Between Heaven and Hell: A True Story

Sheila S. Cannazzaro took six years to write. She has Macular Degeneration, a type of eye disease. You see, it did not stop her from writing this book. All her life she has loved the arts, including sketching, oil painting, writing poems and short stories. Her first poem, written at the age of eight years old, was posted on the bulletin board, in her classroom, and she was asked to read it in front of everyone.

She graduated from Hamtramck High school in Michigan and continued on to take classes in art, French, literature, and journalism at several different schools throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1952, when her children were old enough to go to school, she became an Avon Representative. After seven years she was honored as the Avon Queen during the 77th anniversary celebration. In 1963 she was employed by J. L. Hudson Department Store in cosmetic sales and make-up demo, where she was interviewed by a newspaper reporter who wrote an article on their conversation. She retired after 23 years.

She is now retired and has started writing a children’s book with poems and pictures. In the last fourteen years she’s written seventy poems.

This book is about Alica Charney whose parents divorced when she was two years old. Onna Charney, Alica’s mother, is given custody of her. Her father, Tom Charney, is an alcoholic and nowhere in sight for Alica’s childhood years. Alica has two sisters, Amelia and Jenny, who are nine and eleven years older than Alica. They live together for a short time in the same house.

Alica grows up happy and well-adjusted. She is a beauty with light brown hair and blue eyes. Her interests are mostly in school, church, and friends. At age seventeen Alica graduates from Hamtramck High School in a small city within Detroit, Michigan. In a short time she obtains a sales position in one of the largest department stores in the downtown Detroit area. With her winning personality, she is liked and excepted by those she works with. A young man named Boris changes all of that for her; after a year of dating, they are married. Boris then shows his true self; he proves to be a self-centered, domineering, cruel bully who mentally and physically abuses her.

This book is truthful, heart-rendering, explosive, and an interesting read.