This year, 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of my debut novel, Bloody Point. In celebration, each month we’ll feature the backstory of one of my twelve novels. Here’s the story of #2, Seeds of Evidence.
For most writers, the path to publication is a rocky one, full of twists and turns, long dry spells, accelerations, and reversals. My journey has been the same.
Elated at the publication of Bloody Point in 2005, I wrote the sequel. Sadly, my original publisher decided not to do fiction anymore. No one else would pick up the sequel.
What should I do? I’d honestly felt called to write. I believed in the power of story. I had this vision to write mystery/suspense that included characters realistically living their faith. So I kept going, determined to follow my calling and leave the results to God.
I am a dreamer, but I am also practical. With two kids in college and a third approaching it, I needed income. I’d taken a job on the editorial pages of our local daily newspaper. There I learned about a lot of things, including human labor trafficking and the abuses suffered by people desperate for work. I decided to write about it.
My grandparents had moved to Chincoteague, an island off the Eastern Shore of Virginia, when I was a kid. I loved visiting there, loved the beach, fishing, the wildlife and, of course, the ponies. Nearby, on the Delmarva Peninsula, were many large tomato farms and poultry operations that needed farmworkers. Why not set the book there?
I remember telling a friend at the time, “I don’t care if this book gets published or not—I just want to evoke this place!”
And so I did. Seeds of Evidence starts with an FBI agent, Kit McGovern, jogging on the beach. Recovering from a bad divorce, Kit has retreated to Chincoteague, the home of her grandmother. Her search for peace is interrupted when she finds the body of a young boy washed up by the surf. Who is he? Where did he come from? The only evidence investigators have to go on are the acorns in the little boy’s pockets and the tomato seeds in his gut.
Kit teams up with visiting D.C. homicide detective, David O’Connor, and the two of them pursue the case. Plant DNA evidence from the acorns leads them to a large tomato-growing operation and then into the dark world of human trafficking.
Seeds of Evidence, published by Abingdon Press in 2013, won the HOLT Medallion and was a finalist for other awards. It has proven to be a popular book, thanks in no small part to the support of booksellers Jon and Jane Richstein of Sundial Books on Chincoteague. They’ve hosted signings for me every year since it came out (except 2020). A second edition, published in 2024, includes a new cover and a short Author’s Note. In Seeds of Evidence you’ll find a good introduction to an ongoing social problem, human trafficking—and to the beautiful little island my grandparents called home.