Last year, or maybe the year before (time no longer makes any sense to me), a tornado warning blew up our phones here in our little town in Central Texas. The four of us gathered up our dogs and took shelter in our bathroom and waited out the storm. Several hours passed as we played card games. At one point, Lori called me an idiot for fleeing to the kitchen to brew a new pot of coffee. She was not incorrect. But still. I needed more coffee if I was going to survive the night.

Eventually the storm passed. The only damage we took was a knocked-over fence, which we propped up and nailed together. It still needs to be replaced, but look at me, do I look like somebody who has fence-replacement money? Ha!

Anyway, while in the bathroom with my family, I couldn’t stop wondering what would happen if something trapped us in there. How would we react to being imprisoned within our own bathroom? And what would we do if nobody came to save us?

I also really wanted to see if I could write an entire book set in a bathroom.

The result of this thought process was a brand-new novella titled We Need to Do Something. It is 36,000 words long and quite possibly might be the darkest thing I’ve ever written. It did not make me feel good to write and I don’t imagine it will make you feel good to read. But I do think it’s a good story. I think the writing is strong. I think the characters are interesting, if not always likable. There is some humor present but perhaps not as much as readers expect in my fiction.

The novella is pretty fucked up, okay? The more distance I put between it, the more I realize that it’s pretty nuts this thing even exists, but it does, and now it’s available for everybody to read.

I didn’t plan on self-releasing it, but with everything going on in the world right now, times are tight and bills need to be paid, so why not self-release it? Who cares? Maybe it’ll help keep the lights on a few extra months or restock the fridge. So why not just randomly release this thing in the middle of a pandemic? There are no longer any rules here, baby!

Here is the jacket art, designed by the always-talented Lori Michelle:

Here’s how you can purchase it:

Webstore (signed) | Indiebound | Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Thanks for checking it out. If you dig it, maybe leave a review on Amazon/Goodreads when you’re finished? I would appreciate it immensely.