Night of Nine Tails
One of the themes in my recently-released Night of Nine Tails is anxiety. Reg has a sense of dread and she doesn’t know where it is coming from. She doesn’t know if she is in danger, if something is going to happen, or if she’s just anxious for no reason. The story explores themes of what feels dangerous and what feels safe, and whether those feelings are justified.
While the Reg Rawlins Psychic Investigator series is paranormal mystery, I have written a number of other characters with anxiety in real-world settings as well.
Night of Nine Tails is book #4 in this series that will have nine books published by the end of the year.
She Wore Mourning
PI Zachary Goldman had a traumatic and disrupted childhood and suffers from anxiety and hypervigilance over a lot of things. A myriad of things from candles to Christmas trees can throw him into a flashback and he is constantly worried about worried about his relationships and royally screwing things up, which he has done more than once.
Zachary Goldman Mysteries currently consists of seven books.
Mito
Renata in the Medical Kidnap Files has a mitochondrial disorder, and one of the side effects or comorbid disorders she suffers from is paranoia. While not trusting anyone helps her and Gabriel to stay under the radar, her brain is overflowing with conspiracy theories and Gabriel is never sure which theories have merit and which may be overblown flights of fancy.
There are currently four books in the Medical Kidnap Files and I am mapping out my plans for the fifth book.
I don’t want to take up too much space on my own books, so I will just list a few others to consider in short form:
Between the Cracks series (YA)
Cynthia has a Secret (YA)
Stand Alone (YA)
Looking Over Your Shoulder (mystery)
Lion Within (suspense)
Other fiction about anxiety:
I took a little time to look around for recommended fiction on anxiety. Have a look at what I found:
The Rest of Us Just Live Here
What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.
Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.
Six of Crows
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .
A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.
Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.
Turtles All the Way Down
Aza Holmes never intended to pursuethe disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.
Starfish
Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she’s thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn’t quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin.
But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.
Me Talk Pretty One Day
A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers and cashiers with 6-inch fingernails. Compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne, Sedaris has become one of our best-loved authors.
Because We Are Bad
By the age of thirteen, Lily Bailey was convinced she was bad. She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.
Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—”I” became “we”—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to “normalizing” herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.
Reasons to Stay Alive
(Memoir)
In the western world the suicide rate is highest amongst men under the age of 35. Matt Haig could have added to that statistic when, aged 24, he found himself staring at a cliff-edge about to jump off. This is the story of why he didn’t, and how he recovered and learned to live with anxiety and depression. It’s also an optimistic, joyous and often funny exploration of how to live better, love better, read better and feel more. A wonderful mix of memoir and hard-won wisdom, Reasons to Stay Alive is, at heart, about making the most of your time on earth.
