Why "Little Sins"?

With the publication date of Little Sins getting closer, I’ve been asked: Why did you write it? You’ve previously penned historical novels set hundreds of years ago so why the switch up to the 20th century and writing suburban “domestic suspense”?

Well, there are several reasons actually, including that I’ve already published a few short stories set in modern times. But the spark for Little Sins was provided on a trip back to where I grew up in Rhode Island a month before the Covid tsunami was unleashed. Riding around the old neighborhood and seeing what had changed beyond recognition as well as what had not changed, got me to thinking about some what-ifs. Memories of growing up in East Providence, incidents from my life and from lives of those I knew. Memories from a time before social media, cell phones and Google. A time when secrets were more easily kept and guarded.

And, so what if things that really happened had worked out in a very different, more dramatic way? The premise of the novel came into my daydreaming mind on the flight home: two teenage best friends on the cusp of adulthood go on a clandestine camping trip at their group’s campground on private land. They soon stumble on a shallow grave. Horrified, they recognize the victim as a missing priest from the local parish. Instantly realizing the only people with knowledge of the place are five troop committee men – including both their own fathers – the teens are forced to confront a difficult choice. Tell their parents. Or say nothing.

Little Sins is a coming-of-age story for adults. It deals with some dark issues including the casual domestic violence that was for many a regular part of life in the mid-twentieth century and disturbingly normalized to some extent in those times. And worse, how such abuse towards women and children was routinely covered up, dismissed, and even enabled by those in positions of authority. As one of my characters muses, “Perfect lawns, imperfect people.”

But this is the novel’s undercurrent. The plot itself is driven by family suspicions, betrayals, shattered trust, and ultimately revenge. How far can the bonds of family loyalty be tested? And those between best friends.

Little Sins is fiction and may not be based on any true local incident, but readers from Rhode Island and New England will recognize a lot of the places and references and those of a certain age might even smile at remembering things about a world that was. And believe it or not, 50 years ago is the accepted cut-off point for something to still be considered “historical” fiction in the book publishing sense. Is it historical fiction? To me, it seems a thousand years from today.

Little Sins is published on 16 March and you can order it on Amazon.com here or Amazon.UK here.