It's early summer, and in a small community on the central Jersey Shore, a black car screeches to a halt outside the Wright Bros grocery. Danny looks up from where he's working at the carwash to see the driver rifle out of the car and chase a girl rushing into the store. For some reason-fate perhaps or intuition-he decides to cross the lot and investigate. When he meets Mary, there is a great deal Danny doesn't know, but he certainly knows that he's been struck. For it's like the keys to an old car had been dropped into his hands and is about to start the engine that will forever alter the outcome of their lives. Some Place Better Than Here is a gritty, unflinching look at how we define family and come to grips with loss. It's about growing up in a small town, following your dreams, and mapping out the uneven ground that often lays between love, friendship, and sexual awakening.

"Her dying wish was for me to complete her list, and I wasn't going to stop until it was completed." When Alyssa Morrison loses her little sister to cancer, the last think she wants to think about is completing the ridiculous list she left behind. A list containing eighteen things she wants Alyssa to do before her twenty first birthday in a month. Alyssa soon finds herself following every item on the list, finding some easier then others and some. . . unexpected. But Alyssa soon uncovers the truth behind may have really caused her family to fall apart. . . and just how much her seemingly innocent little sister knew about it.

A chance encounter in the dark leads eighteen-year-old Daniel and the girl who stumbles across him to profess their love for each other. But this love has conditions: they agree it will last only one hour, and it will be only make-believe. When their hour is up and the girl rushes off like Cinderella, Daniel tries to convince himself that what happened between them seemed perfect only because they were pretending it was. Moments like that happen only in fairy tales. One year and one bad relationship later, his disbelief in love-at-first-sight is stripped away the day he meets Six: a girl with a strange name and an even stranger personality. Unfortunately for Daniel, finding true love doesn’t guarantee a happily ever after . . . it only further threatens it. Will an unbearable secret from the past jeopardize Daniel and Six’s only chance at saving each other?

Lewis Champion is in love--total, hopeless, unrequited love--with Jubilee Marshfield. Which is complicated, because she's his best friend. And even though his other best friend Shoe, and his awesome grandfather, Paps, are both rooting for him, Lewis can't get up the courage to tell her how he feels. He's always been a wallflower, watching people and making theories rather than acting on his feelings. In a last-ditch effort for her affection, Lewis acts in a play alongside his two friends, and he discovers a talent hidden within himself. But when Paps suddenly dies and leaves in his will a most mysterious task for Lewis, he must find a way to follow through. And along the way, he discovers the secrets of stories, the courage to say what he feels, and a whole new meaning to the word "acting." The only question is, will his best friend feel the same way, or will he lose her when he tells her? Baker Lawley, the award-winning author of THE BATTLE HYMN BLUES, spins a tale of love, drama, and friendship and a good old-fashioned road trip along the way. STEALING THE SHOW is a fun ride on the meaning of acting and the way stories and plays help us make sense of the things we act on.

Sometimes all you really need is a place to call home. * * * Being re-written completely as of May 14, 2021

❝I swear, people are the cause of cancer.❞

WATTPAD ORIGINAL EDITION In 1955, mixed-race Ethan Harper leaves his progressive hometown for a summer in Alabama where he's not welcome, except by resident free spirit, Juniper Jones. ***** After getting himself into a bout of trouble, 16-year-old Ethan Harper's parents send him to Ellison, Alabama, to live with his aunt and uncle for the summer. But the year is 1955, and Alabama is a far cry from his beloved home of Arcadia, Washington. As much as it's hotter in temperature, it's colder in every other way, and Ethan learns the hard way that people see his mere existence as a threat. Amidst all the mayhem, a fiery, free-spirited, oddball walks into Ethan's life. Her name is Juniper Jones. She is the first person in Ellison who seems unfazed by their racial differences, and she promises to give Ethan a summer he will always remember, filled with endless adventure and discovery. With Juniper, Ethan can breathe, he can be, despite the incessant attention and bullying their newly formed friendship attracts. Can the two survive the summer, run in the light and block out the noise of the outside world? [Published version comes out June 16, 2020 with Wattpad Books!] [[word count: 70,000-80,000 words]]

12:00AM, 31 December, 1999. This is the night that everything changes.