Nightflower of Comanche Mound: When things change inside a house, things change on the outside, too.

Her sixteenth birthday looming, Seattle urbanite Charley Kensey recklessly invites herself to her Pap’s West Texas sheep ranch, a man she’s never met, a man her mother has always distanced her from. If her dad were still around he could’ve stopped her. Her mom can’t.

Pap is a hard and difficult man, and the Llano Estacado—the Texas Staked Plains—is every bit as hostile. Charley would turn right around and go home except for the mysterious horse that shows up on the ranch. Things quickly spiral out of control when Pap vows to shoot the blind animal she believes came to the ranch to be hers. Now she can’t leave—who’s going to stand in the way of Pap’s bullet?

Against his orders, Charley turns to local veterinarian, Dr. Ben, for information about the horse, but his harmless reminiscing overher mom dismantles everything Charley thought she knew of her family when he portrays a mother she doesn’t even recognize, and innocently exposes the secret that split her family apart. Charley is the only clueless party: “Everybody in this little town of Quitaque knows your mother’s business,” affirms veterinarian summer assistant, cowboy-crush Brett Littleton. Except for Brett, the summer would be lost.

When Pap’s savage anger turns violent, Charley and her horse bolt for the open plains, and flees for the very place she’s been warned not to go.

Nightflower of Comanche Mound is a contemporary action-adventure thriller steeped in conflict, tension, and family dysfunction between three generations.

* 2025 Western Writers of America Spur Finalist for Young Adult Novel
* 2022 Writers League of Texas Manuscript Finalist for Young Adult Action-Adventure Thriller