The cover of Ms O'Neal's second e-book. Photo:provided

“The Water of Sunlight is about a young woman who endures a hard life and becomes a drug addict but, when she goes to prison, she turns her life around,” says Ms. O’Neal.  “She gets a second chance at ‘normal.’” 

According to the Amazon blurb, “Onita Saunders is a streetwalker in the South Bronx who lives only for her baby son, Hani, and for her next hit. But Onita is an addict who doesn't always pay her bills. Her dealer, Moon Dog, abducts Hani and, by the time Onita finds out, her baby is dead. People have been taking things from Onita all her life but now, Onita fights back, and changes her life forever.”   

“It’s a very different book from any I’ve written before and anybody who doesn’t like strong language shouldn’t read it, but I wanted to explore the issues raised in the book such as HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, women in prison, and so on,” says Ms. O’Neal.  “It’s a gritty book set during the end of the Reagan years when there was a lot of fear about HIV/AIDS and a lot of hate.”  In 1988, when the story begins, HIV/AIDS was the eight leading cause of death among women 25 to 44 years old in the United States.  Today, women account for one in four new cases of HIV/AIDS and, of those new cases, two out of three, are among African-American women, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.   In New York, 89% of the persons living with HIV/AIDS in 2009 were women and New York’s AIDS case rate is almost three times the national average.  The main cause of transmission among women is heterosexual sex. 

Ms. O’Neal is also the author of several other books including Jessamine and Dido’s Prize and the non-fiction, From the Field to the Legislature: A History of Women in the Virgin Islands.  While some of her earlier books are available in hard copies, bothJessamine and The Water of Sunlight are currently available only as ebooks which can be read on Kindle, iPads, smartphones and other devices.