Fatal Romance
A True Story of Obsession and Murder
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.***
Nancy Richards was a young, beautiful speechwriter when she met Jeremy Akers, a decorated war hero and environmental lawyer. Nancy was immediately taken with the daredevil adventurer, and it wasn't long before their intense courtship led to a whirlwind marriage and children. Discovering she had a talent for penning historical romance novels, Nancy found fame as a bestselling author. But Nancy's life was far from the happily-ever-after romances she wrote about...
Nancy's friends alleged that behind the doors of the couple's home in one of Washington, D.C.'s most exclusive neighborhoods she suffered repeated abuse at the hands of her husband. They also said that Nancy had told them Jeremy was resentful of her success and growing independence, and his beatings soon escalated into death threats. Torn between being forced to give up her kids and risking her life by remaining with jeremy, Nancy moved into a one-bedroom basement apartment with a young male friend. After several pleas to visit the children, Nancy was finally allowed to take them on an outing. And just when she dared to hope that the worst was over, Jeremy shot her twice in the back of the head, killing her in front of their two youngest children. He then drove to the Vietnam War Memorial, where he killed himself with a shotgun.
Fatal Romance is the shocking true story of the romance novelist who dreamed of the happiness she wrote of--only to die at the hands of the man she loved.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Popular romance writer Nancy Richards-Akers spun tales of happily-ever-after, but the rosy glow of her books contrasted with her own life; in 1999, she was murdered by her husband. Drawing on interviews with the couple's acquaintances, Pulitzer (A Woman Scorned) spins a sensational true-crime narrative detailing the relationship between Nancy and Jeremy Akers, her husband of nearly 20 years. Nancy met Jeremy while working in D.C. as a speechwriter in the '70s. It didn't take long for Nancy to fall in love with the short, well-muscled and highly decorated former Marine, and she married him secretly, against her parents' wishes. According to Pulitzer, the first five years of Nancy's marriage were "idyllic." Over the next 15 years, however, she began to see behind Jeremy's Southern charm he expected her to pay the lion's share of household expenses and refused to let her work outside the home. Nancy eventually left Jeremy to move in with a young trucker, and although she knew that Jeremy had violent tendencies, she never realized to what extent until he turned a gun on her and then himself, leaving their three children orphans. At times, Pulitzer's writing is redundant and the chronology of events puzzling, but this is an absorbing account of a romance that was anything but storybook.
