From the cover of ‘The Boarder’:

Annika Williams left teaching to help raise her teenagers, Jarren and Lexi, and she hasn’t regretted it. Along with her loving, sensitive husband, Annika and her family are living the good life in a Lincoln, Nebraska suburb.

But life has more in store for Annika when her husband, the Reverend Zebediah Williams, introduces her to Carl, a homeless eleven-year-old boy with a sketchy past. Moved by his love of children and a desire to save the boy from the streets Pastor Williams convinces a reluctant Annika to adopt Carl.

Perhaps motivated by a good heart or some agency quota, Carl’s caseworker, Rose, tells Annika that children like Carl come with something a little extra and would bring another dimension to their family. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long before Annika figures out what Rose meant. Not only is Carl emotionally unstable, but his altercations with the police and his knack for pitting her against her family exhaust Annika and make it incredibly difficult for her to maintain her sanity.

Yet Annika knows God is carrying her through all the grief. Now, if He’ll just give her the patience and strength to hold on to this little boy who has completely captured her heart…

A heartwarming, touching tale, The Boarder shows the amazing healing power of love.

An excerpt from ‘The Boarder’:

Exerting extraordinary strength that comes from deep inside her, Annika stabs the floor with the knife and breaks the blade in one swift movement. Unthinking, she grabs the blade from the floor, cutting her hand in the process, and throws it as far as she can.

Carl cries out uncontrollably as he continues to fight to win. Still bleeding from her wound, Annika maintains a hold on the boy that keeps him on the floor.“Let me up!” Carl demands.

Annika modulates her voice to soft and almost silky, “No, Carl. I’m in charge now.”

The youth continues to struggle even when the mother feels his energy ebbing. Carl shrieks in frustration and pulls against her restraining vise-like grip on him. As Annika maintains her hold on him, her fears turn to nearly overwhelming empathy for the damaged boy she’d grown to love.

She almost croons to him, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

In spite of a desire for it to be different, his demands have less punch now. The phone rings and rings again and she listens to it but doesn’t loosen her grip. She doesn’t attempt to answer the phone yet.

“Let go!” Carl pleads.

Finally sure of what she needs to do, Annika answers, “No, I won’t ever let you go.”

Bio for JANE E RYAN, writer, author and filmmaker

When it comes to writing, Jane E Ryan is a woman for all seasons. Out of a desire to   help other families with children traumatized early in life she penned Broken Spirits Lost Souls (BSLS). The non-fiction book, which spent several weeks on the publishers Best Sellers list, offers a broad view of attachment difficulties taken from personal experiences and interviews with parents of disturbed children from across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Not satisfied that those who want or need support rearing difficult youngsters would read such a meaty book she decided to educate others using more popular art forms. BSLS was followed by her first novel, The Boarder, and screenplay of the same name, which is about the impact of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder on their world. Although the story is fictionalized it’s based on true experiences and clearly represents what really happens when well-balanced, loving families take in children with sketchy histories.

While leaning toward new horizons, her scripts for The Boarder and Brian’s Choice have won awards at film festivals around the United States. Always looking for adventures, Jane crewed on Jared Martin’s poignant film, Lifestories: The Lost Boys of Sudan, then flew to Paris to crew on Kartik Singh’s award-winning film, “Saving Mom & Dad.” Soon thereafter, Jane traveled to Uganda, Africa to film her first documentary, Ben Baai Mith Sudan (A Homecoming for Sudan’s Son), which was completed in fall, 2008.

Retired from her career in nursing and counseling, Ryan lives in Grand Island, NE. Still loving new challenges, her production company Jane E. Ryan Productions, LLC, or Tin Cup Productions as it’s fondly called, is preparing to film and produce The Boarder as a feature film  in Ravenna, Nebraska in summer, 2010.