Troubled by her failed marriages and stalked by a schizophrenic ex-husband, a mother of four decides to do the impossible --- build a house with nothing but woman and child labor --- and, in the process, construct a new foundation for their lives, with solid protective walls and windows open to a brighter prospect.

Computer analyst and social media maven Cara Brookins, an admitted mystery fan and author of at least two books in that genre (LITTLE BOY BLU, TREASURE QUEST), has created a memoir combining two dramatic plots: the construction of a house from dirt to rafters by five willing but often battered and exhausted amateurs, two of them barely out of diapers; and the continual apprehension surrounding the little family from the menace of an insane man bent on murder. Adam, Cara’s ex, sneaks into their rooms planting knives, rearranging books on the shelves, and leaving sticky notes in his own bizarre code. Cara, financially strapped and desperate, all but forces a banker to lend her money on a piece of rural land where, she insists, she and her kids can live safe and debt-free in an as-yet-to-be-constructed two-story mansion they would call Inkwell Manor.

"One suspects that practiced writer Brookins knew that interjecting Adam’s mad forays into the mix, far from distracting, would make the final completion of Inkwell Manor seem all that much more heroic --- and she was correct in that assessment."

The house building offers humorous and inspirational moments to balance the back-breaking work: “The house felt like a living being that day, branding us like possessions, and we were marking her right back with star-shaped drops of blood and DNA swabbed on the tips of misfired nails or wood slivers.” Added to the Herculean tasks is a nine-month deadline set by the bank, nine short months in which the house must be completed while Cara has to go on working her day job and the children are in school. Hope, Drew, Jada and Roman are troopers, subsisting on sandwiches and watered-down Kool-Aid while learning on the go how to hoist rafters and lay tiles.

There is occasional outside assistance from Cara’s dad, who offers help while suffering from the ravages of MS, and a pair of handymen named Pete and Re-Pete who worked competently --- when they showed up. Ever present, the terror tactics of the increasingly insane Adam, who bounces from seemingly useless treatments to creeping around their home, force Cara to purchase a handgun.

One suspects that practiced writer Brookins knew that interjecting Adam’s mad forays into the mix, far from distracting, would make the final completion of Inkwell Manor seem all that much more heroic --- and she was correct in that assessment. It’s amazing enough that Cara and her brood were up to the house-raising task (with many frustrating mishaps, mistakes and injuries along the way faithfully chronicled), in itself a book-worthy tale. But the drama is pushed to the max as the five carpenters/plumbers/pipe-fitters are threatened by a lunatic and haunted by their individual nightmares of family dysfunction.

In the haste to move in to Inkwell, the author recalls, there was no time for a celebration. Her personal recompense comes when, a few months later, all settled and safe in the new place, she overhears Drew responding to Jada’s plaint that “I can’t!” by chiding her: “You built your own damn house. You can do anything.”