One Breath Away

One Breath Away

One school. One gunman. Your child.

In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun, walks into an elementary school classroom. As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as they race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.

Outside the school, the town of Broken Branch watches and waits. Officer Meg Barret holds the responsibility of the town's children in her hands. Trapped in the classroom, Evelyn Oliver watches for an opportunity to rescue the children in her care. Thirteen-year-old Augie Baker, already struggling with the aftermath of a terrible accident that bought her to Broken Branch, will risk her own safety to protect her little brother.

Following the success of Behind the Silence and These Things Hidden, One Breath Away explores the unspoken events that shape a community, the ties between parents and their children, and how the fragile normalcy of our everyday life is so easily shattered.

Heather Gudenkauf was born with a profound unilateral hearing impairment, she turned to books as an escape - climbing into her toy box with a flashlight, she closed the lid and retreated from the world around her. She became a voracious reader which transformed her into a passionate writer. She is currently a Literary Coach, and author, finding much of her inspiration for One Breath Away, in the teachers and students she's met over the years. It also hauntingly draws on Gudenkauf's near brush with the 1991 Iowa school massacre, as a senior at the University of Iowa she was only rooms away when a disgruntled former graduate entered a university classroom with a gun, killing vie and gravely injuring a sixth person before turning the gun on himself.

One Breath Away
Harlequin
Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Price: $29.99