I love my husband. Honestly, my life would be much easier if I didn’t. It’s no Sunday picnic being married to the enfant terrible of the literary world. Brooks Anderson has no filter and no boundaries. His words are sharper than an Obsidian blade. And he knows how to use it. He’s a constant source of trouble and heartburn. Since the day we eloped at City Hall, me hugely pregnant, I can honestly say I haven’t had a moment’s peace. Brooks carries so much baggage you’d need two 747s to carry it all. But given his traumatic history, that’s not surprising. But I love him, imperfect and flawed.

A day with Brooks is not typical by any stretch. Sure, I do the usual stuff; get our kids off to school, do laundry, market, my thing professionally, which isn’t much compared to Brooks. But to be honest, most of my day is spent putting out Brooks’ fires. For someone who doesn’t have any social media, he’s always being dragged on social media for a faux pas that’s gone viral or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sheldon, Brooks’ literary agent, warned me about what I was getting into. Everyone did. Brooks’ father, Bernard. Even Brooks. He didn’t mince any words. I figured he was just doing what he does best, which was being overly dramatic. Brooks loves to listen to the sound of his own voice. But he wasn’t exaggerating. If anything, he underplayed what life with him would be like.

Most people don’t understand the attraction. Brooks is much older than me, and far more experienced. He partied with Keith Richards. Brooks knows everyone and everything. Me, I’m just a nobody. I was a writer barely out of college looking for my big break in Manhattan. An editor dared me to get an interview with the great Brooks Anderson. When Brooks agreed, no one was more surprised than me. Once he realized I was a nobody, he’d cancel. When he showed up, I almost slid under the table. I knew his reputation. His history. I’d read his books. He was a lost soul living in the Dakota, the building where John Lennon was shot.

But Brooks was charming and erudite. When the interview was over, he gallantly hailed me a taxi. I thought I’d never see him again. I’d barely gotten back to my apartment when he sent me a text; was I free for dinner the next evening? I thought it was a joke. Or he’d sent it by mistake. He was serious. I said no. A polite no, but no. What was he thinking? I couldn’t picture any scenario where Brooks and I’d get involved.

Now, eight years later, it’s still impossible. But here I am. I don’t know why it works, but it does. Brooks says I keep him grounded. That I’m the only one, besides Sheldon, who doesn’t take his gruff. About his past, as painful as it was, he had to go all through the terrible stuff to be what he is today. Sober. Sane. Stable. A devoted father to our kids. A committed husband.

Life with Brooks is being on a Ferris wheel; I never know where it will stop. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh, no. I just got another Google alert on my cell. What has that man done now?

A Good Man
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Release: August 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Decades after a brutal childhood trauma, a famous novelist finds his life shattered once again, in this unsettling psychological mystery thriller.

After years of turmoil, Brooks Anderson is sober and has a stable life with his wife and two kids. He should enjoying life, but the persistent nightmares and sleepwalking tell a different story.

As hard as he’s tried, Brooks can’t run away from the defining event of his life: the senseless murders of his mother and brother during a vacation in Montauk. An eight-year-old Brooks was the sole survivor of the carnage, which left him in a catatonic state. He buried his pain and eventually overcame his demons. Or so he believed.

Now an unscrupulous journalist is threatening to write about the deaths. Fearful that the truth will be twisted to suit sordid ends, Brooks decides to write his own book, despite the grave misgivings of his agent, wife, and father.

However, when the journalist is brutally killed, Brooks finds himself in the authorities’ crosshairs. To prove his innocence and exorcise the past, he digs deeper into his psyche and that fateful summer. His relentless pursuit of the truth soon leads Brooks down a slippery slope that challenges everything—and brings him face-to-face with the real monster of Montauk . . .

Meet the author
PJ McIlvaine is a prolific best-selling author, screenwriter, and journalist. She is also the author of the twisty adult contemporary crime psych thriller A Good Man (Bloodhound Books, August 2023), The Conundrum Of Charlemagne Crosse a YA alternate history adventure set in Victorian London (Orange Blossom Books, September 2023), Violet Yorke, Gilded Girl: Ghosts In The Closet a MG historical supernatural mystery (Darkstroke Books, 2022), and the picture book Little Lena And The Big Table (Big Belly Book Co., 2019), illustrations by Leila Nabih.

PJ’s Showtime original movie My Horrible Year was nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, Crime Reads/Lit Hub, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere.

PJ lives in Eastern Long Island with her family and Luna, a spoiled French Bulldog/couch potato. Also, she’s distantly related to the French philosopher/feminist/writer Simone de Beauvoir (PJ, not Luna).

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