When a Country Decides Who Counts
Every so often, a country reaches a moment where it has to decide who it’s for.
Not officially, of course. No one stands at a podium and says, “We’re only protecting some of you now.” Okay. No. That practically happens every day now, but not outright. That would be too honest. Instead, the decision shows up sideways—in laws, in rhetoric, in weird Truth Social posts that barely make sense, in who is suddenly framed as dangerous, corrupting, or undeserving of protection even though they’re smiling as they’re turning their wheel away from the man with the gun.
It’s felt like every day is an escalation event of a book working too hard to make the bestseller’s list.
We’re watching a nation fracture along lines it pretended it had healed. I mean, we were healing. Most of us were, anyway. We’re watching history repeat itself with old language and familiar tactics. Fear is repackaged as safety. Control is reframed as order. And whole groups of people are quietly repositioned as problems to be managed instead of citizens to be protected.
I saw this coming in 2019 when I was laying in bed and having panic attacks the first time. Shane kept telling me I was over-exaggerating. That things weren’t going to get bad. And then when the first term ended and things weren’t as bad as I’d imagined, he’d just smiled and said, “See? It wasn’t that bad. Did you die?” He wasn't being an ass—that's just what he says when I tell him to slow down on icy roads. Okay, fine. He's being an ass.
In Para Wars, I didn’t write racism directly. It’s in there, but I’m a white woman and I’m just now learning about all the racist things that have gone in history. Like, I knew things in the south weren’t great. I was in the military and I got to see it. Kind of. But I have this weird… white bubble around me. That’s the only way I can explain it. It shields me from a lot, but that might have been because, at the time, I “just didn’t see it,” which, I mean, I didn’t. I heard it, saw it, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t understand the impact.
Then I went into construction. And suddenly, I wasn't shielded anymore. I didn't just hear it or see it—I felt it. And once you feel it, you can't unfeel it.
And so, now I’m actively learning about it. And the more I learn, the more pissed off I get about where we are and where we’re going and how we got here and how some people can whine, bitch, moan, and complain about how unfair the world is… when they’re asked to let someone else sit at the same table. Like… just make room at the damn table. That’s all that’s being asked. Well, and don’t take all the food away when you do that. Or don’t piss in the drinks when others sit there. Or… you know. Don’t be an ass.
I took the patterns—the rhetoric, the escalation, the justifications—and placed them onto paranormals. Look. I wasn’t sneaky about it. It’s pretty easy to spot what the hell I did. People who were different enough to fear, useful enough to exploit, and visible enough to target once things got hard.
Paras didn’t become illegal because they were dangerous. They became illegal because they disrupted the illusion of control.
That. Pisses. Me. Off.
When systems are strained, those in power—the people who can only succeed when others don’t— look for something to blame. Not because blame solves anything, but because it redirects fear. If fear can be aimed outward, people don’t look too closely at who is hoarding resources, rewriting rules, or tightening their grip.
So the language shifts.
It’s no longer about equality—it’s about “fairness.” Which… isn’t fair!
It’s no longer about safety—it’s about “order.” Which… isn’t order!
It’s no longer about rights—it’s about “responsibility.” Which… is the opposite of responsibility. Like… OMFG!
And suddenly, entire communities are told they are asking for too much simply by existing.
In Para Wars, the country doesn’t tear itself apart all at once. It does it slowly. Well, I mean, kinda slowly. It goes to shit really fast, but there are seven books. They go through policies. Through normalization. Through people convincing themselves that this is temporary, necessary, or not their problem.
Sound familiar?
The most dangerous thing isn’t hatred—it’s compliance and the silence.
Most people in Para Wars aren’t villains. They’re tired. They’re scared. They’re trying to survive. And they tell themselves the same things people always do:
This doesn’t affect me.
I can only focus on the things I can control.
Someone else will fix it.
That’s how the cracks widen.
I didn’t write Para Wars to predict the future. I wrote it because the pattern was already there and I was trying to get Shane to see why I was panicking every day. History doesn’t repeat because we forget it—it repeats because we convince ourselves this time is different.
Story is one of the few places we can look at these patterns without immediately defending ourselves, and this is important because that’s how Shane and I managed to survive writing seven books together without divorcing or worse, though, I feel like we’re still on kind of rocky ice right now. He’s a Trump supporter most days. I’m the opposite. So very, very the opposite. We both agree on some things and strong disagree on a lot of things, but we were able to share our thoughts and views without hurting each other because we did it in story. We can follow the arc. We can see where it leads. We can ask the harder questions without having to win an argument.
We can have hard conversations through the mouthpieces of characters and not at the dinner table.
Who gets protected when things get hard?
Who is asked to disappear for the greater good?
And how long before survival turns into silence?
Para Wars is about what happens when a country answers those questions wrong. And! It saved a marriage… until the second Trump term. IDFK. WTAF?
And this year has been a reminder of why stories like that matter.
Want to see how this is shaped Para Wars and how it forever changed the Whiskey-verse?
My writing is where I go to work things out. I have the hard conversations I can’t really have in real life without getting stabbed or punched. Or worse. And I work through the things that aren’t making sense to me. Like, could we really have a civil war? Would there really be enough people to engage in that? And what would it look like? Because civil wars break up families. Like, I remember in the pandemic, lots of people said, “We’ll just go to war and that’ll fix this,” and I don’t think they understood what that really entailed.
In the Character Collection article, “Did This Save My Marriage?”, I go into greater detail on the issues Paige and Dexx had and some of the conversations that occurred in the office, but never the dining table. Character Collection is in Story Explorers.
So, what is Story Explorers?
It's not just a blog. It's a paid membership where I write in real time, messy and unfiltered. It's where I share the behind-the-scenes, the deleted scenes, the character deep dives, the Para Files, the Grimoire entries as I reconnect with my spirituality. It's where you get to join me in discovering what matters and what belongs in these books. And it’s where you can tell me what scenes need to be cut or added or extended.
For the cost of an ebook a month, you get all of it. Early access to Where the Dust Still Glows, Without Villains, and Sol Break as I write them, exclusive content, and a front-row seat to the process. You get to see me figure out what stories matter when the world is on fire. You get to watch me build worlds that refuse to disappear.
If you've made it this far in this post, you're already the kind of reader I'm writing for. You don't just want escape—you want experience. You want stories that meet you where you are.
What are you waiting for? Come join me.
And if you just want to dive into the Whiskey-Verse—22+ books of urban fantasy, resistance, and badass witches—start here.
