A racially fueled incident exposes the fissures that sit beneath the surface of friendships and families, triggering significantly more damage than the earthquake that separates them. Whisper and Odelia are eleven-year-old girls who find refuge in the quiet corner of innocent friendship. Their Southern California homes each play host to an undercurrent of secrets. For Whisper that means a fractured mother returning from rehab, for Odelia a brother whose absence is laced with mystery. Race had no real place in the playful friendship of the white Whisper and the black Odelia until a terrifying encounter brings prejudice to the forefront of their lives, opening their young hearts to ill-begotten emotion. A violent earthquake further tears the world as they know it apart. Can hope and innocence be restored? An heirloom timepiece, a curious old woman and an unlikely hero join the girls as they search for their families and understanding among the rubble. A powerful story of race and redemption by novelist Patti Davis.
"Like many writers, I am never sure where stories come from," says author Patti Davis. "They seem to arrive and ask to be told. That was particularly true with The Earth Breaks in Colors. I am intrigued by the innocence of children who pay little mind to skin color, so a friendship between two girls -- one white, one black -- was a world I wanted to visit. And families with secrets is a world that often visits me as a writer." "There is a whole genre of literature in which the innocence of childhood is touched by the realities of the grown-up world - Carson McCullers' the Member of the Wedding, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye come to mind. Patti Davis - in a language that falls beguilingly on the reader's ear like a perfect whisper yet does so in a writer's voice that is both robust and tender - tells us her version of this age-old story and makes it young again." - Kevin Sessums, Mississippi Sissy and I Left it On the Mountain "Rarely in recent American life have we so needed inspiring reminders of a closeness that transcends color, is tested by the cruelty of society and the complications of family - and yet miraculously provides renewal, after all.
A poetic, haunting - and importantly, healing - novel. - Sheila Weller, Girls Like Us and The News Sorority "Two pre-teen girls form a fast and important inter-racial friendship, despite the growing hostility around them. A timely, tender and unforgettable look at what love does - and what hate can destroy." - Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You This is gorgeous writing, a heartbreaking, acutely observed portrait of two Los Angeles families, united by friendship and tragedy, and the delicate journeys they make to try to keep from toppling into the cracks and canyons of the constantly fracturing paradise that is Southern California." - David Rambo About Patti Davis: "The Earth Breaks in Colors" is Patti's tenth novel. She is the author of "The Long Goodbye," a memoir about losing her father Ronald Reagan to Alzheimer's, and "Till Human Voices Wake Us," a haunting story of a tender lesbian love affair sprung from a gutting loss. In 2014 she ghost wrote "The Wit and Wisdom of Gracie: An Opinionated Pug's Guide to Life" - a warm and amusing look at the life of her pug Gracie in a California beach town. She has written screenplays and has been widely published in newspapers and magazines.