, didn’t appreciate those prayers you offered up.

That’s what I was telling God, when I was doing that ugly cry, how very thankful I am to have gotten to this place.

Dream fierce, they say.

Perhaps some of you will think I’m warped to have dreamed of getting this book published in the first place. I had an agent, a good man that I respect and admire, tell me that he would only represent me if I walked away from this project. He thought it would kill my career. He told me he would not represent me as long as I was intent on getting the Karly story published.

But I have long understood that God has called me to write in the hard places of life. Not the commercial places. I can’t say why. I don’t know why. I have just learned to accept this is my path. Some people get to walk the red carpet and some have to bury the bodies in Haiti.

Life is full of juxtapositions, the writer Barry Hannah used to say.

The act of writing itself is a juxtaposition. Words rising up out of the silence of a grave, momentarily bringing back to life the laughter of a child.

That was Karly’s real legacy.

Ann Rule understood that.

I hope you will too.

I’m still a bit short of breath from this five-year marathon, so I could use some assistance. If you have a Facebook/Twitter or other social media accounts, go there and tell others about Karly and this book and what Ann Rule said. It won’t be out until April but you can buy it now, through your favorite Indie bookseller preferably, but Amazon has it, too. It will be available in e-book for all you Kindle and Nook lovers. Tell your librarian or your favorite bookseller, or book club about it. If you are a blogger or journalist or vlogger or radio/tv host and want to do an interview with me or Karly’s dad, let me know and we will arrange it. If you review books, or if you are a bookseller and you want an advanced reader copy you can contact David at macadamcage.com

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Those were my exact words to God when I was doing that ugly cry earlier today.

Oregon State University

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