Trust Falls: A Novel

A failed stage actress. A beleaguered pop star. Two cousins with nowhere else to go. And an unscrupulous developer, poised to bulldoze their rural sanctuary.

Charley Dupree’s family Christmas tree farm is everything to her: a place of beauty, a refuge from a world that has offered nothing but betrayal, and home to her mother Penny, her oldest friend Julian, and his cousin Mark, a former baseball star who might just be Charley’s soul mate, if she can learn to trust again. But with foreclosure looming, Charley is short on time and options—until a stroke of luck and an act of kindness bring acclaimed singer-songwriter Maya Santoro to her doorstep, seeking a secluded place to finish her overdue album.

But the more Charley tries to balance Maya’s demand for privacy with her fight to keep the farm afloat, the more her relationships suffer. And when a scheme that should be the farm’s ultimate saving grace goes catastrophically wrong, Charley must decide what matters most: her home, or those she shares it with.

Emotionally resonant and brimming with hope, Trust Falls is a story of friendship, found family, and claiming one’s place in the world.