Darling Rose Gold

Rose Gold Watts spends the first eighteen years of her life believing she is gravely ill. She is allergic to everything, uses a wheelchair and is at the hospital so often it feels like home. Her neighbors hold fundraisers and offer comfort, yet no doctor, test or surgery explains what is wrong with her.

The cause is her mother, Patty Watts, who has been lying the whole time. Patty serves five years in prison for it, and Rose Gold turns her in and testifies against her.

Now Patty is released with nowhere to go and asks her daughter to take her in. To the shock of the whole community, Rose Gold agrees. Patty claims she only wants to repair things between them and says she has forgiven Rose Gold for the testimony.

Rose Gold knows her mother too well to believe it, because Patty always settles a score. But Rose Gold is no longer the frail child Patty controlled, and she has been waiting a long time for this homecoming.

This is a psychological thriller built around two women in one house, a mother and a daughter who each have reasons to distrust the other. The tension is dark and slow-burning, driven by what each is hiding.