Jess Lourey's Blog

Ahhhhhh LOOKIT at The Verdant Cage! Isn't it gorgeous? This is my young adult dystopian thriller that's been three years in the works and is finally...FINALLY ready for the world! It releases April 7, 2026, and People.com did the official cover reveal here! 😍

This book's been a labor of love. It's a dystopian thriller about a seventeen-year-old girl born into a walled community that she believes is paradise right until her mother is murdered and her twin brother is framed for the crime. What comes after is part thriller, part adventure, and all rebellion, with three massive twists that are gonna steal your breath. 💚💀💚

I'll post an excerpt below, plus a preorder link if you want to reserve yourself a limited edition deluxe copy with the sprayed edges. Stay tuned for more exciting news on this front!

The Verdant Cage excerpt:

The rosaries, the rule-following. It wasn’t enough. My twin is being Harvested.

“No!” I croak. The awfulness of it scrapes my veins, turning everything orange and raw. “Jonas is my brother,” I plead to Jarek upon the stage. My voice cracks, but it carries. “We’re Apothecaries.”

Jarek knows this, of course he knows this, but I can’t stop speaking, even though my brain is slippery with terror. “We cannot be chosen for Harvest. My—” I start to say “my mother” and choke it down. “I’m sorry, but all Apothecaries are exempt. The needs of treating another outbreak require our exclusion. You can find a different way to punish him, can't you?”

Jarek tips his head and beaks out his lips, the picture of sympathy. “Murder surely overrides your House’s Harvest exemption,” he says sadly. “And in any case, the Council has recently updated that directive. Our food shortage demands it.”

An icy wave of powerlessness threatens to drown me. Those were the rules. They can’t be changed. But then something unexpected happens. I feel a snap inside, and a burst of hot rage blooms in my chest.

I want to hurt Jarek.

Obedient, quiet Rose wants to rip out his throat. No. That’s not me. I do what I’m told. I try to push down the fury, but it won’t budge.

Jarek continues unaware. “Gryphon, guide Jonas to his ultimate sacrifice, won’t you?”

Gryphon’s exquisite face is a tight mask. His arms flex, and I have the wild hope that he’ll refuse, that he’ll reveal this is a cruel prank, a leftover from our childhood days, back when he and I used to be inseparable. But instead, he glides forward with the grace of a mountain lion. He takes Jonas from his handlers and begins to guide him toward the Wall.

They almost reach it when Jonas breaks free from Gryphon. Jarek cries out in rage as my brother races toward me, slipping between the other Guardians. “Rose,” he whispers when he reaches my side. The whites of his eyes are visible all around his pupils. He smells of iron and fear as he embraces me, speaking close to my ear. “I didn’t kill her. You’ll find the truth in the Record Keeper’s cottage. Go to the vault. But protect yourself, Rose. Let no one see you there.”

I sob and cling to him. Protect myself? All I’ve ever wanted was to keep him safe. Too soon, Gryphon wrenches him from me, and the hatred I had for Jarek finds a new home. I will never forgive Gryphon for leading my brother to his death.

“We’re not what we seem!” Jonas cries.

Those are the last words he speaks.

🌱💀🌱💀🌱💀🌱💀🌱💀🌱

Preorder your deluxe edition here!

Hello, all! So, you remember that young adult book that I've been writing, the one called A Whisper of Poison that was supposed to come out two years ago? Well, it has a new title, a new cover, and glorious new content. It's tied with The Quarry Girls for my favorite thing I've ever written.

The updated version, called The Verdant Cage, releases April 7, 2026, (for real this time), and I'll paste the description below. Stay tuned for a cover reveal, including the most glorious sprayed edges (I gasped out loud when I first saw them). I'm in love with this book, and I hope you will be, too.

💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚

THE WALL WAS BUILT TO KEEP THEM SAFE. OR SO THEY THOUGHT.

For as long as teenaged apothecary Rose Allgood can remember, the towering stone Wall surrounding Noah’s Valley has protected her people. No one leaves. No one fights. And no one questions why.

