Heart Aches & Rainy Days, by debut novelist Jacki Ortiz, is a powerful, thought provoking, and disturbing glimpse into the psychotic mind of an abuser. Though the characters and events are fictional, the story holds nothing back in terms of the very real mental and physical abuse many women endure by their intimate partners. The story will shock its audience from the beginning to end. Page after page, readers will be tempted to pound their fists on the table in anger, as Ortiz takes them through the harrowing life a "silent victim of domestic violence" endures.

Jessica clings tightly to the memories of the past. How could her marriage to Paul, a marriage of gentle love in the beginning, turn into her daily struggle for survival? Jessica often wonders what she did wrong to spark the physically and sexually abusive behaviors of her husband. She prays and clings to the hope that someday her husband will see the physical and mental scars of his abuse, and when he does, things will be as they were in the beginning of their marriage--was she ever wrong !

Heart Aches & Rainy Days is a fictional story that pushes domestic violence to the edge. It will sicken you. It will enrage you. It is not a story easily read, yet it is also a story not easily forgotten. Jacki Ortiz deserves much applause for boldly incorporating the subject of domestic violence in her fictional writing. Though the content of the story is quite disturbing, the story itself is ingenious in its ability to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

The worn out cliche of "truth is stranger than fiction" came to my mind after reading Heart Aches & Rainy Days. For though fiction produces a story of horror, the moral truth of the story is strong: To end domestic violence, is to end silent voices.

Review by T.E. Simmers

August 28, 2004