Why I Wrote the Shadyside Novels

Shadyside wasn't just a place-- it was the mirror that reflected the part of you no one else was supposed to see. The shady side. The silent side. The truth beneath the performance.

There was a time I couldn’t tell the whole truth. Not in my journals. Not in therapy. Not on the page. I was too afraid of being judged, misunderstood, or worse, dismissed.

So I watered things down. Smoothed out the jagged parts. Told just enough to make it palatable. But the heartbreak didn’t feel polite. The betrayal wasn’t filtered. And the grief didn’t come in clean lines or quiet tears.

That’s why I wrote these five books. To finally say the things I once buried. To give a voice to the woman I was…

To the friends who held me up…And to the ones who collapsed beside me when life knocked us down.

We all carried secrets. We all wore masks. And at some point, we all cracked.

The Shadyside Novels are about what happens when women stop pretending. They’re about the confessions we make behind boutique doors, over wine in someone’s kitchen, or in whispered phone calls from a locked bathroom.

I didn’t write these books to be brave. I wrote them because silence nearly killed me. Because the ugly truth will set you free.

And because bad things? They make really great stories.

I’ll never forget the day I found a place in the city called Shadyside.

I walked the tree-lined streets in awe—perfectly manicured lawns, winding sidewalks, rows of majestic homes that felt like they were holding a thousand untold stories behind their polished doors.

By 1910, the Industrial Revolution had made Pittsburgh home to some of the wealthiest people in the world. Names like Carnegie, Mellon, and Frick had built steel empires—and built their lives in Shadyside. This wasn’t just another neighborhood. It was a living storybook of elegance and legacy.

The East End had become Pittsburgh’s most affluent suburb, lined with mansions that still stand today—silent witnesses to power, scandal, and survival.

The women who lived there weren’t always the most beautiful—but they were always flawless. Impeccably dressed. Effortlessly poised. Diamond cuffs, opera tickets, black-tie affairs.

I envied them.

I wanted the life that looked like that. So I worked for it. Chased the power, the prestige, the illusion of safety.

But then they started showing up in my store. Just once. Just enough. And behind the curtain, their voices cracked. There was chatter. Soft at first. Then sharper. Like the sound of glass breaking under velvet. Laughter. Judgment. Secrets slipped out between outfit changes. And suddenly, the fantasy shattered. Their stories weren’t so different from mine. They were just dressed in designer labels.

That’s when it hit me— the only real difference between us was where we got our education. Theirs came from private schools, trust funds, finishing tutors, and silent contracts whispered between generations.

Mine?

Came from life.

From betrayal, survival, reinvention—again and again. From building businesses with my bare hands, then losing them to men who thought I’d stay quiet. From motherhood, heartbreak, lawsuits, and second chances that never felt guaranteed.

I didn’t have their pedigree.

But I had a PhD in pain.

In rebuilding from the ashes. In starting over when no one clapped for me. And somehow, my stories started sounding more honest than theirs ever did.

That’s when it clicked:

Shadyside wasn’t just a setting.

It was a metaphor.

For the duality we all carry.

For what’s polished on the surface… and what’s breaking underneath.

Because the mirror doesn’t lie— it just reflects the shady side of ourselves we work so hard to hide.

I was always “the pretty girl.”

But that title came with strings. It wasn’t a compliment—it was a curse dressed up in compliments. Men assumed I was easy. Women assumed I was fake. No one asked what I’d been through. I was the one they picked for the photo, the one they whispered about when I walked away, the one they thought “had it all together.”

But I was unraveling inside.

Pretty got me invited to the wrong rooms. Into relationships built on control, not connection. Into boardrooms where my ideas were stolen and my body was praised. Into marriages that looked perfect in photos— but left me crying into designer pillows, wondering if this was all there was.

Pretty got me in the door. But it never got me seen. It never got me safe. It never saved me. That’s why I hated it. Because “pretty” became the mask I wore while screaming silently underneath.

I’ve met a lot of “pretty women” through the years— some polished, some broken, most pretending to be both.

But Teri made me stop in my tracks. She was already in my store with a group of friends when she noticed the small sign advertising my suitcase packing services.

When she circled back and asked about it, my heart skipped a beat— that nervous flutter you get when you assume you’ll never be enough for her type. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a perfect ponytail. Implants perched high on her chest. Her thin frame smelled faintly of vanilla and sweat. She never made eye contact. And she had this quirky little laugh—like her body had forgotten how to relax, but her mouth still tried to keep things light.

She booked the service on the spot.

Said she was heading to an equestrian resort in Wellington, Florida— a quiet place to work the stables, reconnect with nature, and try to rehab herself off the pills. All while nestled under a goose down pillow, in a stable loft scented with eucalyptus and regret.

Her settlement was more than most of us will ever see— but was it enough to numb the betrayal?

She had divorced the CEO of a gas company. His lies ran so deep she popped Vicodin for lunch just to keep from screaming in public. Another client stayed through five affairs because she liked the country club perks more than she liked herself.

And me?

I listened. I watched. I remembered. And I wrote.

Because when the curtain finally dropped, it wasn’t the jewels or the husbands or the addresses that mattered.

It was the truth.

And I had it.

Bruised. Unfiltered. Drenched in perfume and pain— but mine. Every raw, reckless, beautiful inch of it.

In Shadyside, the mirrors are flawless.

But the reflections?

That’s where the truth lives—quiet, desperate, and just out of sight.

Every woman has a Shadyside—a version of herself only the mirror sees.

And what if the mirror didn’t show the world who you are, but showed you the parts you’re still trying to forgive?

I started with Dressing Room Confessions because that’s where their stories first collided—inside the boutique, behind the velvet curtains, where appearances were everything… and nothing. It was the perfect place to introduce them. Each chapter uncovers a little more of who they are—setting the stage for what’s still hiding beneath the surface in the books to follow.

That’s when the Shadyside Novels began.

Not as fiction.

But as proof that the women society envies the most are often the ones crying hardest behind closed doors. And I was done pretending I couldn’t hear them.

So I gave them a voice.

And in doing that—I finally found my own.