Upcoming Novel: CRADLE OF STORMS


An abandoned village, its forty-two Indigenous inhabitants vanished. No one is looking for them.  
CRADLE OF STORMS explores fateful choices made in wartime by the US and Japanese armies and their bittersweet consequences fifty years later. 

Halley Seacrest arrives to teach school in the Aleutians in 1992, only to become entangled in the death of an elderly Japanese tourist, Taro Kawashima. His notebook is missing. When she discovers that a local Aleut woman, Annasi Simenof, has the notebook, Halley reluctantly agrees to keep it secret to shield Annasi’s family.

In 1942, the Japanese invade Attu. Annasi is kidnapped along with her entire village and sent to a forced labor camp in Japan. In order to protect her little brother Nicolai, she submits to an officer’s advances (Taro.) When he seizes their newborn son and sends Annasi back to the prison camp, she’s convinced that he also lied about Nicolai’s fate. 
In the 1992 timeline, Annasi, who has been behaving erratically, wanders out into a fierce storm. Halley assists in her rescue. Soon after, a middle-aged Japanese physician, Naoki Takahashi arrives, claiming to be Kawashima's nephew. He wants his uncle's notebook. When its contents are revealed, the fate of Kawashima, Nicolai, and the lost son upturn everyone's assumptions about racial identity and the meaning of belonging to a war-fractured community.   

CRADLE OF STORMS was shortlisted for the CWA (Debut Dagger, 2023) and HNS (Historical Mystery, 2026).