April 15, 2026
What it means to write something brave, and why the connection to readers matters more than the genre
I have been keeping a secret, and it has been a genuinely difficult one to keep.
Blackwater Parish is coming this summer. And I am not entirely the same person I was before I wrote it.
This announcement looks a little different from my usual book reveals, because Blackwater Parish is a different kind of book. But the things that matter most about how and why I write have not changed at all. If anything, they have deepened.
What Blackwater Parish Is
Blackwater Parish is a southern gothic thriller set in a small Louisiana community where history is not as buried as people would like to believe. It is a story about what happens when the past refuses to stay quiet, about the weight of secrets carried through generations, and about one woman returning to a place she left behind only to discover that leaving was never as final as it felt.
The south I write about is the one I have always felt pulled toward, the complicated, beautiful, shadow-threaded version that exists beneath the surface of Spanish moss and Sunday dinners and polite conversation. It is a place that holds its stories close. Blackwater Parish is about what happens when those stories finally come loose.
Why This Story Needed to Be Written
I did not choose this story so much as this story chose me.
Throughout my nursing career, I have sat with people in moments of extraordinary honesty, moments when the usual performances and pretenses fall away and what remains is raw and real. I have seen how much energy people spend maintaining a version of events that feels safer than the truth. I have seen what happens to families when long-held secrets finally surface.
Blackwater Parish grew from that understanding. The characters are fictional. The emotional truth is not.
The Connection That Matters
Here is what I want you to know, especially if you found me through Scout's adventures or through the bumpy pumpkin. The themes that have always been at the center of my work, belonging, resilience, the courage to be fully yourself, do not disappear in Blackwater Parish. They simply operate in a more complex landscape.
The central character of Blackwater Parish is someone who has spent years trying to fit herself into the shape other people expected. The story is about what it costs to do that, and what it takes to stop.
That is not so different from a pumpkin in a patch of seemingly perfect others.
The audience is different. The emotional terrain is recognizable.
For the Readers Who Are New Here
If you have arrived at this post because of Blackwater Parish rather than because of Scout or the bumpy pumpkin, welcome. I am glad you are here. You will find, as you get to know this corner of the internet, that I write about the same things across everything I make: showing up honestly, embracing complexity, and believing that the stories we tell matter.
That applies to a child hearing that being different is a gift. It applies equally to an adult who picks up a thriller and unexpectedly finds themselves in the pages.
What Is Coming
Blackwater Parish arrives this summer, and I will be sharing much more about the book, the process of writing it, and what it meant to me in the weeks ahead. There will be ways to pre-order, ways to be among the first to know everything, and opportunities to connect with the story before it officially arrives in the world.
If you want to be first in line for any of that, the best thing you can do is make sure you are subscribed and following along.
This book is coming from the same place every story I write comes from: a deep belief that the right story at the right moment can change something in a person.
I believe that about Blackwater Parish. I cannot wait to see where it finds you.
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