Why Domestic Suspense? | Behind the Story

When I first started writing—way back in high school—I tried my hand at science fiction. I was completely in love with Star Trek and dreamed of creating worlds as imaginative as the ones I watched every week.

To tell the truth, I was much better at reading those stories than writing them.

Even today, I still find myself toying with speculative ideas from time to time. If I ever wander outside domestic suspense, it will probably be into alternate realities rather than spaceships and distant planets.

But people...

People have always fascinated me.

I was that strange little kid you'd find sitting on an elderly neighbor's porch, happily listening to stories while everyone else was off playing.

Our backyard bordered the yard of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. No, I was not Dennis the Mennis, lol.

I spent countless afternoons on their porch listening as they talked about growing up in Germany and eventually making a life in America. Their stories weren't dramatic in the Hollywood sense. They were simply real and to me fascinating because they were different than what America was.

Across the street lived Ms. Fretner. She had the most beautiful vegetable garden, and I'd happily pull weeds or help harvest tomatoes and beans just so I could hear another story from her past.

A few houses farther up the street lived Ms. Sipple. Every kid in the neighborhood thought she was just a cranky mean old lady. No one bothered to get to know her.

I found her and her life fascinating.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent helping her clean just so I could listen to her talk about life, loss, and everything in between.

Looking back now, I realize those neighbors gave me my first glimpse into something television never could.

Real life.

Every family carried joys they celebrated, burdens they hid, and hurts they quietly endured.

Then there was my own family.

Like every family, we had our share of struggles. Some were obvious. Others weren't. Growing up taught me to pay attention—to notice what people weren't saying as much as what they were.

That habit has never really left me.

When I began writing for The Palladium, Ypsilanti High School's arts magazine, writing became more than a hobby.

It became an outlet.

I never used my real name. Everything was published under a pen name because I worried what people might think. Or worse yet that my parents might pick up a copy and read what I had written. I wasn't trying to embarrass anyone. I was simply trying to understand my own emotions, and writing gave me a safe place to do that.

Over time, I realized something important.

Domestic suspense gave me permission to explore difficult truths.

I could take pieces of real life, reshape them into fiction, ask the questions I was too afraid to ask in real life, and sometimes even give people the endings I wished they had received.

That's still why I write today.

People often imagine danger as something obvious—a stranger, a dark alley, a dramatic moment that changes everything.

But the stories that interest me most are quieter than that.

They're the moments we explain away.

The warning signs we ignore.

The little compromises we make because surely it couldn't happen to us.

Those are the stories I want to tell.

Because the most dangerous things in life rarely arrive looking dangerous at all.

Sometimes they're standing right in front of us.

We simply choose not to see them.

Behind the Story is a series where I share the inspiration, memories, and moments that shaped the Quiet Poison books. Thank you for reading, and I'll see you behind the next story.