A Cleft in the World: A Novel

Georgie Bricker is a French professor at Willa Cather College for Women, where she suffers from PTSD-induced agoraphobia. On her forty-ninth birthday, she wishes for something extraordinary to happen. When the college announces it will shutter, Georgie and Laurel Cross organize a rally to save it, but Georgie must confront her final fears to forfeit her chance for emotional freedom and a fulfilling new life.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 11 July 2023
Publisher: She Writes Press

French professor Georgie Bricker has not left the boundaries of Virginia's Willa Cather College for women in two decades. She is aware of the irony: she is striving to mold her students into global leaders, despite the fact that PTSD-induced agoraphobia, a consequence of the trauma she experienced as a child, confines her to a small college campus. She tells herself that her life is good. Yet, on her forty-ninth birthday, she wishes for something extraordinary.
Georgie is devastated to discover that her haven is severely in debt. While she struggles to save the French department, her first love, Truman Parker, arrives to serve as a financial consultant to the school. Georgie works as faculty liaison to his committee during the day. At night, she is a moth to his porch light.
When the college announces its closure, Georgie and fiercely independent Laurel Cross, the student closest to Georgie's heart, organize a rally to save it. Between her rekindled love for Truman and Laurel becoming the daughter she never had, her wish for the extraordinary seems to have been granted. But the pivotal rally forces Georgie into the larger, unprotected world, where she must confront her final fears, or forfeit her chance for emotional freedom and a fulfilling new life.

Dimension: 215 x 139 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781647424527