The Burning Side

A house fire in the night sends April and Leo fleeing with their two young children, and into April's childhood home in Dallas — where the fire's aftermath exposes cracks that were already forming in their marriage.

Told through alternating perspectives — April, weighed down by motherhood, guilt, and self-blame; Leo, a history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; and April's mother, Deb, who is quietly caring for her husband Billy through his early-onset Alzheimer's diagnosis — the novel moves between the present and flashbacks tracing April and Leo's relationship from its earliest days to the choices that brought them here.

The Burning Side is a family saga about what we inherit and what we choose, about forgiveness, and about the cost of long love.