Alice Anyway

🏆 FIRST PLACE GRAND PRIZE WINNER FOR FICTION

2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Winner, First Novel (70,000–90,000 words)

Finalist, Female Empowerment

A #1 Amazon Bestseller in Women’s Historical Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction, and Women’s Literary Fiction.

Alice Anyway is for readers who loved Where the Crawdads Sing, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, and The Poisonwood Bible.

“She was born into silence. Raised on survival. And taught to stay small. But the hills had other plans.”

Alice Aniway has always been the quiet one. The forgotten one. Left behind by a mother she never knew and outcast by the sisters who should have loved her, she finds solace in the hills of Appalachia—and in the steady presence of her father.

When the unthinkable happens, sixteen-year-old Alice is suddenly alone on the family’s rugged homestead. Grief carves its way through her days—until a stranger arrives with polished shoes, deep blue eyes, and a promise of safety wrapped in scripture.

He offers stability. Community. Purpose. All the things Alice believes she’s supposed to want.

But safety can be a kind of silence. And obedience, a quiet undoing.

As expectations deepen into rules, and devotion begins to blur into control, Alice must decide whether the life being built around her is truly hers—or a cage dressed up as a calling.

Set against the haunting beauty of mid-century Appalachia, Alice Anyway is a deeply lyrical, emotionally immersive novel about grief, resilience, and the slow, radical act of reclaiming one’s voice.

Perfect for readers of Sue Monk Kidd, Barbara Kingsolver, and Bonnie Garmus, this debut is a tender reckoning—a story of inheritance, quiet rebellion, and the life that waits when a woman begins to choose for herself.