THEA
Winner of the 2026 IndieReader Discovery Awards in YA, Fiction
What’s the book’s first line?
“Up, Ma. Time to get up.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
In Prohibition-era Oklahoma City, fifteen-year-old Thea Carter is determined to win her high school diploma despite her chaotic living situation and her mother’s alcoholism. To ensure that her mother keeps her job as housekeeper to a morose and enigmatic medical doctor, Dr. Hallam, Thea does most of her mother’s work while also navigating adolescence, friendships, and first love. Dr. Hallam quickly recognizes Thea’s resourcefulness and drive. When he also discovers her intelligence, he becomes her ally in achieving her dream. But along with wealth and privilege, the doctor also has a secret—one that could destroy the bond between them.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Like Thea, my mother was born in 1911 and graduated from high school in 1929, and while I was growing up, my favorite stories were the ones she told me about her life during those years—her education, her estrangement from her family, and the people along the way who helped her not just to survive, but to flourish. Elements of my mother’s life coupled with some of my own were the basis of THEA.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
I believe THEA’s themes of friendship and found family will resonate with modern readers while also providing insights into what life was like for a small-city teenager in the early twentieth century.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
Thea Carter is notably determined (stubborn would not be too strong a word for her) and resilient—useful qualities in achieving her goals—but ultimately it’s her empathy that serves her best.
When did you first decide to become an author?
I decided I wanted to be a novelist when I was twelve. It only took me fifty-three more years after that to publish my first book!
Is this the first book that you’ve written?
I’ve published five novels, and with my daughter, edited and annotated a sixth.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I am happily retired from a long career as a minor administrative cog at a series of universities.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
I write for about four hours a day, five or six days a week. I find if I try to write longer than that, the quality of the work drops off horribly.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Best: Absolute freedom! Nobody can tell me what, or how, to write. I have a good editor, and I pay her money to critique my work so frankly that sometimes it makes me I cry, but ultimately I decide what appears on the page.
Hardest: I have to sell my books as well as write them. Ugh.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
John Fowles
Which book do you wish you could have written?
A Maggot by John Fowles