All About the Crossing

My eighth book (or so, I've lost count, honestly).

After I had my first baby, there were a lot of emotions, a lot of them not good. There’s nothing more wonderful and horrible than breaking your heart in two and seeing it in a little tiny thing so helpless and perfect and vulnerable.

I struggled with dark feelings and thoughts I had never faced. I’ll be honest, I’ve never done therapy. This was like every internal issue rearing its head at once. I realized how isolated, sad, and miserable I was in some parts of myself.

And I realized this wasn’t something I wanted to pass along, so I came to wonder: what if I loved myself, truly loved myself, exactly as I was. Completely. And that became the beating heart of the Crossing.

The banner of the book is: what if you died and found you were on a ship to the afterlife with your murderer? This was the vessel I would use to carry that beating heart.

And so Evelyn and her story were born.

I crafted a dark world of mysterious, sickly water and dense fog hiding a ship of dreams and nightmares. I’ve always loved a sandbox, and a ship is the perfect place for my characters to run around and get into trouble. I brought monsters out of the deep and stashed secrets away in elegant ballrooms and luxurious sitting room cigar boxes. I hid my metaphors in dazzling jewels and that wretched elevator that goes down, down, down to the depths of the Auratus’ hellish hull.

But my beating heart beat in more than just Evelyn. It beats in Robert, my swarthy, misunderstood businessman who has never believed a soul on board cared for him and could never forgive his own crimes. It beats in Annabelle and Lewis, the servants who power the story from inside out, wondering if there will ever be a future for them beyond the endless toil.

And beyond that heart is a message, a warning: Inequality is death to us all.

I wrote the book while my baby slept on my shoulder. I edited it at five in the morning when I went back to work three months later. Two months after that, I was too sleepy to wake up at five and found out I was pregnant with my second (!). And after I had my little boy, I edited, edited, edited, and revised and then did it all over again.

Soon enough, I sent my query letter out into the world and signed with the wonderful Jenissa Graham at BookEnds Literary Agency.

I’m hopeful a wonderful editor will fall in love with my monsters, my ship, and my beating heart.

Until then, I will hope and I will write.

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