Author’s Note.

Hurricane Summer is my Heart on pages. I bled deeply to deliver this story. I went into myself, over and over again, and opened wounds and memories, in an attempt to find healing. I poured all of me onto these pages, and just like the complexities of the human heart, this story encompasses an intensity of great love, pain and heartbreak. This book is my love letter to the island of Jamaica. The island where I spent many summers. Some of which birthed me. Some of which destroyed me. But all in which, above all, shaped me. And just like love, this letter will be complicated. It might even break your heart, just like it did mine. But at its core, this letter is meant to take you on a deep exploration into the journey of what it looks like to move into womanhood. And while it will encompass a euphoria of joy, discovery and pleasure, this book will also journey through the devastation and very real dangers of becoming a woman. 

Hurricane Summer is a story about the spiritual and sexual wounding that can happen when a girl moves out of her teenage years, and into her womanhood. The sexual trauma, heartbreak and sorrow that too often accompanies that transition. It will explore the deep resilience that girls are forced to acquire when their sexual nature is weaponized against them. When their pleasure is up for persecution. It is a story of how the world begins to disown you when you are forced to leave the innocence of girlhood behind, and the devastating depths that we will go to in order to be loved by others, particularly the ones we are told are supposed to love us the most.My prayer is that you find healing within these pages, just like I did. I pray this story gives you the courage to confront your own storm, and once there, I pray it inspires you to find radical forgiveness for your parents, your experiences, and most importantly, for yourself.But above all, I pray the hurricane leads you home.