It is the summer of 1964 -a summer of race riots, mini-skirts and Motown. Precocious, 14-year old Sheryl-Anne MacRae, dreams of fleeing her home on an isolated apple orchard in Southern Ontario to search for her long-lost mother. But her uncle and adopted father, Fergus, a charismatic utopian, brings home a handsome young hitchhiker named Peter. Sheryl-Anne falls in love. By day Fergus is a well-mannered pharmacist, but at night he’s a pornographer. As summer progresses, the guitar-playing Peter is pulled deeper into Fergus’s bizarre underworld – a world of sex, drugs and photographs – fueled by Fergus’s obsession with the coming apocalypse. Days are spent in the orchard, while nights descend into hellish ritual. Sheryl-Anne longs to run away with Peter, but before she can convince him to escape with her, she will have to face some frightening truths about herself… (…continue reading)
The Ratfinks is a feminist novel about a group of women activists. The main character, Willie, struggles to come to terms with her horrific childhood in an orphanage, where she was tortured by a group of pedophiles. She hooks up with The Ratfinks, a group of women activists who travel to the U.N., lecture on human trafficking, and lobby to have non-state actor torture included in the criminal code. Willie begins traveling with The Ratfinks, thereby transforming her personal sorrow into public good will; her isolation into camaraderie and fellowship among women.
* Manuscript proposal available on request.
Ritual abuse-torture is a form of pedophilia and child sexual abuse reinforced by ritual and torture. RAT groups use repetition and ritual to sanctify criminal behaviour. They inflict torture to terrorize, brainwash and confuse the victims’ memory of events. RAT perpetrators often use costumes and masks and fake names to disguise their identities. They combine torture, drugging and trafficking to different locations, to disorient victims and make accurate reporting to authorities difficult.
Kelly is a writer and activist. She has written for print, radio and television for over two decades. Her award-winning short stories have been published in several literary magazines...
"The strangest coming-of-age story you ever did read."
—The National Post
"To call this a first-love/coming-of-age story would belie the suspense and mystery that Watt so adeptly creates."
—The Globe & Mail
"At the heart of Watt’s startling new novel is a look at fanaticism that dangerously blurs good and evil for the perceived fulfillment of a prophesy."
—Jenivieve DeVries, Highly Recommended by The Book Shelf, Guelph, ON