EVA: a novel

Spring 2026: Seeking representation

One summer night in 1926, a girl named Eva snuck out of her father’s Seattle house and hopped in a car with a man named Tom. She was a 14-year-old bookworm who couldn’t wait to start high school that fall. He was her 34-year-old brother-in-law. Tom and Eva drove to Portland, where they lived together, under assumed names, as husband and wife. Four months later, they were awakened by federal agents pounding on their door. Tom was arrested under the Mann Act, also known as the White-Slave Act. Eva was sent to a home for unwed mothers. Her widowed father and grownup sisters refused to take her back.

Eva is the story of how a girl barely out of grammar school, the daughter of immigrants, emerged from the chaos of a delusional misadventure and reinvented herself. The price she paid was secrecy. Inspired by a true story, Eva is about infatuation and love, blame and redemption. It’s about the American West in the 1920s, when rovers of all kinds, including young women, flocked to the cities, farms, ranches, mines and logging camps in search of a fresh start. Some met tragic ends. But others were smart or tough or lucky enough to start over somewhere new, and pull it off.

Eva is a novel for readers who are drawn to characters whose moral compasses are complicated. It will appeal to fans of Daniel Mason (North Woods), Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping), Molly Gloss (The Hearts of Horses) and Jamie Ford (Love and Other Consolation Prizes).

There’s more about me here and more about my memoir, Her Beautiful Brain, here.