But their paradise has been hiding its thorns. When Rose’s mother becomes the Valley’s first murder victim and her twin brother is swiftly condemned, she alone is searching for the real killer. Determined to find the truth, she follows a trail of hidden messages, forbidden knowledge, and whispers of a past no one dares to remember.

The deeper she digs, the more certain Rose becomes that her mother’s death was no accident. That the Wall isn’t just keeping something out.

It’s keeping something in.

Fans of The Hunger Games, Wilder Girls, and The Grace Year will devour The Verdant Cage—a chilling dystopian thriller about what it takes to rebel when you discover your entire world is a lie.

💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚💀💚

PREORDER YOUR STUNNING DELUXE EDITION NOW:

🌱 Amazon
🌱 Target
🌱 Barnes & Noble
🌱 Independent Bookstore

p.s. If you preordered this when it was A Whisper of Poison, first of all, thank you. Second of all, you should be getting a note from them telling you it is no longer available (because it's become something bigger and better). I am very sorry for the hassle. ❤️

Hello to you! I'm writing to you from sunny Costa Rica, where I'm searching for ways to help myself and the communities I care about to feel connected and supported in these challenging times.

I've got some ideas, including time blocking my social media, time blocking my news and seeking out non-profit sources for the in-depth info (1440 Daily Digest and the AP are working for me), and speaking out for the vulnerable as well as expanding my volunteer work beyond the Humane Society.

Also, I intend to keep writing books about girls and women who have the whole system stacked against them yet find their way to freedom and power. They do this by refusing to carry other people's secrets or shame, by connecting with their intuition and strength (the strength the world tries to convince them they don't have), and by seeking out the good people around them, because none of us do the hard stuff alone.

The Laughing Dead, the third in the Edgar-nominated Steinbeck and Reed series, is one of those books. I hope you'll preorder it now.

p.s. Head on over to Lourey's Literati, my reader group on Facebook, to see the cover that wasn't chosen. :)

The story below is a little long and a little dark, so if you’re not in the mood for either, I recommend skipping. If you’re still here, I’m about to talk about uncomfortable conversations, perspective, and what I’ve found on the other side of the truth.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” –Leo Tolstoy

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Growing up, I was told my family was special. My father, who suffered terrible abuse as a child, became the first in his family to graduate college. He earned a master’s in art history. He’s a brilliant potter. My mom is smart, too, with a master’s in English. Plus, she’s a world-class cook.

“Don’t tell anyone what happens at home,” they’d say to my sister and me when we were little. “No one will understand. They’re not creative like us. Not smart.”

And so the swinging parties, the drugs, the abuse, the isolation, the fear so bad I sometimes slept under my bed, I never talked about any of it. We became a respectable family that laughed, traveled together, had insightful conversations about the world. I believe I would have carried their secrets to my grave if their actions hadn’t shown up in the next generation, almost teaspoon for teaspoon the same cake I’d been baked as a child.

This resulted in someone we loved being hospitalized. We were a family in crisis. So, after a couple decades of living on the surface of the truth, on August 15, 2017, I told my mom, dad, and sister we needed to meet, though I didn’t tell them I planned to break the family's cardinal rule: never hold anyone accountable.

I was so scared on the drive that I couldn’t feel my fingers. I’d typed up what I wanted to say beforehand and rehearsed it on the 70-minute drive, repeating it like a mantra:

I love everyone at this table. The problems didn’t start with us, but we’ve all participated to varying degrees. Our silence about it is killing [family member]. We have to acknowledge the generational trauma we’re handing down, make amends, break the cycle…

Before the next sentence was out of my mouth, my dad had grabbed paper and pen and began taking sneering notes. When I misspoke or didn’t remember an exact date, he wanted to be able to use it as proof that my whole premise was wrong, that I was wrong.

I’d forgotten he used to do that. We’d gotten so far as a family from how we used to behave in the '70s and '80s that part of me believed we'd all evolved. But the past doesn’t go away because we don't talk about it. It repeats. No exceptions.

