BOOKS
Kira’s back in her affluent hometown for the first time in years and determined to unravel the secrets of her mother’s death–hidden in the unpublished memoir she left behind– even if it kills her. . . .
After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home. . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like sexy Jack, her childhood crush. But more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that make it look an awful lot like murder.
When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, Kira is drawn into the past and all the sizzling secrets that come along with it. With few allies left in her gossipy country-club town, Kira turns to Jack for help. As she gets closer to discovering what—and who—might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.
And they might come after Kira next.
A woman in the forest thinks she’s going to die.
I know he’s coming back for me.
Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears, and Cynthia Nichols have been friends since childhood. They are now approaching forty and their lives have changed, but their insular East Texas town has not. They stay sane by drinking wine in the afternoons, dishing about other women in the neighborhood, and bonding over the heartache of their own encroaching middle age and raising ungrateful teens.
Then Will Harding comes to town, moving into one of the neighborhood’s grandest homes. Mysterious and charming, he seems like the answer to each woman’s prayers. He’s a source of fascination for Jen, Kittie, and Cynthia, but none of them are ready for the way Will disrupts their lives.
As Will grows closer with each of the women, their fascination twists into obsession, threatening their friendships and their families. When he abruptly pulls away, each woman scrambles to discover the source of his affection. But what they’ll uncover is far more sinister and deadly than any of them could have ever imagined.
The Hunting Wives share more than target practice, martinis, and bad behavior in this novel of obsession, seduction, and murder.
Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless.
Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie’s curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers.
When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and her life spiraling out of control.
When ten-year-old Lucy Spencer goes missing from her sleepy Texas town, her parents, the police, and the township all brace for the worst, assuming her body will soon be found. They imagine her case will follow the deadly fate of the other recent, unsolved kidnappings in the area. But Lucy’s sister, Leah, begins having dreams about Lucy and insists that she is still alive; that her dreams are messages from her sister, clues about what might have happened.
As the deluge of grief threatens to pull apart the once close-knit Spencer family, fourteen-year old Leah sets out on her own investigation, risking everything in her secure world to find her sister. Carl, Lucy’s father, slips further away from himself and his family as he tries to reconcile the fact that his little girl slipped out of his hands one morning, while Roz, Lucy’s mother, must come to terms with the reality that some things lay beyond her control. But it’s Sylvia, a reclusive widow across town who witnessed something years ago who might hold the key to finding Lucy, if only she can find the courage to come forward.
Set against the backdrop of 1980s small-town Texas and the feverish rise in paranoia surrounding satanic cults, BIG WOODS is a literary thriller about the enormity of grief, the magical bond between sisters, and a small town’s dark secrets.
BIG WOODS was selected as the winner in the 2015 Writer’s League of Texas Manuscript Contest and was also chosen as the winner in the 2016 NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza Contest.