A young, pregnant woman’s fear of repeating her parents’ mistakes spirals after reading her late father’s hidden journal, luring her into the Afterlife and the secrets he left behind.
In WELCOME TO THE AFTERLIFE, Iris intercepts a letter addressed to her recently deceased father—hinting at a secret daughter and a past she never knew. Determined to uncover just how much her late father's life was to her own, Iris scours his belongings for details and clues. Though the deeper she digs, the more her own life begins to unravel: At work, her once-promising career slips through her fingers. At home, a surprise pregnancy ignites the quiet fears she's tried to ignore—that she's not ready to become a mother, and that her life might already be mirroring her parents' doomed path—falling unhappily into place, infidelity, divorce, or worse... When recurring nightmares, flickering lights, and moving objects plague her nights, Iris tells herself it's stress. But the truth is circling closer.
A devastating accident leaves her stranded in the Afterlife—a surreal version of her home, where the dead move among the living, unable to be seen or heard. Here, Iris must confront a haunting presence that has been manipulating her family through REM sleep.
Trapped between two worlds and two truths, Iris must decide to expose her own secret or let her family's legacy claim another life. In WELCOME TO THE AFTERLIFE, a domestic suspense novel complete at 86,000 words, Iris narrates the story of her father's life so that she may finally understand her own. But some truths demand a choice: between inheritance and independence, guilt and freedom, love and letting go.
Welcome to the Afterlife
Got the 2000’s-era bug?
Check out my (somewhat) recent short story publication with Y2K Quarterly titled, T9 Dating.
Stupid, Pretty
The brutal breakup, online dating in the early aughts, and a narrator’s nostalgic deep dive into T9 texting, low-rise jeans, and overly-sexualized pop culture.
“Are You the reason I’m stuck? Why did You call me? I’m kind of a little bit famous now, and if there was someone who could ruin this for me, it’s You.”
STUPID, PRETTY follows Alice, a best-selling debut romance author paralyzed by writer’s block as she struggles to rework her much-anticipated second novel after brutal feedback from her editor. What she doesn’t realize is that her creative paralysis stems from writing a book she no longer believes in—a story shaped by the same people-pleasing instincts that once defined her seven-year relationship with her toxic ex-boyfriend, the man who played a part in skewing her views of romance, men, and self-worth.
When she receives a missed call from him out of the blue, her therapist encourages her to write him a letter to process the emotions it stirs up. But what begins as a therapeutic exercise soon spirals into something greater, as the calls from him keep coming, followed by a mysterious package left on her doorstep.
Upon recognizing just how deeply his influence has shadowed her life, Alice begins dismantling the glossy, romantic lies that built her career, realizing that to reclaim her voice—and her sense of self—she must tell the story she’s always avoided—the story of him.
How to Make a Killing in Real Estate
Big Little Lies meets Selling Sunset
How to Make a Killing in Real Estate is a multi-POV psychological thriller set in the cutthroat world of suburban Chicago real estate. When notorious realtor Ron “The Don” Sweeney is found dead at one of his listings, nearly everyone who knew him becomes a suspect— from the embittered agents he works with to his own family. Among them is Mia Torres, a quiet, meticulous office administrator who, unbeknownst to the detectives, spent the previous week plotting Ron’s murder. As the investigation unfolds, the novel alternates between Ron’s POV, the frantic suspects called in for questioning, and Mia’s calm, logical unraveling of how she executed the perfect crime, raising the question of justice, morality, and who readers will find themselves rooting for in the end.
Writing is like going to the gym— I do it to stay happy and healthy. I do it because it makes me feel good. I do it because if I didn’t, I’d be a miserable grouch who watches too much TV.
I’m a morning person. I like waking up early. I like drinking coffee in silence with my laptop. Light a candle, start the fireplace, me in my daytime jammies—that’s how my perfect day would start—But—that’s not always how it works, and so, my writing process is ever-changing. It depends on the book, the chapter, the day of the week. What I do know is that I get incredibly irritable, maybe even a bit manic, when I don’t touch my WIP for days at a time. Sure, there are intentional moments of gestation that comes with any project, but when it comes down to getting my butt in a chair, I’m disciplined and focused.
I do a lot of binge writing—two or three days of the week where I sit down and let the words flow. When I’m not so focused, I use the Pomodoro Technique and squeeze in 250 words here, 100 words there. And if the week has been a week (we all have them), then Fridays are there to pick up the slack. Fridays, no matter the week, belong to my novels. It’s where I get large chunks of uninterrupted time to get BIG work done.
On Tuesday Nights, I Workshop.
I belong to a weekly writing workshop who has seen every chapter of my novels. I have taken classes from Gotham Writers Workshop, CRAFT TALK, Inked Voices, Jane Friedman, Amy Collins, Chelsea Cain, and Chuck Palahniuk. I have invested in quality editors and continue to enhance and strengthen my craft by reading novels by authors I love, subscribing to various forms of continuing education, and reading craft book after craft book.
WELCOME TO THE AFTERLIFE is a domestic suspense novel that I am actively querying to literary agents. STUPID, PRETTY is my humorous, women’s fiction WIP that was accepted into the 2024–2025 StoryStudio Chicago NIAY program—a selective writing cohort led by author Lindsay Hunter that workshops, studies the craft, and provides accountability toward the goal of completing a novel over the span of one year. HOW TO MAKE A KILLING IN REAL ESTATE is my newest brain child that I can’t read to my workshop group fast enough.
Where would I be without the writing community? On the couch, miserable, watching too much trash television.
P.S. I really do love watching trash television.