My mother, who sat across the table from me, ignored my father, responding like a hero. She apologized for her past mistakes, confirmed some truths that upset my dad. That was the woman who’d drive two hours one way once a week after my first husband’s death to take care of my kids so I could write. The woman who volunteered at the local shelter, who earned her black belt in her sixties, who fought for her students to have an equal playing field, who could tell a story that'd make me laugh until my stomach hurt.

With her support, I finished what I'd rehearsed, ending by owning my own part in all of it and a plea that we figure this out together.

My sister, who sat across from my dad, had been silent for most of my jerky, terrified speech. But when I stopped, she said in a bright, tinkly voice that her new boyfriend, a banker, could use his Six Sigma project management training to counsel the hospitalized family member. Her eyes were glassy, her suggestion bananas. I stared at her, disbelieving, and that’s when I realized she was as terrified as I was.

I'd put us all in unknown, deeply dangerous territory by calling out the monster in the room.

Nevertheless, it felt like there was a moment there where the future could have been written differently, where we really could have figured it out together. That's when my dad took over, twisting, belittling, attacking. He’d always been the dark sun that my mom, sister, and I oriented toward. I stayed as long as I could, apologizing because I thought I could cool him down, trying to redirect the conversation back to helping our hospitalized family member, but suddenly, unexpectedly, I reached a breaking point. My body stood and carried my brain and heart out the door.

My mom chased after, offering me pickles and mustards she’d canned. I told her I was worried they’d gang up on her after I left. She said they always did, that there was nothing she or I could do about it.

I got in my car and must’ve started it. I drove home.

I haven’t spoken to my sister or dad since. I miss my sister. I tried to connect with my mom for a full year after, to remind her who I was and who she was, but they probably got to her before I hit the end of the driveway because the woman who’d shown up at the table that day never appeared again. The new version of her rewrote not only what'd happened at that August meeting but my entire childhood. I’d always been dramatic; everyone in the family was fine and I was the problem, always had been—she had a list of where I’d misspoken or gotten dates wrong to prove it. The speech I’d rehearsed, she said, never happened; even if it had happened, it was my fault it’d gone poorly because of how I’d handled it.

She was fully back inside my dad and sister’s reality, and there is no shape more stable than a triangle. She told me to choose joy and wished me the best of luck.

It took two years for my heart to stop breaking, and I still wouldn't do it differently for all the money in the world.

Believe me when I say I get why people avoid terrible or even uncomfortable conversations with their friends and family—about abuse, sure, but also about politics and religion, which are really about values, actions, accountability. You can lose everything if you make yourself vulnerable like that. The system will go on exactly as it is, only you’ll now be on the outside of it, alone.

But if you can do it safely, you should do it.

Because the most generous, caring thing we can do for another person is tell them with love how their behaviors affect us and the vulnerable folks who aren’t at the table. Not to change their mind or convince them of our perspective, but because that honesty is the bare minimum requirement of a non-transactional relationship. Because we might be surprised by unexpected allies in our fight for accountability and kindness. Because not talking about what matters with the people we’re closest to exacts a terrible price. Because our silence endorses their behavior. Because if we don't speak up under the pretext of keeping the peace, the outside world begins to reflect what’s left unsaid.

I believe all of that in my bones, and still I understand why people would rather not have those profoundly vulnerable conversations. I don't know if I would have been able to without my therapist and friends.

For all that it cost me, that conversation (and the inner work I had to do to be able to have it) came with surprising gifts as my world reknit itself around this new level of what felt like integrity. No longer keeping the silence to "keep the peace" freed me to write my first bestseller, Unspeakable Things, the fictionalized story of growing up in that house. After twenty-two years of teaching, I was able to become a full-time writer. I discovered the sense of self needed to find my way out of an emotionally abusive marriage to a man who was a confusing blend of creative and mediocre, gentle and manipulative. Unsurprisingly, every one of my remaining relationships deepened, and I became a better mom, aunt, and friend. The circle of healthy—or at least bumpily growing, like I am—people in my life expanded. I found myself reaching out to and welcomed in new communities.

