Hannah and Ariela
When Hannah, a seventy-three-year-old widow, finds the semiconscious body of a fourteen-year-old Mexican national in a ditch along a remote central Texas road, she has no idea someone is watching. Not until the girl’s brutal attacker arrives at Hannah’s door in the middle of the night, threatening not just the girl’s but Hannah’s very survival. Ultimately the question of justice for a victim of human trafficking and the woman who helps her lies in the hands of a biracial border patrol officer and an unconventional small-town sheriff.
The I-10 corridor of Texas connects saints, demons, and victims as the ultimate question of life and death is decided by two strangers fate has bound together. They must make a hard choice in order to survive: either follow the law or follow their consciences.
Praises for Hannah and Ariela
2022 Publishers Weekly, Books to Read, May 2022
2022 Deep South Magazine, Summer Reading List
2022 TCU Press, University Press Week-Book of the Year
2023 Press Women of Texas, First Place, Novel Category
2023 Shortlisted, Best Fiction, MS Arts and Letters
2023 Book of the Year nomination, MS Library Assc.
2023 First Place, National Federation of Press Women
“Bernhard dispenses vivid details of Hannah and Ariela piecemeal while establishing the characters in broad strokes as empathetic archetypes: Hannah's a strong, independent woman; Ariela is a teen with average teen desires. Other narrators weigh in, including Hannah's daughter-in-law, a border agent, the girl's priest, and a Texas county sheriff. With this spectrum of perspectives, Bernhard illustrates the dangers of life along the border and the domino effect that the actions of one can have on others. Though the story is primarily issue-driven, the author adds just enough character development to get the reader vested.”
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