Stories of Resilience, Shadows, and Hope: My Work as an Author

When I look back at the books I’ve written, one thing stands out to me. No matter the setting, the time period, or whether the story is fiction or nonfiction, I always come back to the same core themes. Courage, resilience, and the voices of those living on the margins.

Fiction Rooted in Human Struggle

My earliest novels—After the Fall and Beneath the Surface—introduced readers to Gabe and Nate, two men navigating love and identity in small-town North Carolina. Their stories reminded me that the most powerful journeys aren’t always epic in scope. They’re personal, intimate, and full of risk.

Later, in creating the fictional town of Grady for the June Calloway Mysteries, I gave a home to a reporter determined to uncover truths others would rather leave buried. From The Girl Time Forgot to The Silent Bell, June confronts not only crime but also the weight of history, prejudice, and the secrets small towns carry.

With the Lena Crowe series (The Eighth of Everything and Dark Roads), I plunged even deeper into the shadows. I explored trauma, survival, and how one woman uses her voice to shine light into the darkest corners of human behavior.

Even my novellas, like The Miracle, carry the same heartbeat. A story of two boys brought back from despair, reminding us of love’s power to transcend fear and hate.

World-Building and Imagination

Not all of my stories are tied to real towns or real histories. In The Covenant of the Veil and The Covenant of Ash, I stepped into fantasy, creating the world of Thalveryan and the eight Witching Families who inhabit it. These books required me to build a mythology from the ground up. It was a chance to ask big questions about power, responsibility, and what it means to be human when magic is involved.

World-building stretched me as a writer, and it’s a journey I intend to keep exploring. Someday, I’d love to turn all my notes on Thalveryan into a companion book, so readers can walk through that world as fully as I do in my imagination.

Stories Drawn from the Past

Some of my work is the most personal of all. The Letter That Came Too Late is inspired by my own family’s history. It's a story of sisters, custody battles, and the limits of women’s rights in another era. Writing it allowed me to honor the resilience of those who came before me, while also shining a light on the struggles that still resonate today.

Then there’s Blood, Justice & The Coley Brothers. This nonfiction book brought me face-to-face with my family’s past—a brutal 1892 murder in Franklin County, North Carolina, and the trial of two Coley brothers, my distant relatives. Digging into this history wasn’t easy, but it reminded me why I write in the first place. I write to uncover stories, to give voice to people long silenced, and to wrestle with the legacies that still shape us.

Why I Write

Whether I’m telling the story of a murdered historian in a small town, two boys searching for freedom, a true-crime podcaster chasing justice, or my own ancestors caught up in violence, my purpose as an author stays the same:

To tell stories of resilience in the face of hardship.
To give space to voices that have been marginalized, overlooked, or silenced.
To remind readers that even in the darkest moments, there’s a thread of courage, love, and hope.

These stories, fictional and real, are my way of shining light into hidden corners. My hope is that, in reading them, you’ll not only find suspense, mystery, or emotion, but also a piece of yourself reflected in the characters and histories I bring to life.

Because at the end of the day, stories are about connection. Every book I write is, in its own way, an invitation to connect with the past, with the present, and with one another.