Author’s Note — A few years ago, I wrote a nov­el titled My Best Friend’s Exor­cism, set in 1988 Charleston dur­ing the height of the Satan­ic Pan­ic. The sto­ry fol­lowed two teenage girls who become con­vinced that one of them is pos­sessed, result­ing in a dark spi­ral of chaos and fear. Because it was told through a teenager’s eyes, the adults were por­trayed as clue­less and out of touch—just as they often appear when you’re young and over­whelmed.

But that per­spec­tive is only half the sto­ry. From a parent’s point of view, the fear hits dif­fer­ent­ly. There’s noth­ing more par­a­lyz­ing than watch­ing your child suf­fer and feel­ing com­plete­ly pow­er­less to help. It was this unset­tling truth that inspired my next book, The South­ern Book Club’s Guide to Slay­ing Vam­pires. Though it’s not a direct sequel, it shares a set­ting with my ear­li­er work—an echo of the same Charleston neigh­bor­hood, only viewed through old­er, wis­er eyes.

Grow­ing up, I saw my moth­er and her friends as back­ground characters—ladies in mini­vans who jug­gled chores, PTA meet­ings, and book club dis­cus­sions. At the time, it all felt light­weight, like they were just pass­ing time while wait­ing for life to hap­pen. I didn’t real­ize how much weight they car­ried qui­et­ly: the unpaid emo­tion­al labor, the invis­i­ble pres­sures, and the dai­ly effort to shield their chil­dren from a world that could turn bru­tal with­out warn­ing. That real­iza­tion hit hard when I got older—and it reshaped the way I write women, espe­cial­ly moth­ers.

This book explores the every­day hero­ism of moth­ers and house­wives. These women oper­ate in the mar­gins, rarely rec­og­nized but con­stant­ly hold­ing things togeth­er. They man­age emo­tion­al crises, nav­i­gate social pol­i­tics, and absorb so much so that their chil­dren can move through life feel­ing safe. The char­ac­ters in this sto­ry are a trib­ute to the silent resilience of moth­ers who pro­tect with­out ever being thanked for it.

Vam­pires play a sym­bol­ic role here, too. They’re more than just crea­tures of folk­lore; they’re metaphors for what preys on com­mu­ni­ties unde­tect­ed. The Amer­i­can vam­pire has evolved into some­thing deeply reflec­tive of our fears—drifters with­out pasts, lon­ers who con­sume with­out guilt, embody­ing both charm and men­ace. Think less Drac­u­la and more Ted Bundy in denim—predators cloaked in charis­ma.

These fic­tion­al mon­sters have long mir­rored the preda­tors in real life. Vam­pires don’t build—they drain. They don’t raise fam­i­lies or invest in com­mu­ni­ties. They move in qui­et­ly, exploit trust, then van­ish, leav­ing dev­as­ta­tion behind. It’s this arche­type that gave the nov­el its edge, show­ing how threats can live in plain sight, espe­cial­ly in neigh­bor­hoods that pride them­selves on polite­ness and appear­ances.

The ten­sion at the heart of the sto­ry comes from this: What hap­pens when women who are taught to be polite, to make things nice, to avoid confrontation—finally decide enough is enough? What hap­pens when the veneer of south­ern charm cracks under the weight of some­thing hor­ri­fy­ing? These women aren’t trained to fight mon­sters, but they fight anyway—because no one else will.

There’s some­thing inher­ent­ly ter­ri­fy­ing about being ignored when you’re try­ing to raise an alarm. That’s anoth­er theme I want­ed to tack­le: how women are often dis­missed, their con­cerns triv­i­al­ized, espe­cial­ly when they don’t fit a par­tic­u­lar mold of author­i­ty. And yet, his­to­ry is filled with women who knew some­thing was wrong long before any­one else lis­tened. This book tries to hon­or that kind of intu­ition.

Anoth­er lay­er of this sto­ry speaks to com­mu­ni­ty and com­plic­i­ty. It asks hard ques­tions: How far would you go to pro­tect your neigh­bors, your chil­dren, your rep­u­ta­tion? When is silence an act of sur­vival, and when does it become dan­ger­ous? The book club in this nov­el becomes more than a social group—it turns into a bat­tle­ground where loy­al­ty, fear, and moral­i­ty col­lide.

In research­ing this sto­ry, I read up on true crime cas­es and the psy­cho­log­i­cal pat­terns of ser­i­al preda­tors. I also revis­it­ed inter­views with women from the 1980s and 1990s, espe­cial­ly those involved in grass­roots com­mu­ni­ty defense efforts. It remind­ed me that hor­ror isn’t just about jump scares—it’s about real peo­ple being put in impos­si­ble sit­u­a­tions and find­ing the strength to respond.

At its core, this sto­ry is a blend of nos­tal­gia, fear, and admiration—for the women who fight in qui­et ways, for the neigh­bor­hoods that pro­tect secrets, and for the mon­sters that are often more human than we’d like to admit. It’s both a love let­ter and a warn­ing, wrapped in south­ern heat and blood. Because in the end, hor­ror doesn’t always come from the dark—it can arrive with a smile and a hand­shake.