The Stone Necklace

A Novel

By: Carla Damron

Narrated by: Vicky Saye Henderson

Clawing chest pains and a fiery car crash take one life and change the destiny of four others. The Stone Necklace braids together the stories of a grieving widow, a struggling nurse, a young mother, and a troubled homeless man, reminding us of the empowering and surprising ways our lives touch one another and how, together, we can recover from even the greatest of losses.

Carla Damron weaves the stories of four people in Columbia, South Carolina, whose seemingly disparate existences intersect through tragedies realized and tragedies averted. Lena Hastings survived breast cancer and marital infidelity but now faces an uncertain future and crises with her teenaged daughter Becca without the support of the one person she has always counted on. Intensive care nurse Sandy Albright, newly released from drug rehab, confronts temptations from her past and false accusations threatening her career, leaving her to wonder if a drug-free life is really living. Tonya Ladson, a mother whose child is injured in the wreck, must decide if her domineering husband is right and a lawsuit will solve their financial problems. Joe Booker, a homeless man who sleeps in a graveyard, loses his gentle benefactor and must either succumb to the real and imagined evils of his world or find the heretofore-untapped courage to care for himself and for others as a stranger once cared for him. Weighted down by their respective pasts, the characters must make life-altering choices that reverberate into the fates of the others, ultimately bringing them together in unexpected but healing acts of compassion, forgiveness, and redemption.

The Stone Necklace includes a foreword from novelist Patti Callahan Henry.

©2016 Carla Damron (P)2016 University of South Carolina

Great read

It was really neat to listen to a book based out of the city I lived in. Loved seeing how all the lives were woven together.

I see the world differently now

I loved this book. In The Stone Necklace, Carla Damron dropped breadcrumbs that kept me reading to find out what happens to four people connected to each other because of one fatal car crash. Her characters are deep, flawed, and so very real, even the secondary characters and their relationships. Not only did I enjoy this story immensely, I learned to see the problems of others through a new lens. As humans, we often focus inward, worrying about our to-do lists and our obstacles. Yet, our lives intersect and intertwine with other people in ways we don’t realize and never find out about. I will be more thoughtful in my interactions, and therefore be a better person for having read this book. I give my thanks to Carla Damron.

Great read

Loved the characters in this book. By the end, I felt I knew the characters personally!

Each of us may have a stone carried in our pocket

From the first sentence to the last, Carla has written a true, traditional page turner. I had to listen to one more chapter no matter how late the night became!