Jessamine Rose

Don't Let The Secret Out is based on the true life story of Susie Haynes also know as, Jessamine Rose.

Susie Haynes is born in hills of eastern Kentucky in the year, 1937, in redneck country, where a man would get jail time for killing a dog and not even a reprimand if you kill a human. Susie is one of six children born of the marriage of her mother and father, however, her father goes on to begat another ten children with another woman.

Life for Susie was not easy, from a young age she was sexually molested by her father, uncles, and strangers. She is gang-raped by a group of deputies, abandoned by her parents and left to eat garbage off the streets.

Susie watches her father shoot her mother in the head, she witnesses a black man walking his dog down the street being murdered while Susie was mortified, the shooter had no remorse for his actions. She had to run moonshine, ride the rails to gather coal and slept on park benches, just to name a few of the atrocities this young lady had to endure in order to survive!

Along the way she meets some kind faces, those who try to help steer her in the right direction in life. Like the milkman who ends up taking her away from all the madness, enabling her to divert an early death. He takes Susie over the mountains, to a world she never even heard about and her life changes immeasurably!

After sleeping on a park bench, she talks to a neighbourhood lady, who calls the police. Susie is whisked away to juvenile detention, for she is roughly thirteen years old at the time, after spending months incarcerated, Susie comes before a judge who is appalled that she had been left there for as long as she was and places her into the foster care of some kindly people, Della and Dan Frost. After coming to terms with her feelings of trust, she comes to love these people like her own parents.

Nearing the end of her senior year, she meets Boyd Jenkins, who manipulates her into marrying him. She spends the next twenty-five years of her life being the perfect wife and mother. She has dreams of finding her family and at the advice of her doctor, she contemplates stepping back into her past. Will retracing her roots bring her the closure she desires or will it bring havoc to the perfect life she has created for herself? Follow Susie's journey through life that enabled her to become the survivor she is today.

I'm not really sure what to make of this book. The editing was atrocious as was the grammar, its almost child-like in its quality, there were many errors, unless the word want was supposed to be spelled, "wont". I found this interrupted the flow of the story, which was displaced and disjointed. There was no real form to the structure and the reader is taken along the thoughts as they crop up in each chapter without any real direction involved.

I'm not sure what to make of the abuse she had at the hands of her father, to the glowing rendition of him near the end of the story. The person described throughout the pages was a monster, a man who not only sexually abuses his children, but beats her mothers, shoots her, walks out on them whenever it pleased him, left them hungry and didn't give a care when people showed up and carted his children off to goodness knows where. It was bewildering to me, but love knows no bounds and who am I to judge?

I commend Jessamine Rose for sharing her story!! It is remarkable that she survived with her sanity intact! The courage it must have taken to put these words to print, and the strength to see it through, is an inspiration to others who have also suffered abuse at the levels that Jessamine/Susie had!! If you are a survivor of abuse, or are suffering abuse, then this book would be a recommendation. The message is honest in its approach, simple to read, heartbreaking, yet, inspirational!… (more)