Writing

NO GROTESQUES IN NATURE

In a candlelit room in Norwich, 1682, a man waits to die.

Sir Thomas Browne—physician, thinker, and faithful questioner—feels the walls of his mind softening. Time folds in on itself. The scent of beeswax and earth mingles with memory, and the ghosts arrive: a hanging woman whispering injustice, a boy with golden hair who once offered something dangerously close to love, a wife who clings to duty and cannot let go.

As the boundary between body and soul loosens, Thomas slips through a labyrinth of moments—childhood grief, schoolboy desires, the cold precision of dissection, and the quiet heresies buried in scientific method. He searches for God, for meaning, for the comfort of a voice calling his name one last time.

In language that cuts and soothes, No Grotesques in Nature is a haunting meditation on belief, betrayal, and the fierce ache of longing. Brimming with ghosts and grace, it asks: What does a good man owe the truth? And who gets to tell the story when the body is finally still?

For readers of Maggie O’Farrell, Sarah Perry, and the quiet storm of everything left unsaid.

This debut novel was a finalist in the Wildhouse Publishing Fiction Contest in 2024.

“A thorough, fascinating, lyrical, and heartrending novel of Sir Thomas Browne not only as a historical figure, but as a deeply wrought portrait of an interior life wrestling with questions about language, science, sexuality, friendship, love, the self and the divine. I was particularly impressed with the commitment to research, literary “rule-breaking” and risk, and careful, artful attention to the possibilities of language found in Sir Thomas Browne’s life, all of which further the profound emotional and historical scope of the novel. A wonderful and deep pleasure to read! “

-Michael Zapata, author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau

THE HILL (current WIP)

Helen Gallagher is a woman who has known the randomness of tragedy. A widow navigating her middle years in the coastal English town of Hastings, she fills her days with routine—walks with her beagle Bingley, hot mugs of builder’s tea, and carefully cultivated solitude. But on a windswept Saturday morning, the serenity of her life shatters when she witnesses an unspeakable accident: a child killed by a kite on the town’s beloved West Hill.

In the aftermath, Helen finds herself an unexpected anchor to the grieving family—a father unraveling in real time, and a five-year-old boy whose innocence is forever altered. As Helen offers shelter, comfort, and fragments of her own healing, she is forced to confront the deepest crevices of her grief, motherhood, and memory. What begins as a chance encounter becomes a quiet reckoning with life’s fragility and the surprising ways connection can grow from catastrophe.

With prose both luminous and unflinching, The Hill explores the strange intimacy of strangers, the aching endurance of love, and the quiet bravery it takes to keep moving forward when everything changes in a breath.