Puppet Child

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Rachel Belmore is a woman who has it all: an exciting career selling advertising for a top women’s magazine, a wonderful marriage, and Ellie, a beautiful baby girl. But her charmed life is ripped apart one horrible night when she discovers that her husband is a sexual predator and their young daughter is his prey.

Rachel flees their Fifth Avenue penthouse with Ellie and takes up the fight of her life to protect her child from her estranged husband. Dr. Wesley “Wes” Belmore, dubbed “the surgeon to the stars” by People magazine, is a man who hates to lose. He pushes his powerful public relations machine to sway not only popular but judicial opinion in his favor.

Little Ellie becomes more and more disturbed. She is the pawn of her controlling pedophile father, his lawyer who paints Rachel as an unstable and delusional, and a well-intentioned Family Court judge so blind to the truth he condemns the child to her father’s assaults.

With vivid prose, Carner’s skillful pacing moves the story along swiftly: the reader can only watch, powerless, as Rachel’s inner strength unravels. The prolonged battle has put her career in jeopardy, her close relationships in chaos, and her finances in ruin. With the judge just a decision away from placing Ellie in permanent custody with a pedophile, Rachel changes the rules of the game. “The mother who protects her child”-- as her new love calls her--undergoes a powerful spiritual rebirth that opens her eyes to recognize those who can help her save Ellie.

In a wrenching race against time, the safety of one child becomes entangled in the theatrics of New York Family Court, bottled-up family dynamics, and the pressure of the political machine. This is a sensitively crafted, solidly researched novel that carries the cold ring of truth about the judicial system and impels the reader to hang on to find out who will win in the struggle over Ellie.