1--What is the title of your latest release?
GOTHICTOWN
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
When a New York restauranteur moves her family down to a small town in Georgia in response to an economic incentive, she learns there’s more to the town that meets the eye, and she’s put her family in grave danger.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Most of my books are set in either Alabama, where I’m from, or Georgia, my home of over 30 years. I adore the South, and I’m both fascinated and repelled by it. In the end I’m a Southerner, my books all grapple with what that means.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Totally.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Smart, loyal, resourceful.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
How hard it is to run a restaurant. I was working as a host at my friend’s breakfast/brunch/lunch place during the time I was concocting the book. It was my first time working in the service industry and it is truly noble work.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Depends on how I’m feeling. If I’m bursting with words I’ve got to get down on paper, I go with that. If I’m not sure what I’m going to write that day, I will go back to what I wrote the day before and tinker with it.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
My son introduced me to a chef’s counter dinner at this fabulous restaurant in Decatur, Georgia that’s five courses with five different wines, and you get to watch the kitchen prepare the meal. We went for his birthday.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have a small outbuilding on our property that I call my writer’s shed. It’s so cozy with a kitchen and bathroom, a TV, and a sofa for napping. It’s got all this warm wood on the walls, bookshelves, and an antique settee and chair. Also, an entirely pink kitchen. I love it in there.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I admire a lot of authors who I don’t know simply because I love their books. I also have a lot of author friends and deeply admire different things about what they do. One of those colleagues and friends is Shannon Capone Kirk, who writes these incredibly vivid, unique thrillers and love stories that are just so distinctly her voice and her vision. She is one of the few artists I know who doesn’t compromise or pander in her writing, and her books are so singular and vivid.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
There are several. Carrie, Jane Eyre, The Secret History, Down a Dark Hall, Sharp Objects, just to name a few. It might sound dramatic, but all of these books opened my eyes to what literature could do, which is huge for a writer.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was home and my agent called me and asked if I was sitting because she had good news. I was thrilled of course, but truthfully, I’d worked for many years at signing with an agent, getting published, and I’d also had plenty of rejection by that time that, so when I finally got the news, I was very matter of fact about it. Like, okay, it’s about time, check that off the list, now let’s do this thing. I’ve since learned to stop and savor. To celebrate every victory, large or small.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Literary. Folk horror.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Impossible question to answer. It might be Jerry Maguire. Possibly.
15--What is your favorite season?
Summer.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Dinner with my family. Nothing fancy, just my sons, their significant others, and my husband. My husband gets everybody the best birthday cards. He’ll write out cards for me from my dogs, too, with handwritten messages about how much they love me. It’s delightful.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Nobody Wants This on Netflix was so much fun and so swoony.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
My guilty pleasure is really perfectly seasoned and fried chicken tenders dipped in a really good honey mustard. Sometimes, honestly, I have the palate of a fourteen-year-old boy.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Read, watch movies, listen to music, walk, play with my dogs, have long, philosophical talks with my sons.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
My next book is called A SPELL FOR SAINTS AND SINNERS. It’s about a witch-psychic in Savannah who after she nails a reading for a woman, gets drawn into the woman’s wealthy, dysfunctional family and realizes too late that she’s in way over her head.
In an immersive Southern Gothic with echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, a restauranteur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic small town in Georgia, only to discover a darkness lurking beneath the Southern hospitality and sun-dappled streets...
Welcome to gentle Juliana, where you can have it all…if you pay the price.
The email that lands in Billie Hope’s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she’ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true…or a devil’s bargain.
A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised—two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a “gentle jewel” with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs…
But Billie’s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana’s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.
There’s something about “Gentle Juliana”—something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she’s starting to wonder how, and if, they’ll ever leave.
Women's Fiction Southern | Mystery | Novella / Short Story [Kensington, On Sale: March 25, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9781496750549 / eISBN: 9781496750563]
I’ve been writing ever since I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama. My debut work was a highly (okay, totally) plagiarized version of The Pokey Little Puppy. The narrative followed the original closely (okay, word for word), and it came complete with detailed Crayola illustrations and was bound with staples by my ever-patient mother. When I wasn’t copying other authors’ books, I was walking, sitting, or lying down with my nose in a library book. In fact, the old Birmingham Public Library, with its marble floors, giant murals, and soaring atrium, remains one of the most magical and inspiring places in the world to me.
After graduating from Auburn University with a BA in Communications and two minors in Journalism and Theater, I moved to New York City with my husband. I landed a job at CBS television in the Daytime Drama division, where we oversaw the production of the soaps “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light.” One of my responsibilities was reading the shows’ daily scripts and creating summary paragraphs for local newspapers. You might remember reading one of these tiny masterpieces – they usually went something like, Roger freaks out when he realizes Holly’s been faking amnesia, and Billy’s back from rehab only to find Mindy in bed with Frank! (“So-and-so freaks out” was my signature, work-horse phrase. I used it every week.)
After moving back to Atlanta, I attempted to write a few spec soap scripts, but the form didn’t quite capture my imagination. Instead, I began trying my hand at screenplays. I shopped a few to Hollywood agents and production companies, was lucky enough to place in a couple of contests, and was even shortlisted for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. As I like to say about that phase of my writing career, my screenplays were rejected by the best; Amblin Entertainment (Steven Spielberg’s company), Icon Productions (Mel Gibson’s company) and Rob Reiner’s company all said no. I did, however, have the fantastic opportunity to work on two low-budget, indie films, but, at the conclusion of those exhausting experiences, I realized film production wasn’t for me. What I really loved most was writing.
With my three boys in school full-time, I decided the time was right to take the leap and write a book. I joined the Atlanta Writers Club and a local critique group. I devoured several excellent craft books. I had never taken a formal creative writing class and felt woefully unqualified, but I couldn’t avoid the pull of the page. The prospect of creating an entire world all my own electrified me.
I began working on my first manuscript, a romantic comedy, in 2011. I finished it, queried agents, and received some encouraging comments. Ultimately, no agent bit, and after a second, unsuccessful attempt at the rom-com genre, I decided to try something new. I wanted to go dark – write something really creepy, atmospheric and southern gothic. The resulting book, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, ultimately landed me my agent (the brilliant and hard-working Amy Cloughley at Kimberley Cameron & Associates) and sold to Danielle Marshall and Kelli Martin at Lake Union Publishing (Amazon).
It’s been a long journey to publication, and I’m still trudging down the path. Trudging, yes, but whistling a happy tune on my way. What I’ve learned so far? Have (unending) patience, be (relentlessly) diligent, and stay (stupidly) optimistic. This career can buffet your self-esteem, and to keep moving forward, you must maintain this strange, paradoxical combination of hubris and humility. People help – my fellow critique partners have been a lifeline for me and my family has bolstered me with love and support. Find your network; they will encourage you to keep telling your stories. For me, that’s where the joy is found.
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