That’s how having the uncomfortable conversation worked out for me. It’s still messy because it’s life, but after five decades of watching from the sidelines, feeling like everyone has a script but me, I now find myself in the flow. It's priceless.

Those things you want to say, that you know you should say because it burns to keep swallowing them, say them. Say them with love and your own accountability, but say them.

Because it won't change if we don't change.

Wishing you love, strength, and grace this holiday season.

🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄❤️🎄

p.s. The sweet foster kittens pictured above, Vernon and Wilbur, are a bonded pair who will be available for adoption through the Golden Valley Humane Society in Minnesota the first week of January.

The wait is over! The Jess Lourey VIP Readers Group is officially LIVE on Facebook! 🎉📚

Join us in this dedicated space where fans of Jess Lourey can:

✨ Enter exciting giveaways
📖 Get exclusive sneak peeks of upcoming books
💬 Engage in lively discussions
🎥 Enjoy behind-the-scenes content
🎉 Connect with fellow book lovers

I'm so excited to connect with all of you and share this journey together. Click here to join the fun and let's make this community amazing!

When my husband took his life in 2001, the last thing I wanted to do was write a memoir. His life and then his death were shot with a dark secret. Making that story public would hurt those still living, from the innocent (the child I was carrying) to the guilty.

But if I’m honest, protecting those left behind wasn’t all that kept me from writing the truth. Because I was raised in a Midwestern household full of abuse and dysfunction, the “snitches get stitches” code was second nature to me. The first time I remember my dad coaching me to not tell anyone about the drinking and parties, I was eight. So, when it came to Jay’s suicide, “keep the secrets” was my instinctive response.

But…I had to write.

Jay’s death had left too many holes. I was pregnant, the mother of a 3-year-old, full-time professor, and now a widow. I had to schedule healing around my children’s schedule and work and grief so thick it felt like grave dirt. Writing was the only cure flexible enough, effective enough, private enough.

But not memoir.

That’s when I decided to turn the experience of Jay’s death into a novel. I couldn’t bear sharing the facts as they happened, but I could squeeze the juice out of them, rework them into a character or a scene, and release them that way. I began tentatively, changing the death from suicide to murder but inserting all my real-life shame and terror. The more I wrote, the less my brain spiraled, and the more I began to feel emotions again, even if they were the joys and sorrows of fictional characters. The result was May Day, my first published novel.

Fiction gave me a healing place where I could release my insecurities and traumas and dark secrets behind a protective shield. It occurs to me that healing through fiction is a particularly powerful option for marginalized communities, those whose voices have been neglected or actively silenced, those who fear writing the facts because of the repercussions but who have important stories to tell: women, people of color, those in the LBGTQ community, those who’ve experienced deep trauma.

Fiction provides a safe space for us to tell our story, and telling our story heals us. Hundreds of studies have proven that writing decreases anxiety and depression, reduces pain and complex premenstrual symptoms, improves the body’s immune functions, boosts antibody production, enhances working memory, physical performance, and social relationships, reduces illness-related doctor’s visits, improves the physical and mental states of cancer patients and people with HIV, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and eating disorders, and positively addresses a host of PTSD symptoms.

That’s just a start. Writing makes everything better. It allows us to distance ourselves, to become spectators to life’s roughest seas. It gives form to our wandering thoughts, lends empathy to our perspective, allows us to cultivate compassion and wisdom by considering the motivations of others, and provides us practice in controlling attention, emotion, and story. We heal when we transmute the chaos of life into the structure of a novel, when we learn to walk through the world as observers and students rather than wounded, when we make choices about what parts of a story are important and what it is time to let go of. When we write, we also share our voice, and by sharing it, we claim and strengthen it.

