The following manuscripts are complete and available for agent consideration.

Blessings from War Island

BLESSINGS FROM WAR ISLAND is an adult contemporary fantasy infused with a social backbone and pop-culture humor. Complete at 97,000 words, it rests between the literary voice of Madeline Miller’s Circe and the quirky absurdity of both Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and John Wiswell’s Someone You Can Build a Nest in.

Aaya, a war goddess with no war to fight, has been trapped on a remote island for five thousand years. Over the millennia, Aaya has turned her rocky prison into a home filled with rude pigeons, antique glassware, and smutty paperback romances. 

When the vengeful queen Boudicca discovers a loophole to Aaya’s imprisonment, she and her army of voiceless student-loan defaulters unwisely set Aaya loose in the modern world. Boudicca’s nemesis, the Voice Stealer, tempts the newly-freed war goddess to break the queen’s contract and switch sides for an impossible prize: the rebirth of Aaya’s murdered sister. 

Aaya is forced to choose between starting a war for a bitchy Boudicca, or giving up her supernatural power to bestow war blessings in order to reunite with her beloved sibling. Choosing her path, Aaya turns spy in the present day, unearthing bad business practices, monster cars with puppy complexes, and a pristine collection of Depression Glass.

Whatever she chooses, the memory of Aaya’s sister awaits epic revenge.

***

Ivy in the Age of Falling Ash

    Way off the grid and nestled deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains is Fairhope Farms, a bed and breakfast that Ivy’s family has owned for generations. Surrounded by acres of old growth forest and rich, green glens, her hidden land has always attracted its share of refugees – animal and human alike. Now more than ever, it seems to be a sanctuary for the lost, the weary, and the dispossessed.

     While she cares for her borders, Ivy’s connection to the land runs deeper than she realizes. She grows apples and cans vegetables. She walks barefoot to greet the morning sun. She works deep into the night, and sees shadows that she struggles to understand.

    She has forgotten there is someone else that lives under the canopy of the dense forest as a caretaker of a different nature. That there is a hidden room filled with dials and gauges she has never been shown.

    And somewhere, deep beneath the rich earth of Fairhope, is a secret that lies outside just one human lifetime. It is measured in seasons and roots and in the connections of trees. It is part of a plan of ages to keep alive a vibrant ember in a dying world.

    If only Ivy could remember.

Inspired by Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, this 93,000 word eco-fiction novel is a cross between Ursula K LeGuin’s Always Coming Home and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It is a read that reinforces the importance of our human relationships, our environment, and the powerful interconnected nature of all living things.