Beyond Eden

About the Book

In high school, Linda Millar had made her mark as student, athlete, and popular leader. She was levelheaded and, despite her achievement, modest. The young man she had fallen in love with found her very attractive. Unfortunately, so did the man who became her stalker.

Linda's parents were idealistic pacifists - until their daughter was threatened, and their friendly and peaceful community, Eden Park, no longer felt either comfortable or safe. The darkening shadow cast over Linda enveloped and transformed the whole family. People and relations would never be the same again.

BEYOND EDEN - A novel of romance, family crisis, psychological suspense, mounting danger, and harrowing conflict that challenges the heroine's resourcefulness and courage

About the Author

      As an English teacher, Mac Simms has introduced students to great literature and guided them to write effectively and creatively themselves. Articles and speeches have dominated his own writing as a concerned citizen, political candidate, and school administrator. A shift in his personal and creative focus now permits him to turn to a longer literary form. The novel, he finds, permits him to become immersed in the lives of characters who accompany him in the telling of their story, acting and interacting in accordance with their natures, while he records, as much as he creates, events. He takes pleasure in introducing these characters to his readers, hoping they will enjoy the encounter and grow fond of most, but not all of the people met in BEYOND EDEN.
      Deep respect for Quakers and close relation over time to several Quaker Meetings, coupled with enlistment in the army in one war and active participation in the peace movement in another, inform a central conflict in the novel, one that remains only partially and uncomfortably resolved for the author.
      Mac lives with his wife, Chase Crosley, in rural Columbia County, New York, where they are surrounded by cattle and corn fields Their four children are scattered from Maine to Arizona, leaving them with each other and a large dog of dubious ancestry.