Maxine's Key-- why is it important

In The Key to Her Heart there is an old key hung on a chain that originally belonged to Anna's grandmother, Maxine.  There literally is a full written back story for Maxine that a few years ago I seriously considered publishing but then in the last book of The Heart of a Family Series,  The Lattimier Curse it pretty much is the foundation that story is built on. So I have digressed...

The key is a symbol of safety... Or rather of being able to bring safety.  In Maxine's story she is abused by her step father as a young girl.  Finally at 12 with no one to protect her anymore, she steals all the inside door keys and hides them.  The only one she keeps is the one to her bedroom door. Which she uses to lock her room when she leaves and when she is inside it.  The key hangs around her neck so by no foul can anyone find it or trap her away from help. 

Would this work in real life to stop a vile abuser?  I shrug.  I don't know for sure but it seems plausible.  In my own story of abuse it was even less that stopped the abuser. My dad suspecting something was wrong simply asked me if I wanted to go to the man's house. I was seven and this was a family member. No one believed my dad's concerns. It just did not seem possible. So he asked me that one simple question. I told him I did not want to go there and from that point on I was never alone with my abuser. Maxine made it so she wasn't alone with her abuser by hiding her key on her person.

The key becomes the symbol of Maxine's ability to protect her physical person and in a greater sense her heart and soul.  There is one young man as a teen and a young woman that she does trust. He knows the reason for her key and is there to help her and inspire love. But problems arise and she must make choices after her step father's death. 

One night she is fighting the past and present and finds herself in a position that makes her hated by everyone in her community.  She runs away, leaving her home,  leaving the only person that knows her secrets, the only person in the world she loves and trusts, and ultimately moves to another continent marries a man, has a child, and then returns to her hometown in her widowhood.  By this time even her child does not know the story of the key she wears.  Her mother's family is still angry with her for the events of her youth and who is that man that she trusts and loves? Is he there still?  Has he gone on with his life?  Do they get to know each other once more? Those questions actually have some answers within the story The Key to Her Heart. 

 The bulk of Maxine's story I tell in The Lattimier Curse which is the last book in the series and helps to tie up all the different stories but I am still writing it.  If you would like to understand about the key and the final answers in Maxine's life then you might want to read The Key to Her Heart and in the process learn more about Maxine's granddaughter, Anna, too. I will leave the link below. In the meantime Patrick's Rose is being edited and I am working on Her Hidden Thorn which continues the story of the Lattimier family and the Rueschel family. Hopefully I will have these two finished soon.


Here is the link for The Key to Her Heart :

https://www.amazon.com/Key-Her-Heart-Family-Book-ebook/dp/B00FS6MYR8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8