But it wasn’t self-awareness that drove my decision to write fiction. It was survival. Through novel-writing, I transformed pain, fear, and shame into creativity and healing. This transformation is available to you, too. You have a story worth telling. If you’ve been afraid to tell it true, come into the fiction fold. There’s room here for all of us.

p.s. My Rewrite Your Life: Discover Your Truth Through the Healing Power of Fiction walks readers through the healing process of transforming facts into fiction. It should be available from your local library or wherever books are sold.

If you've ever wanted a fully immersive reading experience that includes a monthly book club, prizes, and a supportive community, let me introduce you to the Mira James Book Club! It's the brainchild of Kristin Lyman, owner of Battle Lake's very own Lionseed Bookstore.

If you're not familiar with Battle Lake, it's a charming town in north central Minnesota as well as the setting for my 12-book Murder by Month romcom mysteries. Word on the street is that the town has mixed feelings about my books being set there, 😂 but it's where I was living when I wrote them, and I fell in love with the place.

Kristin wanted to celebrate the town of Battle Lake as well as the Murder by Month mysteries being re-released with new covers, new content, and deep edits, so she pulled together this genius book club. It looks like it'll be loads of fun. There's even the option for a book box subscription! You can find out all the details here.

I particularly love that ordering (and pre-ordering) the series from Lionseed not only supports a fabulous independent bookstore (which in turn supports the community), but also gets you free admission to the paid level of the book club.

The inaugural meeting is on May 5 at 2:00 pm. It's online, free, and open to the public, and I'll be the host! We'll be celebrating the re-launch of MAY DAY and talking all things books and Battle Lake, plus I'll share the backstory on how I came to write about Battle Lake. You can find out more here.

Mark your calendar, baby, because you've just been invited. :)

A blizzard is hurtling toward Minnesota as I write. Pre-storm means only one thing in the Lourey house: homemade gloup.

Grab all those veggies you prepped and bagged last week because you really really were for sure this time going to start eating healthy, but now they're going soft. Dice three or four cups worth (any veggies will do, including cauliflower, broccoli, and beets; such is the magic of gloup.) Sauté the veg in olive oil. As they're just going soft, generously sprinkle with a couple teaspoons of dried herbs or tablespoons of fresh, dealer's choice, and sauté another minute or two for luck. Stick veggies and herbs in a crock pot along with a carton of broth (or the Ziploc block of homemade stock in your freezer if you're a weirdo, Depression-era-style cook like me who doesn't let bones to go to waste). Salt, pepper, and toss in leftover rice or a packet of noodles (it's wild rice for me today).Next, add a packet of dried mushrooms (I keep some around for just this reason) or diced up, left over meat, including bacon (but cut it microscopically small; big chunks of meat in gloup is considered gauche). Let it simmer on low for seven hours or high for three. (I recommend high for seven to really blend those velvety flavors plus draw out the righteous smell of homemade food bubbling away).A half an hour or so before you're ready to eat, melt a stick of butter on medium low, whisk in an equivalent amount of white flour until you have a paste, and then slowly add in enough cream or 1/2 & 1/2—still whisking—until you make a thick roux that is barely pourable. (This roux is key; it's the pantyhose of the soup world, covering a multitude of sins.)Fold the roux into (that one's for you, Schitt's Creek fans) the crock pot, add more salt because we're not heathens, let it get up to a low simmer until the roux has thickened it all into a nice chowder consistency, and you have gloup, a magical amalgamation of bits and bobs that cleans out your fridge and feels like a hug from the inside. It goes great with a crusty sourdough and a crisp beer or Topo Chico.

Cheers, friends. I hope you're warm and safe today and every day. ❤️

I am visiting *every* corner of my beloved home state this April and May, signing at bookstores and presenting at libraries, where I'll be talking about my books, how I write, and my path to publication.

I hope you'll stop by. Questions will be so, so welcome.

Click here to see if I'm coming to your neck of the woods!

THE REAPING, the sequel to the Edgar-nominated thriller THE TAKEN ONES, officially has a cover! I think the artist did a masterful job teasing the utter creepiness of this book. I hope you'll preorder your copy today.

PREORDER:

AmazonBarnes & NobleIndie BookstoreSigned CopyTarget