Tanya Gross-Whitekettle, Author: The Woman who Cheated Death

   She has the same eyes as her daughter. Her little girl’s eyes shine with pleasure at having her photograph taken with her newly dyed pink hair, but there’s something in Tanya’s green eyes that seem wiser than her twenty-nine years. It’s not that she looks old for her age: she’s fresh-faced and clear-skinned: it’s something barely detectable at first glance. But those eyes have looked death in the face: and survived.

   Tanya’s book, Six Degrees Away From Death, is a novel based loosely on a true story. In the opening scene, we find Kiko, the main character based on Tanya herself, in a hospital bed, having just awoken from a coma. We follow her story from the events which led to her near-death experience, through her feelings and experiences as a newly disabled mother and lover, to her decision to survive and to totally turn her life around.

   From a young age, Tanya battled with eating disorders and self-esteem issues:

   ‘She hated her body in her teenage years, and starved herself to fit in a size 5.  In 7th Grade, she was a size 11.  By the time she reached 8th Grade she was a size 7.  Her whole family was heavy at one point or another, unless they starved themselves. So to her one tiny meal a day, seemed normal.  Since her Mom was busy starving herself, and her Dad was an alcoholic workaholic, they never noticed.’ 

Tanya felt totally unable to fit into her small-town Pennsylvanian family. Brought up by her grandparents, the generation gap wreaked havoc with her teen years, stifling her free spirit. She looked elsewhere for adult company:

   ‘Kiko loved being the minor everyone fed drinks to at parties. Most of her friends were adults, and Kiko never realized their lifestyle they were introducing her to was toxic.  Kiko thought life was one big party…’

Through these new role models, she became the life and soul of the party. Iron fences had replaced boundaries in Tanya’s home life: from the stranglehold control of her family, she sought new ways to express herself, to find the freedom that had been denied to her.

   Despite having chosen not to use a strictly autobiographical genre, preferring to change characters, places and exact events, in Six Degrees Away From Death, Tanya doesn’t shirk from honesty. She tells it how it is, from her innermost thoughts to her deepest fears. Her internal dialogue is at times brutal, always frank. From the depths of despair,

   ‘The last thought she could remember having was, if I over dose, everyone would be so much better off.’

she climbs, step by step, out of the hole she feels she has dug for herself, with a determination which could rival an Olympic athlete. And for someone who was told that she would never walk again, this is nothing short of a miracle. In Six Degrees Away From Death, Tanya’s inner strength and resolve to triumph never ceases to enthral the reader. Despite setbacks and inner fears, Tanya truly is a survivor in every sense of the word.

   She plans to work with troubled teens, sharing with them her experience, strength and hope:

   ‘If I can help stop just one person from going down that route I took, then my job is done.’

Find out more about Tanya Gross-Whitekettle’s upcoming publication at

 http://www.tanyagrosswhitekettle.blogspot.com