PURGATORY, ILLINOIS, complete at 96,000 words, is a work of LGBTQ literary fiction that combines the tenderness and levity of Rebecca K. Reilly’s Greta & Valdin with the sensuality and emotional complexity of Emily Adrian’s Seduction Theory.

After the loss of her last remaining parent, Jackie only wants two things: to be alone forever in emotional purgatory, and for her partner Allie to be happy.

Unfortunately, only one of these dreams can come true.

Allie has always believed he and Jackie were meant to be. Despite the ups and downs, wandering eyes, and trysts gone awry over a complicated decade together, the love that changed them as sensitive undergrads has held up. But when Allie’s on the cusp of proposing, Jackie decides instead that they should end things.

Unfortunately, Allie does not accept this answer.

While Jackie refuses to speak, Allie refuses to leave, haunting her thoughts, her couch, and her heart, even as his own heart calls him home—and to his best friend, who’s waited ten years for someone to love him back. A decade’s worth of denial and desire can no longer be ignored. Jackie and Allie must choose between what they have and what else is possible, or else risk losing the life they’ve built together completely.

Last year I attended the Pikes Peak Writers Conference and the Colorado Gold Writers Conference, at which I was a finalist for a Colorado Gold Rush Literary Award. As a queer woman, I wrote this book in response to the hunger for more modern, authentic queer stories that reject tragedy in favor of hope. In my spare time, I also collect antique books and author a monthly Substack about reading and writing. This would be my first published work.