Making your story count!
Book title: AT THE ISLAND’S EDGE
Expected release date: 3/18/2025
Genre/category: Women’s Fiction/Contemporary Fiction/Book Club Fiction
An Iraq War veteran and single mother returns to Puerto Rico to reconnect with—and confront—the past in a heart-wrenching novel about duty, motherhood, and the healing power of home.
What prompted you to write this book?
I signed up to serve in the U.S. Army in 2005 and served for a total of nine years. Over the last nineteen years, I have not seen any commercial fiction or Hollywood films depicting women battling the return to normal life following their wartime experiences. I saw plenty of books and films focused on the male experience, but nothing for women who often return home and must resume their duties as wives and mothers despite the very real challenges of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I knew I had an opportunity to honor the complexities of that journey, especially by incorporating cultural dynamics and a child with special needs into the storyline.
This book is a tribute to honor the more than 300,000 women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, in addition to all the women who came before in each of our nation’s wars.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I began writing in March 2022 and signed with my agent in March 2023. We went on submission in September 2023 and garnered interest in a little over a week by the acquiring publisher. My publishing date is 3/18/2025, so the journey has been exactly two years from start to finish.
The idea for the book did not change at all. When I began writing, I knew I wanted to tackle the topic of PTSD for a mother on the battlefield and honor the women who served in the military. A few weeks after I began writing the story, I decided that Puerto Rico would be a critical element in my protagonist’s healing. Everything else was a matter of filling in the blanks.
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