Book Four in the Heart of St. Mary’s County series, Available February 21, 2026!

Madness can follow you anywhere…

The only happiness for the Dyer household during the brittle Devon winter of 1634 is the birth of Mary Margaret “Moll” Dyer.

Adored by her dada, mama, and granda, love is the only thing in abundance in Moll’s life. Her bright tresses and sparkling green eyes are a reminder of warmth but a promise of trouble, even while her Catholic heritage makes Moll an endless target for the religious persecution sweeping England.

With her life pierced with taunts, accusations, and grinding poverty, Moll escapes by accepting an indentured servitude contract on a Caribbean sugar plantation. But her fellow servants are suspicious of the red-haired “witch” who seems to curry favor with the plantation’s mistress.

When a rebellion forces Moll off the island plantation and to the burgeoning Maryland colony, she believes she has finally found peace and security. But she struggles to establish herself as a respectable innkeeper, and when someone close to her is accused of witchcraft, madness threatens to engulf Moll.

Facing betrayal by personal enemies and mounting accusations by authorities of wrongdoing, Moll fights to maintain her independence…and her life. But the new colony might just be Moll’s undoing. 

​My love affair with books began at age three. My mother said I drove her “completely nuts” asking her to read to me all the time, so she decided that the only way to get me off her back was to have me read to myself. This led to me winning a spelling bee in third grade and a reading contest in the fourth grade. Then the obsession started…