Okeela Grove
Where This Series Came From
Every series has a beginning, and this one came from several places at once.
One early influence was Heather Graham’s Florida series. I read it illicitly when I was twelve, which feels important to admit. I adored it. The heat, the danger, the lush Florida landscape, the collision of history and romance. The books were wildly formative.
They were also incredibly problematic.
The noble-savage/white-woman love story. The coercive, often rapey sex scenes. The way history was flattened or romanticized. All of that makes me wince now. Even so, the idea of history braided with desire, place, and danger lodged itself somewhere deep. That part never left me.
Florida never left me either. I spent most of my childhood here, and I live here now with my family. The land is not a backdrop to me. Cheesy as it is to say, the land is a character. A force. Something that remembers.
When I started this project, I thought I was writing something for my girls. Something young-adult leaning. I wanted the same kind of wild, lusty tale I loved as a kid, but with magical realism and stories told from the perspective of people who are usually pushed to the margins of history. I wanted girls and women who belonged to the land in ways that felt ancient and embodied, not ornamental.
It started as YA. It didn’t stay there for long.
Very quickly, the scope expanded. I wanted to show how a community changes over time—how land holds memory even when people try to erase it. That meant moving through eras:
pre–Civil War Florida
the 1920s, inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s Florida and the destruction of Black towns
the 1960s, with women navigating academia and leading environmental movements
the 1990s, with hurricanes and violence creeping through supposedly safe spaces
and eventually, far into the future, when climate change reshapes the Everglades yet again
With each iteration, the books got more complicated. Darker. Sometimes sexier. Less concerned about genre norms.
At the core of all of them is the same invented place: Okeela Grove. A town where some residents are born with a connection to the land, passed from generation to generation, that allows them to protect it. In return, the land offers them belonging that feels almost biological. As if leaving it would mean losing part of themselves.
Once I found that center, something unlocked.
In eight months, I finished four drafts. I have never written that fast in my life.
Part of that speed came from letting go of old rules, especially around process. AI has been a factor. I don’t need a traditional writers’ group. I don’t need to wait months for beta readers to circle back. I can ask for feedback as I write, test ideas, question structure, and keep moving. I’m not a purist. I think the technology, when used as a sounding board rather than a replacement, is enormously helpful, and I’m not afraid to say so.
Which brings me to self-publishing.
I’m forty. I’ve dreamed of writing and selling my books since childhood, and for a long time it just… never happened. I waited. I tried to fit molds. I hoped someone would tell me my work was worthy.
Eventually, I got tired of waiting.
So I put the books out myself. No gatekeepers. No safety nets. Read them or don’t, but they exist now. I’m proud of the stories, the labor behind them, and the courage it took to stop asking permission.
The first three books are complete.
The fourth is in edits.
The fifth is being written right now.
This blog is part of that same impulse: to make the work visible, to talk honestly about where it comes from, and to keep going.
