Books like The Widow's House — picked by fans

I studied psychology in college and am fascinated with the human mind. The psyche holds so many joys, wonders, and the deepest horrors imaginable, all compact and functioning within our skulls. My love for psychology grew into the horror realm, where I read and watched anything revolving around the character study of an individual driven to the brink. Now, I write stories about the morality of actions taken by those who have found themselves in a peculiar position. I believe there is more to the clean-cut view of right versus wrong regarding the decision-making of one’s self-preservation.

I’ve been teaching in prep schools for twenty-five years, and I also attended one. As both student and teacher, I’ve been fascinated by student social dynamics—how groups form, fracture, and define what they value or reject. I’m equally interested in how teachers’ experiences mirror yet differ from students’. Though I always looked forward to summer breaks, I was drawn to literature—especially mysteries—set in prep schools. These stories helped me better understand the complexity of these relationships while offering a lens to reflect on my own experiences, often with far more drama than real life.

When I was participating on a crime fiction panel in 2022, we were all asked to recommend books, and I was struck that none of us mentioned a book by a writer of color. Since I knew there were many excellent books by writers of color, I felt this was something I needed to fix. This past summer I decided to make a concerted effort to read more books by writers of color/#OwnVoices, and looked to members of Crime Writers of Color as a starting point. Encouraged by that very exciting read, I went to Bouchercon in Minneapolis where the association Crime Writers of Color was actively promoting the works of their members.

I was born on Halloween, so I’m officially a card-carrying member of all things creepy, right? However, I’m definitely drawn to books with mood and atmosphere over outright horror and gore. I find the subtle aspects of fear so much more interesting—how is it that one person’s reality can be so different than another’s? I write domestic suspense because I think the people we are closest to and the places we think are safest are often the ones that can hurt us the most. Where a story takes place is so very important. I need to know the geography, the feel, the history of a place—then I can put people in it and make bad things happen.

I didn’t grow up fearless; I grew up quiet. I learned early how schools and communities can press a girl into something smaller than herself until she feels like a shadow. Horror was the first place I saw that pressure explode into power. When I read Carrie, I felt seen in a way I couldn’t explain. I am drawn to stories where shame turns feral, and silence becomes dangerous. These books speak to that breaking point where a voice is stolen and then reclaimed, proving the most terrifying "monster" is simply a girl who refuses to disappear.

Soap operas may have no actual relation to soap—the term comes from radio dramas that were sponsored by soap companies—but they’re certainly related to opera, full of melodrama and grandiosity. With my second novel, a multi-generational family saga, my goal was to write a literary soap opera. I wanted it to be finely crafted, attuned to language and characterization, but also dishy, riddled with heightened drama, vivid personalities, and theatrical events. Below are five literary soap operas I studied while writing my own.

I like books in which there are moral stakes, which sometimes draws me to stories with criminals, and I like when the character at the center of the problem is complex or destabilizes things. Dark humor always helps. Average people should be able to see themselves in some way in the criminal’s bad behavior or at least in their desires. I have published two story collections and two novels. My first collection of short stories won the Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award. My fiction has appeared in Tin House, Southern Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. I'm a professor of English at Kalamazoo College. 

Born in 1969 as the seventh of eight children to two Harlem-raised parents, I benefited from both the inner-city life of Queens, New York and childhood summers spent on a farm in rural upstate New York. Academic, professional, and physical accomplishments have punctuated my life. An adventurer by nature, I became the first African American to hike to the top of every mountain in the northeast US over 4,000' (115 of them) by September of 2000. At that time, less than 400 people had accomplished this feat; whereas thousands have scaled Mount Everest. My home city’s iconic landmarks create a psychological veil that blinds people to the vast open spaces that dominate New York State. 

I’m an author because I was a reader who loved to be transported to a world and land outside my own. My favorite books are the ones that introduce me to a place and time I’ve never been, an immersive read that brings me somewhere new. I believe in the power of story and the magic of its transport. Come along with me and discover a few books that do this very thing. 

I have enjoyed writing and creating stories based on fictional characters since my writing assignments in elementary school. I can remember my teachers telling my mother that my stories were very captivating and that I would take my simple assignments to a level that they hadn’t expected. This love for writing led to a love for reading fiction books and a deeper love for urban fiction, women’s fiction, and erotic fiction. I enjoyed books so much that I became a bookseller at a local bookstore and moved up to a specialist who introduced customers to their next favorite book.