I write literary fiction—both historical and contemporary—that explores the hidden lives we carry beneath the surface. My novels are united less by time period than by a fascination with memory, longing, grief, and the private moments that shape who we become.
NO GROTESQUES IN NATURE
In a candlelit room in Norwich, 1682, a man waits to die.
As Sir Thomas Browne—physician, natural philosopher, and one of England’s great prose stylists—lies in his final hours, the boundaries between memory and reality begin to dissolve. Ghosts gather at his bedside: a woman condemned as a witch, a boy who awakened a love he could never name, a devoted wife carrying the weight of shared grief, and the God he has spent a lifetime trying to understand.
As Browne drifts through the defining moments of his life, he reckons with faith, science, desire, loss, and the uneasy spaces where certainty gives way to mystery. Richly imagined and deeply rooted in historical research, No Grotesques in Nature is an intimate portrait of a brilliant mind confronting the questions that have haunted him all his life—and the final mystery that awaits us all.
Finalist, Wildhouse Fiction Prize (2024). Shortlisted, Virginia Prize for Fiction (2026).
“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 KITE
Helen Gallagher has spent five years learning how to live with grief.
Widowed and quietly content in her carefully ordered life on England’s Sussex coast, Helen finds solace in routine: walking her rescue beagle across Hastings’ West Hill, swimming in the freezing English Channel, and keeping the world at a safe distance.
Everything changes when she witnesses the unimaginable—a freak kite accident that kills a young child—and becomes the unexpected caretaker of the victim’s five-year-old brother in the chaotic hours that follow. What begins as a single afternoon of necessity draws Helen into the orbit of a family devastated by loss, forcing her to confront the grief she has spent years holding at bay.
Set against the rhythms of a close-knit seaside community, The Kite is a novel about mourning, unexpected connection, and the fragile courage it takes to open your heart after believing it has closed forever.
Longlisted, Mslexia Novel Award (2026). Honourable Mention, CRAFT Literary First Chapters Contest.
A MOUNTAIN OF LOOSE SAND (WIP)
A woman history remembers only for the way she died finally tells her own story.
When Amy Robsart is found dead at the foot of a staircase in 1560, suspicion falls upon her husband, Robert Dudley, and his intimate relationship with Queen Elizabeth I. But history is rarely as simple as a single version of events.
Told through the alternating voices of Amy, Robert, and Elizabeth, A Mountain of Loose Sand revisits one of Tudor England’s most enduring mysteries from the inside out. As Amy searches for meaning in the final days of her life, Robert finds himself torn between love and ambition, while Elizabeth struggles to reconcile the demands of the crown with the desires of her heart. Each believes they know the truth. Each carries a story history has left unfinished.
Richly researched and psychologically immersive, A Mountain of Loose Sand explores love, power, memory, and the stories we tell to survive—and asks who has the right to shape history once the dead can no longer speak.
Brandy O'Briant 