Shattered: Reclaiming a Life Torn apart by Violence - Tapa dura

Ann RuleFrom sunshine and roses to the darkest shadows in the grip of a madman, Debra Puglisi Sharp tells her story of victory over horror and captivity. I read this with absolute concentration where no sound or duty dared interrupt. It is a classic in the true crime genre, but it is more than that -- it hands a portion of power and belief in herself to every woman who reads it. I recommend it wholeheartedly!

Debra Puglisi Sharp was the kind of woman who got misty at Coke jingles and Hallmark cards. Trusting and idealistic, she was, in her own words, sentimental to a fault. Until the day that changed in a brutal instant. In April 1998, this wife, nurse, and mother of teenage twins was tending the roses in her garden when a factory worker with a cocaine habit saw her and decided he had to have her. Slipping in through an open back door -- a door Debra usually kept locked -- he waited for her to come in. Nino, her husband of twenty-five years, got in the way and was shot. The man then attacked and raped Debra, placed her in the trunk of his car, and drove away. Debra Puglisi Sharp was kept hog-tied in her abductor's house for five excruciating days. She learned of her beloved husband's murder from a report on the radio that the man blared to muffle her screams while he was out. After five days, with hope all but gone, Debra's mounting rage at her captor -- and the wrenching thought of her children burying their father alone -- gave her the courage and strength she so desperately needed. She loosened her ties, groped her way to the phone...and dialed 911.A riveting inside account of one woman's abduction, imprisonment, rape, and near-death trauma, "Shattered" is also an indelible portrait of hope, determination, and the agonizing journey back to life. Struggling to heal from her horrendous ordeal and the devastating loss of her husband, Debra Puglisi Sharp also had to endure an agonizing court trial, the raw grief of her children, and her own crippling fear. But through her work in hospice care and as an advocate for victims of violence and trauma, she has slowly discovered the measure ofher own strength. A compelling survival story -- tragic and ultimately heroic -- "Shattered" represents one woman's attempts to make sense of a senseless crime.