I'm not in love with Nick. I'm not. Do I like Nick? Of course! He's Sam's boyfriend. Why wouldn't I like my best friend's boyfriend? Do I like him in an inappropriate way? Ugh. No! Stop. That would make me a horrible friend. Oh god. That would make me a horrible friend.

Love & Monsters is a story I worked on when I took my first novel writing class at UCLA. Since I lost my sister to suicide, I've been fascinated with exploring mental illness and providing any insight I can to eradicate the stigma. Love & Monsters follows Heather Bateman, a girl who has suffered from schizophrenia all her life but has only recently been diagnosed. She tries to socially recover from a very public mental breakdown with the help of her best friend Wren and a strange new boy who calls himself Nex.

a dark story based around a girl entering a pageant