About The Shadows in My Heart

Big families stow deep secrets in their underbellies. At least Mary Havens’ family did. As one of twelve children born to Wisconsin dairy farmers, Mary witnessed secrets being stashed in the shadows of her family history. She even hid some of her own. Despite the darkness that took hold in Mary’s heart, she still knew the light of laughter, family hugs, and the joys of new births and personal accomplishments. Perhaps those things helped her survive. And survive she did.

The Shadows in My Heart twists and turns like the placid Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, with their hidden undercurrents and shifting sandbars, which run through the Ocooch Mountains near the family farm. Mary’s impactful story flows from the coon hound hunts and Christmas celebrations of childhood, to an encounter with a perverted, tobacco-smelling farmhand, to her marriage to Stan, her high school sweetheart, who never became the loving husband and father she had dreamed he would be. Overarching it all was Mary’s domineering mother, who eagerly supported the underdogs of life before she supported her own children.

The Shadows in My Heart offers strength and hope to the women and men who endure the struggles associated with domestic violence and abuse and reassures them that it is indeed possible to create a better life. Not only is Mary’s story a testament to that better life, it is irrefutable proof of the power of persistence, resilience, and love.

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